advertising and promotion

Here are some guidelines on planning and managing advertising and promotion activities for small businesses. The principles are obviously transferable to very large businesses, and it's common for very large organisations to forget these basics, which is why I make no apology for this information to 'STBO' (state the bleeding obvious).

available mix of methods

Advertising is a complex business and an ever-changing science. New ideas and media uses are being devised all the time, and as the advertising industry switches emphasis from media to media, and as new technologies and lifestyle trends develop, so new advertising and promotional methods need assessing and comparing with traditional available methods as to which is more or less cost-effective for your given purposes. For example through the 1980's and 1990's there was a huge trend towards direct mail (junk mail), which seems to show no signs of abating - many very large consumer brands switched significant advertising spending into direct mail, often switching away from TV. TV on the other hand is increasingly attractive to small local businesses. Loyalty schemes demonstrated significant success rates through the 1990's through to present times. Internet advertising is arguably now more popular than radio advertising - the importance of websites and internet listings are very significant now for small local businesses just as much as larger corporations. 'Viral marketing' (exploiting electronic communications and the 'word of mouth' instinct) is an example of a new method of advertising that simply never existed until about the mid-1990's. Advertising methods change with lifestyle and technology developments - learn what's available to you - learn what your competitors are doing. Read about advertising methods and developments and trends. Historically (1980's-90's) advertising agencies were commonly 'multi-services' agencies, and split their operations to handle the creative, production and media-buying processes. Nowadays however, multi-services agencies are far less common - the range of advertising methods is so vast that advertising agencies are now most commonly specialised in one or a small number of advertising services (types of advertising), because there's so much to consider and to use. Whether you work with an advertising agency or not, learn about the methods that are available to you - keep up with developments so you can make informed decisions about where to put your advertising emphasis, and what 'mix' of methods to use.