What is Social Marketing?

The health communications field has been rapidly changing over the past two decades. It has evolved from a one-dimensional reliance on public service announcements to a more sophisticated approach which draws from successful techniques used by commercial marketers, termed "social marketing." Rather than dictating the way that information is to be conveyed from the top-down, public health professionals are learning to listen to the needs and desires of the target audience themselves, and building the program from there. This focus on the "consumer" involves indepth research and constant re-evaluation of every aspect of the program. In fact, research and evaluation together form the very cornerstone of the social marketing process. Social marketing was "born" as a discipline in the 1970s, when Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman realized that the same marketing principles that were being used to sell products to consumers could be used to "sell" ideas, attitudes and behaviors. Kotler and Andreasen define social marketing as "differing from other areas of marketing only with respect to the objectives of the marketer and his or her organization. Social marketing seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society." This technique has been used extensively in international health programs, especially for contraceptives and oral rehydration therapy (ORT), and is being used with more frequency in the United States for such diverse topics as drug abuse, heart disease and organ donation. Like commercial marketing, the primary focus is on the consumer--on learning what people want and need rather than trying to persuade them to buy what we happen to be producing. Marketing talks to the consumer, not about the product. The planning process takes this consumer focus into account by addressing the elements of the "marketing mix." This refers to decisions about 1) the conception of a Product, 2) Price, 3) distribution (Place), and 4) Promotion. These are often called the "Four Ps" of

marketing. Social marketing also adds a few more "P's." At the end is an example of the marketing mix. Product The social marketing "product" is not necessarily a physical offering. A continuum of products exists, ranging from tangible, physical products (e.g., condoms), to services (e.g., medical exams), practices (e.g., breastfeeding, ORT or eating a heart-healthy diet) and finally, more intangible ideas (e.g., environmental protection). In order to have a viable product, people must first perceive that they have a genuine problem, and that the product offering is a good solution for that problem. The role of research here is to discover the consumers' perceptions of the problem and the product, and to determine how important they feel it is to take action against the problem. Price "Price" refers to what the consumer must do in order to obtain the social marketing product. This cost may be monetary, or it may instead require the consumer to give up intangibles, such as time or effort, or to risk embarrassment and disapproval. If the costs outweigh the benefits for an individual, the perceived value of the offering will be low and it will be unlikely to be adopted. However, if the benefits are perceived as greater than their costs, chances of trial and adoption of the product is much greater. In setting the price, particularly for a physical product, such as contraceptives, there are many issues to consider. If the product is priced too low, or provided free of charge, the consumer may perceive it as being low in quality. On the other hand, if the price is too high, some will not be able to afford it. Social marketers must balance these considerations, and often end up charging at least a nominal fee to increase perceptions of quality and to confer a sense of "dignity" to the transaction. These perceptions of costs and benefits can be determined through research, and used in positioning the product. Place "Place" describes the way that the product reaches the consumer. For a tangible product, this refers to the distribution system--including the

warehouse, trucks, sales force, retail outlets where it is sold, or places where it is given out for free. For an intangible product, place is less clearcut, but refers to decisions about the channels through which consumers are reached with information or training. This may include doctors' offices, shopping malls, mass media vehicles or in-home demonstrations. Another element of place is deciding how to ensure accessibility of the offering and quality of the service delivery. By determining the activities and habits of the target audience, as well as their experience and satisfaction with the existing delivery system, researchers can pinpoint the most ideal means of distribution for the offering. Promotion Finally, the last "P" is promotion. Because of its visibility, this element is often mistakenly thought of as comprising the whole of social marketing. However, as can be seen by the previous discussion, it is only one piece. Promotion consists of the integrated use of advertising, public relations, promotions, media advocacy, personal selling and entertainment vehicles. The focus is on creating and sustaining demand for the product. Public service announcements or paid ads are one way, but there are other methods such as coupons, media events, editorials, "Tupperware"-style parties or in-store displays. Research is crucial to determine the most effective and efficient vehicles to reach the target audience and increase demand. The primary research findings themselves can also be used to gain publicity for the program at media events and in news stories. Additional Social Marketing "P's" Publics--Social marketers often have many different audiences that their program has to address in order to be successful. "Publics" refers to both the external and internal groups involved in the program. External publics include the target audience, secondary audiences, policymakers, and gatekeepers, while the internal publics are those who are involved in some way with either approval or implementation of the program. Partnership--Social and health issues are often so complex that one agency can't make a dent by itself. You need to team up with other organizations in the community to really be effective. You need to figure out which organizations have similar goals to yours--not necessarily the same goals--and identify ways you can work together.

