Media Buying: All Front and No Follow Through?
Flip through any magazine or newspaper or browse the Internet and your eye will be caught by many an interesting headline or image. It’s the sexy end of media buying. You might read on or look for a further few seconds and then move on to the next eye catcher. If this is the case then the advertiser has done the sexy bit of media buying without completing the business end.
Here's a strange thing about human behaviour. If you bought something in a shop and you were deliberately overcharged by £10, you would not be happy. If your bank overcharges you by mistake, most of us will go to great lengths to get that money back. We would make phone calls, send letters, write to the ombudsman etc.
We're all VERY protective of our money and we will fight tooth and nail to stop people taking what is ours. But then you can let go of £100 or £500 or even tens of thousands of pounds by not maximizing the possibilities within your own business. Are you all 'front' and no follow throug
Following through on the business end of your advertising and not just the front ‘media buying’ bit is one of the secrets of creating wealth. It’s about focusing with a zeal and passion on the unrealized profits in your business - those areas where small changes will bring you in substantial revenue that you're almost certainly leaving on the table every month.
At the end of every advert you need a clear path of action. Tell people exactly what they need to do to follow through and make it easy for them to do so. While you are at it check out some other fundamentals of advertising: Never buy ad space on a left hand page even if it’s cheap. This has been tested again and again. When you read a publication, your eyes are drawn to the right hand page as you flick through, so statistically more people will see your advert if it's on the right hand page.
Never pay the full rate for advertising. Most advertising rate cards are far too high and you can always negotiate. If you're a small business remember that large companies who use specialist agencies are buying based on the readership or audience levels rather than the rate card - so haggle and negotiate. If you can pay 20 or 30% less for your advertising it can sometimes turn an unprofitable sales push into a successful one.
One of the biggest mistakes people make is advertising in publications just because their competitors are in them. Don't for a minute think that all your competitors are there because their ads are producing great results. They're more likely to be there because everyone else is and most of them won’t be following through on their ads either.
The only criteria for buying media is if it produces great results for you.
It’s a known fact that many businesses are wasting money on all front advertising when they could do much better with other forms of marketing such direct mail, Telesales marketing, direct sales, email and Internet, referrals, etc. But if you do it well and test and experiment, media buying can become an investment and not just an up-front cost.
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