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Rule 7 Of 7 Rules To A Successful Print Advertising Campaign
(Article first published in Jan '08. It has been modified slightly to suit its publication on our site)
Get Yourself A Promotional Partner
No matter how closely you follow the six rules of print advertising that we have already covered, there is one issue that remains outstanding - advertising costs money! Another fact is that the larger the audience for the publication, the higher the advertising cost and sometimes you could be looking at thousands of Euro for one ad. For established companies that's not an issue, but for fledgling businesses it's a big problem.
So here is the final rule, which actually is more of a tip. Find another local business offering a complimentary product or service and partner up with them. Work out between you a really compelling offer and then create your ad as normal but with an extra special offer delivered by both companies.
Let's imagine that I own an Italian take-away business. I could run an ad offering free garlic bread with every take-away ordered, but that means that I have to fund the offer as well as every ad that I run. But what if I partner up with my neighbouring off-license owner and agree that we are going to combine our offers and take turns running our ads? This means that I now only run half the volume of ads because he runs the other half.
It is true to say that asking someone to buy a product from two different businesses will require a larger offer than normal, but that's far outweighed by the fact that you have halved your advertising spend. So whereas my normal offer is for a free portion of garlic bread and the off-license would offer 3 for 2 on all wine purchases. I would instead provide free garlic bread and minestrone soup for 2 and the off-license would provide double-up deal (2 bottles free with every 2 purchased).
Of course there would be some logistical aspects to iron out. You need to make sure the value of the offers is roughly the same and you need to figure out how people claim their extra offer, i.e. do you need to see receipts, will you use vouchers and will the buyer redeem the offer at time of purchase or at next purchase. Just make sure it's easy (but not too easy) to redeem and then enjoy the increased business and lower advertising cost.
By the way, this same approach works beautifully with leaflets too and even better you halve your print cost because each business uses one side of a double-sided leaflet.
Franco De Bonis has worked in the field of sales and marketing promotion since 1990 and was most recently the global marketing manager for a major international technology company before setting up DG Group in January 2007.
DG Group is dedicated to delivering all the marketing solutions any company may require. Whether it's a website or leaflets and brochures, or even some product packaging; DG Group will manage the whole project and even provide guidance along the way.
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