Policy--Social marketing programs can do well in motivating individual behavior change, but that is difficult to sustain unless the environment they're in supports that change for the long run. Often, policy change is needed, and media advocacy programs can be an effective complement to a social marketing program. Purse Strings--Most organizations that develop social marketing programs operate through funds provided by sources such as foundations, governmental grants or donations. This adds another dimension to the strategy development-namely, where will you get the money to create your program? Example of a Marketing Mix Strategy As an example, the marketing mix strategy for a breast cancer screening campaign for older women might include the following elements:

The product could be any of these three behaviors: getting an annual mammogram, seeing a physician each year for a breast exam and performing monthly breast self-exams. The price of engaging in these behaviors includes the monetary costs of the mammogram and exam, potential discomfort and/or embarrassment, time and even the possibility of actually finding a lump. The place that these medical and educational services are offered might be a mobile van, local hospitals, clinics and worksites, depending upon the needs of the target audience. Promotion could be done through public service announcements, billboards, mass mailings, media events and community outreach. The "publics" you might need to address include your target audience (let's say low-income women age 40 to 65), the people who influence their decisions like their husbands or physicians, policymakers, public service directors at local radio stations, as well as your board of directors and office staff. Partnerships could be cultivated with local or national women's groups, corporate sponsors, medical organizations, service clubs or media outlets. The policy aspects of the campaign might focus on increasing access to mammograms through lower costs, requiring insurance and

Medicaid coverage of mammograms or increasing federal funding for breast cancer research. The purse strings, or where the funding will come from, may be governmental grants, such as from the National Cancer Institute or the local health department, foundation grants or an organization like the American Cancer Society.

Each element of the marketing mix should be taken into consideration as the program is developed, for they are the core of the marketing effort. Research is used to elucidate and shape the final product, price, place, promotion and related decisions.

Types of social marketing

Social marketing uses the benefits of doing social good to secure and maintain customer engagement. In social marketing the distinguishing feature is therefore its "primary focus on social good, and it is not a secondary outcome. Not all public sector and not-for-profit marketing is social marketing. Public sector bodies can use standard marketing approaches to improve the promotion of their relevant services and organizational aims. This can be very important, but should not be confused with social marketing where the focus is on achieving specific behavioral goals with specific audiences in relation to different topics relevant to social good . Whereas a campaign that promotes and reminds people to get regular check-ups and all of their vaccinations when they're supposed to encourages a long-term behavior change that benefits society. It can therefore be considered social marketing. As the dividing lines are rarely clear it is important not to confuse social marketing with commercial marketing. A commercial marketer selling a product may only seek to influence a buyer to make a product purchase. Social marketers, dealing with goals such as reducing cigarette smoking or encouraging condom use, have more difficult goals: to make potentially difficult and long-term behavioral change in target populations. It is sometimes felt that social marketing is restricted to a particular spectrum of clientthe non-profit organization, the health services group, the government agency. These often are the clients of social marketing agencies, but the goal of inducing social change is not restricted to governmental or non-profit charitable organizations; it may be argued that corporate public relations efforts such as funding for the arts are an example of social marketing. Social marketing should not be confused with the Societal Marketing Concept which was a forerunner of sustainable marketing in integrating issues of social responsibility into commercial marketing strategies. In

contrast to that, social marketing uses commercial marketing theories, tools and techniques to social issues. Social marketing applies a "customer oriented" approach and uses the concepts and tools used by commercial marketers in pursuit of social goals like Anti-Smoking-Campaigns or fund raising for NGOs.

Advertising Planning
Advertising planning takes a lot of work, but the extra effort is worth it. Working on your advertising plan today will pay off with more customers walking through the door tomorrow.

Why You Need A Marketing Plan First An effective advertising plan is only one part of your overall marketing plan. Effective advertising and promotional materials are born from your strong marketing plan. You want everything integrated and working together. The better your marketing plan is, the more effective your advertising plan will be. 1. Marketing is probably your companys only source of income, and as such your marketing plan is probably the most important document you have. 2. Your marketing plan accurately describes your market, your customers, your products and services, and your competition. 3. Your marketing plan calculates the size or potential of your market. 4. Your marketing plan will help you to efficiently allocate money and resources. 5. Your marketing plan provides focus, guidance, and direction for effective advertising and business practices. 6. Your marketing plan positions your company in the marketplace.

