A marketing consultant explains the process of cooking up a banquet of an ad campaign for a small- or medium-sized business.

by Brock Henderson Principal, Henderson & Associates [April 21, 2003]

In a previous article, I compared initiating a marketing campaign to pushing a car. At the very beginning it takes a great deal of effort to get a car rolling, but once you do get some momentum it is much easier to push. This is true in marketing as well: there is a great deal of effort (behind the scenes as well as in the media) before things start to happen. Marketing takes time. It isn't like walking into a room and turning on the light; it's more like waiting for water to boil. Time and energy are expended up front to get a significant result. Planning is very important in any endeavor.

Marketing is a coordinated effort of various media in an effort to win the hearts and minds of consumers and businesses. Most people think that you simply put an ad in the paper, or on the radio and customers come pounding on your door. It simply doesn't work like that. In this age of fast food and instant gratification it's easy to forget that some things simply take time—marketing success is one of those things. An effective marketing campaign is very much like cooking. You need to know what the right ingredients are, in what quantities, in what order, and at what temperature before you can do much of anything.

What clients didn't understand is that in order to develop a good marketing effort, I must understand all the elements intimately. If I don't understand the competition, I certainly can't phrase my ads to hit at their weak spots; and if I don't understand the marketplace, I may not communicate the message as well as I could; and if I don't understand my client and their products and capabilities, I certainly won't be able to do an effective job.

On an intellectual level, the client usually understands and appreciates this effort, but what they frequently don't understand is that gaining this insight (especially when you are hundreds of miles away) takes some time. Learning about the client is just one of the things you have to do behind the scenes before the first ad hits the public, and that's when the client's frustration level starts to go up…way up in some cases.

Once I have a grip on the overall situation, I start planning, which involves answering these questions:

• What is this campaign supposed to do? Create brand awareness, sell a product or service, or something else?
• What product or service does the client want to push first?
• What are the best media to advertise that product or service?
• What will those media buys cost?
• How can I best utilize various media and stay within the client's budget?
• If the cost of one or more of the selected media is too much for the budget, what alternate methods can I pursue?
• Is any one medium more critical to the success of the campaign than the other?
• In what order (this is a timing issue) should the various media be used? (For example a direct mail campaign usually—but not always—precedes a telemarketing campaign.)
• When should the campaign begin and end? (Many industries, including ISPs, have seasonal fluctuations in their sales. The advertising should be timed to take advantage of any seasonal fluctuation, such as an end-of-the-year buying season.)
• What results are expected and how will they be measured?

Once those questions have been addressed then I can lay out a time line for exactly how, when, and where the advertising will occur. After that timeline is established, and when that timeline is within the client's budget, then and only then am I able to effectively start creating the actual ad and start writing advertising copy.

Many of you no doubt thought that all an advertising person did was slap some words on paper and call the newspaper to place the ad. As I hope you've started to see it's much more than that.

—End