Which advertising media to choose?

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Writuparna Kakati | 17 Jan, 2009
Advertising, advertising and advertising - that is what can change the fate of a small business. But advertising a small business is always a major challenge due to limited funds and lack of clout in the media marketplace. At the same time advertising should not be abandoned. So careful and selective use of advertising media and funding is necessary for small businesses.

Every rupee matters in small businesses, and therefore it is necessary for them to define the objective first. For a new business, this objective should be to create awareness rather than creating persuasive or reminder ads. Once the ad objective is defined, it is then to choose the right media. A brief review of advertising media selection follows-

Television commercials are expensive, especially national and prime-time slots. It is therefore not easy for small businesses to go for this form of advertisement. Instead, small businesses can choose buying a set of rotating spots on cable. A rotating cable spot costs very little but the problem with this form of television advertisement is that it may run on shows that do not reach the target market.
As a result, it is not possible to target the ad to a specific viewer audience. In addition, cable TV commercials are not effective in targeting overseas audience.

Buying radio spot for advertising is also a very cheap option for small businesses. Radio can be an effective advertising media for small businesses as radio listeners tend to build an affinity with radio personalities. Therefore, if a local DJ reads your advertising copy, it is most like to attract local customers. But again this form of advertising media is more effective in targeting local customers. For small companies it is not easy to manage purchasing national advertising time as there usually remains only a few limited national radio networks.

When compared to local cable TV commercials or radio ads, newspaper advertisement is relatively expensive. For small businesses, especially for those who are in the retail sector, newspaper is a very effective medium to reach certain local geographic areas. Compared to newspaper ads, magazine ads are more expensive and therefore less suitable a choice for targeting local markets. But this form of advertisement can be very effective for national start-ups to target a nation-wide market. Magazines which offer regional editions also allows businesses to target region specific markets. In addition, ads on specialty magazines allows businesses to target specialty markets.

There are some alternative media which can be used by small businesses very effectively to advertise their products in local markets. Billboards, logos on vehicles, promotional bags, ads on vehicles, etc. are some of these alternative media tools which can be used very effectively by small businesses to target local customers. Another program that has captured the attention of many small businesses in these days is 'lifestyle marketing' which means finding grass-root contact points for potential customers.

For small businesses, the Internet can be a very powerful tool for advertising and business promotion. Unlike TV and radio commercials or a print media ad, the Internet can be used to provide a massive range of valuable information for perspective customers. On a website, a firm can put detail information about its business profile, product or service portfolio, current customers or clients, achievements, special offers and contact information. Therefore, if used properly, the Internet can be a very cheap and effective advertising tool for small business.

Most small businesses often find it difficult to create a website of their own and promote it on the world wide web. Maintaining a website involves a lot of technical issues and it is not always possible for a small business to hire a dedicated professional team only to look after its business website. A far better option is therefore subscribing to a Business to Customer (B2C) portal. It is relative cheap compared to any of the aforesaid advertising media.

Small business which are engaged in business to business sales, can consider subscribing to a Business to Business (B2B) portal which may cost them something around ten to twenty thousand rupees for one year. Based on the understanding of what businesses buy/sell and how they buy/sell, B2B Portals offer message boards where users can view buy & sell trade leads and post their own leads to generate maximum business inquiries. In addition, some B2B portals also offer extensive information about Foreign Trade Policy, Union Budgets, Trade Fairs, Newsletters and Business News and many other utilities.

Concluding, it is not easy for small businesses to locate customers. Finding a road map to reach customers and doing that in a cost-effective manner is challenging but can be done.