7. Your marketing plan will help with proper customer management and retention. 8. Your marketing plan will define your communications strategy. It will help your entire company give a planned, clear, comprehensive, and consistent message to your customers, employees, investors, and business partners. A strong marketing plan guides your advertising plan. You dont want to back into an overall marketing strategy based on your advertising plan. This doesnt mean you need a forty-page document about your marketing. But you absolutely need a clear, realistic picture of your business environment and of your customers. If you want great advertising, start with a solid marketing plan. Please note: These pages do not try to undertake a comprehensive review of the entire marketing process. Our focus here is on effective advertising. As such, we recommend that you separately review the components of marketing and business planning. Of course Professional Advertising marketing consultants are well versed in marketing and business planning, and we are available to assist you with all of your planning needs.

Why You Need an Advertising Plan Going astray in advertising is all too easy. The most creative advertising in the world is worthless if it misses the target audience. The best offer in the world is worthless if it does not offer the benefits your clients want. Even well planned and executed advertising has little value if you dont keep it in front of your customers. In todays world of information, it takes at least three exposures just to get your message through the first time. And then you face a huge rate of forgetfulness from your clients. Think about it. Effective advertising comes from good planning, good budgeting, a long-term commitment, and a lot of work. You need great ads that get results. And you need to keep them in front of your customers for the long term.

1. Effective advertising lowers your cost of doing business. Your phone rings, and clients walk in the door. Its a fact. 2. Minimal, limited duration, or random advertising equals wasted money. 3. Advertising is not creative or funny if it does not bring in clients. 4. Advertising has a cumulative effect, and is a long-term investment. Sales response builds over time if advertising is consistent. 5. With consumer goods and services, marketing and advertising affects your market share more than price does. 6. Effective advertising comes from solid planning and high quality production. 7. Synergy is a real thing in advertising. It comes from the cumulative effect of all of your marketing materials working together. 8. There are limits to what advertising can accomplish, even with an unlimited budget. Advertising cannot make up for poor quality, service, or timing. 9. Every company should go through the advertising planning process.

Create an Effective Advertising Plan Product, Price, Place, & Promotion Your marketing plan has positioned your company in terms of product, price, and place. You have made decisions about what market segment you will compete in. You have considered products and services, distribution, pricing, guarantees, quality, policies, etc. You have set objectives and goals. Now its time to decide how you will promote your company to achieve those objectives and goals.

Define Your Customers. The number one reason advertising fails is because it is poorly targeted. No advertising is going to be successful if its target audience is not well defined

and understood. Talk to your customers and potential prospects. Listen to them. Understand them. We have provided you with some excellent strategies for defining your customers. Please read the Market Targeting Strategy and the Generating Better Qualified Prospects chapters. These two chapters will give you insight into defining your customers, and knowing what they need, want, and desire. There are a few things to note here about your customers. First, your target group does not include the whole world. If you try to advertise to the whole world, you will go out of business. Second, in many companies, 20% of the customers account for 80% of sales, and often 100% of the profits. These are the high usage customers that you want to target. Define who they are. Third, one out of ten people strongly influence the other nine. They are the movers and shakers of the world. They participate heavily in community and business activities. They interact with several different large groups on a regular basis. They can and they will influence your success. Define who they are, because you also want to get your message to them. Make no mistake your advertising plan needs a clear, concise, written definition of who your customers are. Age, sex, marital status, economic status, geographic location, what they read, think, trust, value, desire, and any and all other relevant information should be included in your definition.

