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When
to advertise?
Once you have established
a budget, you will need to determine when to spend it. As a rule of thumb,
the percentage of your advertising budget spent in a month should be about
equal to the projected percent of the year's sales you will make in that
month. For example, If 10% of your sales are made in March, you should
budget 10% of your advertising for that month.
Wherever sales
and advertising percentages are far apart, you may be missing selling
opportunities by advertising too early or too late. Allocating advertising
dollars to match sales volume month-by-month or even week-by-week will
allow you to sell the most at the lowest advertising cost.
Periodically, there
may be a reason to break this rule. For example, you may run a special
promotion one month. There's nothing wrong with doing things differently,
but if a chart of your monthly sales looks like this:
Too much advertising is spent in August for the sales made in August while
in December not enough advertising is expended.
instead of this:
Ad expenditures are in line with monthly sales.
Make sure you know why.
Here are some additional
things to consider when distributing your ad dollars over a month:
- Note the payroll
days of large, local companies.
- Consider when
Social Security is paid.
- Be aware of
heavy-traffic days for your location and special late-night openings.
- Tie in with
national and local merchandising events.
- Keep up with
current prices and inventory. Jot down items, prices and ad sizes in
a daily log.
- Make a list
of the month's heavy-traffic items.
- Check your seasonal
sales charts and promote items before the natural selling season ends.
- Jump on new
ideas or hot-selling trends that do not appear in last year's charts.
- Promote new
and expanded products and departments.
- Emphasize frequency
before ad size to reach greater numbers of prospects.
- Note special
dates that offer sales opportunities.
- Advertise more
if you are in a less favorable location, or if your business is new
or expanding.
- Increase your
ad budget to combat stiff competition.
- Remember, stores
that stress price usually promote more heavily.
- Schedule your
ads within each month. Mark on your calendar which days your ad will
run. Chart results to aid in next year's planing. Note any unusual conditions
on your calendar (weather, fad and shortages) that would cause unusual
sales results.
The Birmingham
News can help you set a monthly advertising budget to get maximum
results every month.
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