When it comes to advertising do you spray and pray?

By Killeen M. Gonzalez

Advertising, whether you love it or hate it, all successful businesses must engage in it in one form or another. It is actually how a business chooses to engage in advertising itself that determines whether or not their advertising efforts succeed.

Successful advertising starts with a well thought out plan. Unfortunately many business owners do not take the time to create an advertising plan. Instead they adopt what is traditionally known in the advertising industry as a “spray and pray” approach.

This approach involves scattering a company’s limited advertising dollars far and wide while praying for the best outcome. It is an approach that tends to make business owners more susceptible to affable advertising sales reps and most importantly, it rarely takes into account the company’s overall marketing strategy.

Before any advertising dollars are spent there are crucial tasks that a business owner should engage in. Failing to take into account these tasks will result in wasteful advertising expenditures.

One such crucial task is the creation of a positioning strategy. A positioning strategy simply defined is deciding what you plan to do to position your business into the minds of the buying public. Ideally it should work in tandem with all aspects of your business.

For those unfamiliar with the positioning process here are six basic questions to ask yourself before embarking on the creation of a positioning strategy;

1. What position do you own? In other words, how do your prospects see you now? What goes through their mind when they think of your company?

2. What position do you want to own? Are you the market leader or one of the market followers?

3. Whom must your outgun? Who are your biggest competitors?

4. Do you have enough money? It takes both time and money to position your business in the public’s eye. You will want to think about such things are whether or not you can effectively advertise in more than one marketing statistical area.

5. Can you stick it out? Like question number 4 suggests, it takes a certain amount of resources to get the public to recognize and remember your business. When it comes to successful advertising, you have to have enough resources and be prepared to be in it for the long haul.

6. Do you match your position? There is an old adage that states “just because a zebra wants to be a horse it doesn’t mean that it will become one. In other words, you have to be realistic about what you are selling as well as your company’s resources and commitment level to the task.

Once you have the answers to those six questions you will undoubtedly have a better idea of how to proceed with creating your positioning strategy as well as your overall advertising plan.

In conclusion, don’t fall prey to the “spray and pray” mentality and remember that deciding on advertising can be a lot like traveling, if you don’t first decide on a destination, any road will get you where your going.