Define What Makes You Unique In your marketing plan, you described the market you compete in. You probably narrowed a larger market down into an area that you specialize in. You have chosen an area of specialization, and that makes you special. With your advertising, you want to clearly and concisely tell people about what makes you special and different from your competition. In your advertising plan, you want to describe your area of specialization in one unique message. Look, if you really want to be successful with marketing and advertising, you need a simple, unique, easy to understand message. In advertising its called

a Unique Selling Position (USP). Its what differentiates you from all of your competitors, and it makes you special. Dont skip over this, because its too important. Lets take a closer look at defining your unique selling position (USP). Here are some questions [and some reading] for you to consider. Unique Selling Position Example: Dominos pizza Free Delivery Thats it. Dominos differentiated themselves by offering free delivery, and they repeated that one message over and over and over. The message is clear, concise, and easy to understand. The benefit is self-evident and real. Your message needs to be just as clear, concise, and easy to understand. The benefit you offer needs to be just as desirable. Make a list of the benefits you offer that make you unique in comparison to your competitors. Now: What benefit is most important to your customers? [Ask them]. What benefit is hard for your competitors to copy? What benefit can be clearly communicated to your customers? Is it easy to understand? Is the benefit really desirable to the customer? Remember you can compete on price, quality, geographic location, services or products, knowledge, implementation, follow up, targeting, doing something better than the next guy, and many other ways. The key to success with your advertising is to pick the strongest one benefit that makes you special. Unless you have a very big advertising budget, you will only be able to communicate one message to your customers. Make sure it is the strongest one you can. Picking your unique selling position is about competitive positioning. The better you have defined and analyzed your competition in your marketing plan, the better you will be able to uniquely position yourself in the market with your advertising.

We have provided you with many strategies for differentiating yourself in the marketplace. Please read Competitor Analysis From Your Customers Perspective, Pricing Strategy in Advertising, and Advertising Image, Credibility, and Trust for more information. For your advertising plan, you want a short, one-line description of what makes you special. Until you find your unique selling position, your advertising will not be effective.

Set Advertising Goals and Objectives Your marketing plan outlined some broad sales goals for your company. You know the total market size, the strength of your competitors, and the amount of business that may be available for you to take. In your advertising plan, its time to define how you are going to get there. Your advertising plan will be modified according to your choice of media. Direct mail is different from newspaper advertising. How many times you send a brochure will differ from how many times someone reads your ad in the yellow pages. For the purpose of this discussion, lets look at how advertising in the newspaper works. But even if you dont use the newspaper, the basic fundamentals of advertising planning described below apply to you. Sometimes businesses set goals in advertising that are too vague. You want to list specific things that you want your advertising to accomplish. To give you a better idea of specific goals that you may choose, please read What Your Print Advertising Can Do and write down your goals. Remember, ads are supposed to do more than just bring you customers -they are supposed to bring you more profitable customers.

Goal setting Part Two Your number one goal is probably to reach a certain level of dollar sales. Lets take a look at how you plan to achieve your sales goal. And stick with us here its time to do some math. Step One

You start by dividing your desired sales by the value of each customer. This will give you the number of customers your ads need to bring you over a given time period to achieve your desired sales. [Desired Sales / Value per customer = # of customers required]. Lets work on the assumption that five exposures to your advertising will be enough to generate an understanding of your message for the target audience. [If you have been running your ads consistently, it would only take two or three exposures]. Step Two OK. You know how many customers you need. You believe that each customer needs to see your ad five times before they seriously consider your current offer. Now you are trying to figure out how much space you must buy in how many different newspapers in order to get that number of customers and that number of exposures. [You will want to read Budgeting For Your Advertising Campaignfor additional help on this]. If you have carefully positioned your company with a unique selling position [USP], and you are making a competitive offer, then you can assume a certain rate of response from your target audience. If your offer is at least equal to the competitions, then your market share should be close to the share of total market advertising that you run. In other words, if you run 10% of the total advertising in the market, then over time you should get 10% of the total business, everything else being equal. Of course the better you position yourself, the better you target your customers, and the better your advertising strategy, the better you will do. Alternatively, poor strategy and low quality advertising will get you bad results. But ultimately, only experience will really tell you what you are going to get. If you are just starting out, you are going to have to guess at your customer response rate. And dont be overly optimistic. Budget for the long haul. ReadNewspaper Advertising for more on this. The good news is that by measuring your response rate over time, you will be able to calculate the effectiveness of any given advertising campaign. And,

