How much is your advertising costing you?
June 21, 2007 at 2:56 pmI got a call from the Yellow Pages the other day. Yes it always seems to be that time of the year. “Do I want to advertise in the Yellow Pages this year?” they asked. Of course I declined gracefully as I could not find a section for Brand Developers, or Brand Coaches. Business Consultants, Graphic Design, Advertising, Coaching, Marketing are all there but then I’d have to put 5 adverts in there. We all know, if it doesn’t fit my plan it’s not going to fly.
But it did get me thinking. We live in Christchurch, New Zealand, which has a population of 400,000 (or so. Last time I did a head count was at a Crusaders game – as we all know you’re not a ‘Cantab’ if you’re not at the game, so everyone must have been there!). Last year’s book has 1503 pages in it (I didn’t have to count that – it says so on page 1503). 1503 pages of advertising which is mostly sold because That Is What You Do. We do a lot in business because That Is What We Do when you think about it. But I digress…
So, you hand over a cheque for $3,000 for a business card sized ad (double that if you want colour) which is only published in your city. Now, a $3,000 investment to promote your business would be great, if you were the only one in there, but hang on, there are pages of people offering services similar to yours, and – what the hey? They are all bunched in the same section! Great, now you’ve got competition.
But that’s ok, you can just make a louder headline. Or make your logo bigger. How about adding some colour? If everyone else is doing the same thing, get a bigger ad, and it goes on. The more people who advertise the bigger, bolder and more colourful your ad needs to be each year. Very soon what was a $3,000 Yellow Pages budget is now $6,000, $12,000 etc (you get my point).
What about the return it’s giving you? Do you measure if the $3,000 gives you at least $4,000 in business profit? That is, if it gets seen amongst the $10,000 ads on the same page. What about the time it took you to book, pay and write the ad? Would you have been better off using that $3,000 somewhere else?
Oh, you need to advertise because you do get work from your listing? Plumber, builder, jeweller. So I put this to you. When was the last time you really thought about what your advert says about you? Does a big, bold, red, crass advert reflect your company? “Hey, buy off us because we yell louder!”?
And so, my challenge to you is this – spend as much time thinking about what you offer that is of benefit to your customers as it takes to earn the money you’ve spent on it. Don’t leave it up to your graphic designer to pull something out of their hat. Measure the response, and next year tweak your ad until it grows with your business. So when the Yellow Pages representative calls you next year, instead of thinking “great, what will I do this year?”, you will say “I’ve been waiting for your call. We want an ad X by X, one colour and we want it to say this”, because if you’ve thought enough about what you want your advert to say, you will know whether you are actually doing the right thing in booking an ad at all.
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