Make the most of your advertising budget

Once a client has established distinctive, consistent branding, and their marketing goals are defined, advertising is often the next question up. Even those with the most generous advertising budgets have to deal with a common challenge: finite budgets from which you need to squeeze max revenues.

We’re firm believers that the best way to increase your effectiveness is by multi-channel advertising, because we’ve seen time and time again that it works. Businesses with a strong referral flow still enjoy steadier growth when they have an effective, consistent campaign in place; out of sight, out of mind is more than just a truism—so if you’re in the retail business, remember you’re also in the advertising business!

A well-designed multi channel campaign:
• reaches your audience with increased frequency,
• engages with them in different ways—e.g., mobile, web, print
• provides them with various channels for responding, and
• often wraps up with a common—and memorable—call to action.

SRI Shoe Warehouse, a long-time client, uses multi-channel ad campaigns—very effectively—about twice a year, to align with their spring/fall sales cycle. A recent campaign designed to reach three markets ran for four weeks on nine websites, plus radio, newspaper, email and a targeted direct mail campaign. All advertising drove to landing pages and was linked to their social media efforts, in addition to being an awareness builder. The trackability of today’s online marketing campaign elements like banner ads, emails and mobile, helps us hone in on the most responsive audiences and select future media buys–making each campaign smarter than the next.

And don’t forget the value of list building as a campaign goal. By adding a contest to a recent campaign, SRI generated over 2500 new email addresses to their already sizable list — all of whom are predisposed to listen to and welcome news about fresh shipments of new seasons’ styles as well as special offers that can help drive revenue during sluggish periods. If they’re not in your database, you’ll pay far more to try to reach them!

This is one example of an aggressive Multi-channel ad campaign in a highly competitive arena. But not all campaigns need to be so expansive, or so aggressive right out of the gate. Start with smaller tests, or more finite geography. Be scientific. Track sources. And most importantly, be consistent. Consistency is a critical! Once you start to build momentum, you’ll be able to get a rhythm going for when to employ higher and lower frequency, just don’t pull out altogether… or you’ll quickly find yourself out of mind once again!