you will be able to accurately predict how many customers will walk in the door on a regular basis. Read Testing and Tracking Ads for more. So lets say that you expect a .01 response rate [1 percent]. For every one hundred people in your target audience that is exposed to your ad five times over a given time period, you will get one customer. Now you know how many exposures you need to achieve among your target audience. [If you want 50 customers, you need 50 x 100 = 5000 target customers x 5 exposures each = 25,000 exposures]. Step Three Now you look at the demographic profile that your newspaper is promising you. If your newspaper promises you 5,000 people in your specific target audience, then you can expect to get 50 customers when 5,000 x .01 percent of them have seen your ad five times each. If your newspaper cant deliver that big of an audience, then you cant expect that big of a response. To get your 50 customers, you know you will have to do additional advertising elsewhere. But even if your newspaper can deliver, how much space do you have to buy? Well, if you took out a full-page ad five days in a row, you would get your 50 customers. Alternatively, if you ran a classified ad once per month, you would probably never get your 50 customers. Here is a rough estimate of what happens in the real world when people read the newspaper. With a full-page ad, you would get 75% of the people to notice it. A half page would get you 50% of the people. A quarter page ad would get you 30% of the people. An eighth page ad would get you 15%. A sixteenth would get you 8% or so. Thus, your 1/8 page ad would be seen by 15% of the 5,000 people in your target audience each time it runs. If you need 25,000 exposures to get your 50 customers, then you need to run your 1/8 page ad .15 x 5000 x 33 times = 25,000 exposures. You need to run your ad 33 times to get the required exposure.

Now we have some good information. You know that you have to pay to produce and run your ad 33 times to get 50 customers. So, what is the lifetime value per customer versus the cost of getting that customer? You can now answer that question, and determine if you should invest in newspaper advertising. One more note here. This was a simplified example. Your ad may get a huge response immediately, depending on how good it is. And sales build over time as you keep your ads running. If you are a consistent advertiser, your customers will look for your ads. You may only need to run it a few times to get all 5,000 people to understand your offer. That is the value of consistent advertising. The best we can do up front is to estimate what is going to happen, and make sure we are being realistic about what our ads can do. Advertising planning is about making the best decisions based on what we know, and what we can estimate. For more information on how best to use media, please read Using Media More Effectively. Set A Sustainable Budget For Your Advertising As we always say, consistent advertising is the key to success. Budgeting for consistent advertising therefore is critical. Please read Budgeting For Your Advertising Campaign for more. Here are some additional ideas to consider when setting your budgeting plan. 1. Small businesses commonly spend 1 3% of sales on their advertising. For many companies, like jewelry stores, theaters, and furniture or appliance stores, the normal expenditure is 4 7%. 2. It is more effective to reinforce a strong selling season with more advertising than to strengthen a weak selling season. Only reduce your advertising during peak seasons if you cant handle the volume of business coming in. 3. Your advertisement must be large enough to contain all of the information consumers need to make a contact decision. You must budget to buy a big enough space.

And of course you want to run the ad as regularly as you can. In the newspaper, this means every week. You can skip every fourth week if you really need to, and you can skip every other week off-season [although we dont normally recommend it]. But an ad that does not contain enough information, or that does not appear on a regular basis, will fail. 4. Many things will affect your advertising budget. If your store is in a poor location, you are going to have to outspend your better-located competition to bring people in. [Often its better to pay for a superior location]. If you are a new business, you must outspend the competition. A rough formula is to spend 20% - 50% more than your desired market share as a percentage of total advertising in the market. [If you want 20% of the market, then you buy 30% of the total advertising in the market until you get your 20% market share]. If you are an existing company with a good reputation, you can do less advertising, or you can focus more of your advertising on your repeat customers. But you must always watch what the competition is doing, and respond. If someone is outspending you, they will eventually take your market share. 5. Any money you spend on advertising outside of your trade area is a complete waste. Ask your customers where they live, and draw a circle around your location on a map. Only advertise within that circle, unless you cant avoid it, or there are special circumstances. 6. Your advertising budget should align with your sales. If you made a chart of your advertising budget expenditures over time, it should follow your sales almost exactly. If there are peaks and valleys in your advertising, while your sales remain constant, then you need to smooth out your advertising to better match your sales. 7. Before you decide to increase your advertising budget because of weak sales, make sure that advertising is your problem. Weak sales are not necessarily a reflection of poor or under-funded advertising. [This is an advertising firm telling you this]. Before you increase your advertising, do a competitive review to make sure you are properly positioned and competitive. Also talk to your customers to see what is going on. Advertising cant make up for poor service or quality.

