The One-Two Punch of Marketing Campaigns

Spending marketing dollars in this economy sometimes feels like sailing at night around Cape Horn. If it works you live to play another day.  If it doesn't, your business could end up on the rocks, another victim of the recession. Much of the discussion of how to spend marketing dollars revolves around direct marketing vs advertising.

A well developed advertising marketing strategy combining radio or print advertising and direct marketing should be greater than the sum of its parts, combining several mediums. Historical data shows that campaigns incorporating at least two forms of advertising strategically placed in your market will increase your return 40' to 300'.

Thanks to the INTERNET, we are seeing significant innovation in how you can spend your advertising dollars in both radio and print. In their quest for the advertisers dollar and to help convince wary businesses to try using the INTERNET as a marketing option, service providers developed the pay per click concept. This concept is now familiar to anyone surfing the INTERNET and the concept has morphed into cost per call (CPC) for radio and print advertising.

While newspapers are trying to reinvent themselves, radio has experienced an explosion in popularity over the last several years for a variety of reasons. Talk radio has risen like a phoenix on the air waves with large and loyal followings. Satellite radio, smart phones and radio on the INTERNET have allowed radio to follow us wherever we go. The ability to target your market has never been better.

The advantage for today's marketing manager is better control over your ROI. The CPC concept instills a greater sense of urgency on the part of radio and print media to aid in your success. Most advertising agencies and media buyers will have a significant bank of demographic data to aid in creating a tight campaign and test model. In addition, with CPC you will know very quickly just how effective your campaign is working for each dollar you are spending.

The accuracy of tracking lead sources becomes critical to the success of these multi-front campaigns. Often, we know the immediate response source, but it becomes important to know secondary sources to properly evaluate the total effectiveness of radio advertising. Brand recognition, created by radio advertising, is often the motivation for responses to direct mail pieces.

In general, the most successful campaigns are those that combine advertising and direct marketing to provide branding and response triggers. By using the latest marketing strategies and pricing structures, you ensure the best opportunity for success while remaining nimble enough to respond quickly to changes in the market place.