Media Bites-September 27 2010

If you’re a small or start-up company, you may not have advertised at all beyond the Yellow Pages. Your company is doing fine but it’s not growing the way you’d like. You want to do more, but you’re not sure how to measure your results. To you, marketing or advertising is like throwing your money up into the air on a windy day and hoping that it will come back to you. Up until now you may have relied completely on word of mouth and you’ve done pretty well but you’d like to do better. You’re unsure of what to do because you don’t know how to decide how much to spend or how to spend it. You’re not even sure you can afford to advertise. But in today’s competitive economy, the real question is, can you afford not to advertise

We’ll make this as simple as we can for you. The benchmark for budgeting is to plan on spending 1% to 5% of your gross sales on advertising and media. And here are 3 tips to help you with the process:

1) You'll have to spend money to make money. Most small businesses are launched on a shoestring with no advance planning. Now is the time to give that some real thought based on cash on hand, projected revenue stream and gut instinct.

2) Check out media websites. Most local TV, radio and print outlets will either provide a planning rate card or a contact page for more details.

3) Talk to peers in your network. Ask them about their spending patterns. Use sites like LinkedIN to ask broad based questions such as : 'What is the average cost of a billboard in St. Louis' ? 'What sort of impression delivery should I expect from the Post-Disptach.com website? What should I expect to pay for a transit ad in Des Moines? Although it won't be exact, these answers will give you something to work with.

To learn more about how to set up an advertising budget as well as many other tips and tricks, take a look at 'Your Ad Here De-mystifying the Business of Media and Advertising'

Visit http://youradherethebook.com and enter your email for a chance to win a brand new Kindle. No purchase necessary. Winner will be announced October 31 2010