8. Keep some flexibility in your advertising budget for emergencies and opportunities. Keep a contingency fund available for special circumstances, special deals, competitor actions, etc. 9. If you want to reallocate your advertising budget, test your ideas slowly. Try smaller changes, and watch for results. The key to effective advertising is to test not only your message, media, and offer - but also your advertising schedule.

Choose Your Media For this example of advertising planning, we are discussing using the newspaper for your advertising. So, which newspaper is best, and why? Part of the answer to that question will be found in Using Media More Effectively. That chapter will help you in selecting and using any of the different forms of media, including newspapers. You will also want to read Newspaper Advertisingif you are running a newspaper campaign. For this advertising planning example, consider the following points before you select what newspaper to use: 1. What are the demographics the paper is offering? The publisher will send you a complete description of their market. How well is your specific target group represented? How well is your trade area covered? Compare different local newspapers against each other for better coverage of your market. 2. Depending on your target market size, dont overlook the small community newspapers and newsletters. A community paper may cover your trade area much better than a larger regional paper. Local papers are inexpensive to advertise in, and they are well read. Communities like their own little newspapers, and people read them to get the local scoop. And dont forget that the regional paper can sell you advertising that only appears in your local market. It costs a little more per person reached, but you are reaching the right people. 3. How much will it cost? You measure media cost by dividing the cost of the media by the total number of viewings or impressions you get [how many

people in your target market that see your ad]. It is common to talk about your cost per thousand impressions, or your CPM. [Cost / # of target market viewings X 1000 = CPM]. In the simplest example, if two newspapers are charging the same amount for an ad space, and one paper delivers twice as many people in your target audience, then your cost per thousand is half what it is in the other paper. Dont assume that one paper is better than another. Talk to your customers, and ask them what they read and why. Ask them if they read each newspaper by name, and how often they read it. Ask if they are subscribers, and ask how many other people in the house [and in your target audience] read the paper. Make each newspaper send you their demographic information [in writing not verbally from the salesperson]. Tell them exactly who your target audience is, and ask how they specifically target that audience. Each newspaper has special sections, issues, and coverage that are designed to appeal to specific target audiences. What do they have for your target audience? Remember, the most important thing is whether or not the paper is being read by your target group. A large, regional paper may have a huge subscriber base of people that only lightly read the paper [except on Sunday when they read it thoroughly]. A local, weekly paper focusing on your specific neighborhood may get read cover to cover, every time. Ask your customers. 4. You normally want to advertise in the same newspaper as your competition is advertising in. That is probably where most of your clients are looking for information. Sometimes this goes against some of the other strategies for picking the best paper to run your ad in. If you can, run ads in different papers for six to eight weeks with different coupons, and see which works better. The longer test you run, the better. Testing is the key to effective advertising. 5. It is a good strategy to spend your advertising budget where your current customers are coming from. Certainly you can try new outlets for getting new customers, but it is normally more expensive to get new customers from new media than it is to get new customers from your regular media. As always, go slow, and test.

6. There is also advertising theory to consider when you decide on what newspaper to choose. The recency theory of advertising states that you want to reach as many people as you can as close to the time that they are going to make a purchase as possible. This means that you want them to receive your advertisement in the Saturday morning newspaper for their Saturday afternoon shopping. To best take advantage of this timing, you may have to change what newspaper you are advertising in. As always, testing is the way to find out.

Timing & Scheduling Your goal as an advertiser is to hit the right prospect with the right advertising message at the right time. To do this, you need an advertising schedule. We discussed recency theory in advertising. You want your clients to see your message as close as possible to the time that they are ready to make a purchase. The key to success is to know when your customers are ready to buy, and to get your message to them at that time. The very best way to predict future consumer behavior is to keep good records of your previous sales. If you know that during the month of May you did 20% of your annual sales, then you can safely predict that you will do it again next May. If you know that you did one-third of your weekly sales on Friday, then you can safely predict that you will do it again. Your advertising budget and your advertising scheduling should reflect these predictions. If you predict that you are going to do 20% of your sales in May, then you should schedule to spend 20% of your advertising budget in May. If you want to increase your May sales, then you should increase your advertising accordingly. Here are some tips on scheduling your advertising: 1. You want to schedule and budget your advertising on a weekly basis. Also track your expenditures, and track the resulting sales. This will give you excellent control, and you will be ready to go when you plan your advertising next year. There is a great and simple tool to do this. Please see The Advertising Calendar for more.

