The tasks of advertising management, ad design and media selection are often complicated because the company may not be able to afford an advertising agency. Even those with budgets large enough to afford an agency may not have as much money as the business would wish to spend on advertising. At the same time, advertising should not be abandoned. Careful and selective use of advertising funding is the most important issue.
Ad design is critical to getting noticed among national ads that are created with large budgets. While a national advertiser can spend a million dollars creating a 30 second spot, a local advertiser may be able to spend only $500. The challenge is to design an ad that speaks clearly and effectively. Under these circumstances, small businesses are tempted to put too much into the ad, trying to present all of the reasons consumers should purchase from them. This type of ad is too cluttered and overwhelms the viewer.
A small business manager should develop a creative brief to aid in the development of company advertisements. When business is new, the objective of advertising should be to create awareness. Creating persuasive or reminder ads should wait until there is a higher level of brand or company awareness.
Realizing its brand name was relatively unknown, Southland Cleaning Services of Springdale Arkansas, decided to tie the company's brand name to other companies that were well known in the area. At a cost of only $400, a 45 second ad was creating featuring four local businesses that were Southland's clients. Two included short testimonials from the client, while the other two featured Southland workers cleaning the facility. The ads ran on local television on rotating schedule. Soon, Southland was getting phone calls from businesses asking - - Are you the company that clean Sears? - - They were, because the featured Sears in the opening spot. While businesses could not always remember the Southland brand name, they did tie it to Sears and the message clearly came across to the right people, who concluded, - - If this company could keep Sears clean, they could keep my business clean - - .
Once the ad message is defined, various media can be selected while keeping the business's budget in mind. These mediums can vary from Television, Radio, Billboards, Magazines to Newspapers and Internet. First four methods can be quite costly to the new businesses while the later two are good and affordable methods to start with.
In fact Internet ads may be more effective for small and start up businesses in different ways. A local company can often purchase ads on the community's Chamber of Commerce site or city's website. If ads can not be purchased, having the firm's name on the site or linked to the site is important. For example, a new restaurant should make sure it is mentioned by the local visitor's bureau and Chamber of Commerce Materials.
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