2. You want to pay attention to things that affect your sales, and schedule your advertising accordingly. For example: A. What day is payday for local, large employers? Alternatively, if everyone is broke on the first of the month, you may want to cut back on your advertising. Measure your sales accurately, and find out. B. What promotions will your suppliers be having during the year? You want to take full advantage of any national advertising they will be doing by running your ads at the same time. Ask your suppliers. C. What annual promotions do your competitors do? If they are bigger than you, you may gain additional sales by riding on their coat tails. If you are really good, you might beat them badly with a better offer while they are running their biggest sale of the year. D. What days of the week do you get the most traffic? Remember, its easier to increase traffic on heavy days than on slow days. E. What related merchandise will be getting increased promotion in your area? Can you associate yourself with other big merchandising events? Pizza companies have done well to run promotions during football season. What can you tie into? F. What special dates and events should you try to promote? Which should you try and avoid? Track your sales to find out what days seem stronger, and schedule your advertising accordingly. For example, you may not want to compete against the county fair, or a super big annual sale from other local retailers, even if they are not your direct competition. 3. Work with your media representative so that you understand the required lead time for placing ads. Dont forget to give your ad designers as much time as possible to get the best quality work. 4. Monitor your competition, and any national advertising, to understand what lead-time they give before the start of the season. Certainly Christmas starts earlier every year. What is happening in your business? You want to schedule accordingly. This also applies to new product rollouts. You can build expectation among your prospects if you advertise new items ahead of time. Normally your

advertising increases as the release date gets closer. What works for other stores? What does your supplier recommend? Will they put their money behind their recommendation? 5. Dont forget that consistent advertising is effective advertising. For a new advertiser, it may take five or more impressions for a person to even notice your offer. For a consistent advertiser, your clients may respond immediately to a new offer. 6. The number of impressions you are going to have to make with your target audience depends on the complexity of your offer. If your offer is hard to understand, you are going to have to run your ad with more frequency, or longer, than if the offer is simple. 7. Dont forget that you want to run your ad on the same days, and in the same place, as your competitors do. If people expect to find your type of business in the metro section of the Thursday evening newspaper, then that is where you have to be. If you run your ad on Wednesday, or if you run it in the sports section, they probably wont even see it. 8. Dont forget that ads wear out. A strong ad may run once a week for a very long time in the newspaper, but you should be testing other offers and other ads to see if you can do better. As a general rule, when the majority of your target audience has seen your ad twenty times, it time to change your ad. Dont Reinvent the Wheel Before you finalize any advertising plan, go and read Things Not To Do In Business Advertising, and evaluate your plan according to our recommendations there. You dont want to reinvent the wheel. Also, we strongly recommend that you ask a marketing professional to review your ads and your advertising strategy. It really is a very good investment. Your advertising is too important to take chances with.

Evaluation And Follow Through You must plan how you are going to track the response to your ads.

This is pretty simple you only get what you measure. You will never know how good, or how bad, your ads or your marketing materials are unless you test them. You need to measure your results, or all of your planning will be wasted. Effective advertising comes from always trying to beat your previous best advertisement.

FETIVE MARKETING OF SONY INDIA

Sony India announced that it shall invest about 150 crore for marketing and promotions during the upcoming festive season. The MD at Sony India, Kenichiro Hibi said, We are making an investment of Rs 150 crore from September to November on marketing and promotional activities. We will have a dedicated campaign in this season. With our product range and various marketing strategies, we are expecting a turnover of Rs 2,850 crore during the festive season. The company has brought out a wide array of products that border between the range 34,900 INR and 16.99 Lakh INR. The products comprise gadgets, lifestyle goods, entertainment goods as well as high end laptops and SLRs. Further expansion is on the cards in the form of about 5500 more stores across the country. On Sony Indias sales in the last year, Hibi said "Last fiscal we had clocked about rupees 6,300 crore. In this fiscal we are expecting 35-40 per cent growth."

WITH THE HELP OF THIS THEY ARE ESTAIMATING A TURNOVER OF RS 2850 CRORE.

Sony India has earmarked a marketing budget of Rs 1.5 billion for the festive season even as it targets a 50 per cent surge in sales. Enhancing its product lineup, Sony India has recently launched the 84 inch Bravia 4K LCD TV, which is a 3D Viewer - Head Mounted Display HMZ-T2 is a touch-screen Vaio with Windows 8, the new flagship Full-Frame ?99 interchangeable lens camera and Cyber-shot DSC-RX100, the professional compact camera with a sensor. Sony is looking at a sales revenue of Rs 28.50 billion during the September-November period. Says Sony India MD Kenichiro Hibi, "We aspire to achieve 50 per cent sales growth over last year's festive sales. We have also allocated a budget of Rs 1.50 billion towards marketing activities for this festive season. " Sony is doing a contest around the upcoming James Bond movie 'Skyfall'. The contest is called 'This Diwali Bond with Sony'. Skyfall releases in India on 1 November. On purchase of selective products from dealers appointed by Sony, customers can participate in the draw and can win prizes like 100 55" (140 cms) BRAVIA TVs, 200 Head Mount Display, 500 XPERIA Tablet and 1000 XPERIA Smartphones, Tipo. This offer is valid on Bravia Televisions, Alpha cameras, Cyber-shot cameras, Handycam video cameras, Procam video cameras, DAV & Blu-ray Home Theater Systems, Mini Hi-fi and Micro Hi-fi systems, Blu-ray players, Sony Playstations, Vaio Notebooks, Xperia Tablet and Xperia Smartphone, Tipo. The new Bravia products have been powered with Indian picture settings that are now exclusively designed to cater to versatile demands and preferences of Indian customers for brighter displays and sharper contrast. Last year, Sony engineers met hundreds of Indian customers to precisely

understand their preference in terms of picture quality. As a result, Sony developed Indian Picture Settings, which means the brightness and vividness in the Bravia TVs is in tune with the taste of the audience in India. There is a bundle offer on the BRAVIA range. On purchase of any 3D Bravia model, customers can purchase a Sony Blu-ray (BDP-S490) player at a price of Rs 9,900, thereby saving Rs 10,000 on its MRP, and get a pair of 3D glass, HDMI cable and two 3D Movie titles free. In addition to this with the purchase of Bravia HX925, HX850, HX750 series customers will get an assured 8 GB pen drive preloaded with contents of 'Men in Black 3' and with the purchase of NX650, EX650/550, EX430/330, CX350 & BX450/350 series customers will get an assured 4 GB pen drive preloaded with content of 'Skyfall''s trailer and a video blog. Marketing campaign: Sony India has a dedicated multimedia marketing campaign for its flagship product category. The campaign has been created keeping in mind the flavour and zest of the Indian festive season. This campaign kicked off mid October and runs till the end of next month. Cyber-Shot: Sony claims to offer the widest variety of compact cameras in the High Zoom range. Sony says that it realised that there has been significant demand for High Zoom in the compact camera segment and now boasts of a very wide product range to cater to this demand. The newly launched DSC-H100, has been designed as per the taste of Indian customers. Post customer feedback, Sony came up with this product which offers very powerful zoom of 21X in a premium design, with a price point of Rs. 12,990. Sony also launched Cyber-shot DSC-WX150, which combines high

zoom in a compact design, thereby offering a much more value-added product to the customers. Sony expects high sales for this particular model during the festive season. Consumer offer: In the digital imaging segment, customers will get free 4 GB Sony Memory card and Original Carrying case on purchase of any Cyber-shot or Alpha camera. On purchase of Handycam, customers will get a free carrying case. Marketing campaign: Cyber-shot will also be highly visible during the festive period. The concept of this campaign is Pocket Zoom. Customers can enjoy very high zoom in pocket-size Cyber-shot cameras. Vaio: Sony India's Vaio line-up is VAIO E14A, with a wrap design and accent colours, VAIO T, the Ultrabook and new models of E, S & Z series. The aim is to offer a better user experience with useful features like Backlit keyboard which is helpful to type in dark, USB charging to charge USB devices even when the notebook is turned off and multi-gesture touchpad which allows users to zoom and scroll with gesture on touchpad. With the latest Intel 3rd generation Core CPU, our laptops offer faster computing speed and highly improved graphics. Consumer offer: Sony will provide free original Vaio Backpack on its recently launched 'Spark a Trend' campaign VAIO series. This festive offer extends across all models of Sony VAIO. Finance offer: Keeping in mind the overall economic slowdown and the fact that this is a time when consumers are slightly hesitant, the company is offering a Zero Percent Finance Offer and Zero Processing Fee. Sony is offering attractive EMI offers on select credit cards as well.