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Media Selection
The principles of direct selling can guide your development of a marketing
message. The selection of a suitable channel, or medium, for the message
depends upon the nature of your market and the complexity of your message.
The table below
describes some of the key features of the various marketing channel that
could be available for your product or service. Advertising has been broken
down into two categories as follows:
* Media advertising such as radio, TV, newspapers, and magazines.
* Direct advertising such as mailings, handbills, and telephone solicitation.
The third promotional channel, direct selling, has been included as a basis
for
comparison.
Audience Message
Cost/1000 Return
MEDIA ADVERTIZING Large
Brief $2 to $15 1%
Scattered Universal
DIRECT ADVERTISING
Medium, Intermediate
$100-$1000 1%-10%
Selective
DIRECT SELLING
Small, Detailed, ??
10%-?
Known Specific
Audience Comparison
Compare the three approaches briefly. The first column compares the audience.
Media advertising, where the audience is scattered, is ordinarily most useful
for products and services that are sold to the general public.
In direct advertising, the advertiser has relatively limited control over a
specific audience. For example, the audience for a radio commercial is
limited to the show's listeners. With a direct mail or telephone campaign,
the advertiser has greater selectivity. The mailer can be addressed to
particular persons whose income, occupation, or special interests indicate a
desire for the product or service.
Finally, in the
case of direct selling, the audience is usually known. The seller's only
contact is with parties who have a known need or desire for the product or
service.
Message Capability
The second column compares the message capability of each of the three types.
Media advertising messages must be brief -- perhaps 30 seconds of broadcast
time or a few inches of print. Even if more space and more time are
available, there is a limit to how much the audience is willing to hear or
read.
In a direct mail or telephone campaign, the selected audience is usually more
interested in the particular product or service and has time available to
digest a more detailed message.
Finally, in direct selling, the seller has the advantage of being able to
make a detailed presentation of the product or service and address it
specifically to the needs of a particular customer.
Cost
The third column describes the cost per thousand persons reached, generally
referred to as the "CPM." For example, a newspaper advertisement
that cost $50 and reached 10,000 persons would have a CPM as follows:
CPM = Cost divided by Thousands of Persons
CPM = $50 divided by 10
CPM = $5.00
A direct mail campaign, with its more selective audience, would have a
somewhat higher cost, perhaps $100 to $1,000 per thousand, as shown on the
table (above). This would include the cost of mailer preparation, envelopes,
postage, purchased mailing lists, and so on.
In direct selling, costs can vary widely. In fact, the sky is the limit!
Perhaps a delivery driver is the salesperson. At each delivery point, the
driver makes a quick sales presentation. The cost is virtually nothing. At
the opposite extreme, when selling a high priced service or product to
industrial or commercial accounts, transportation costs, living expenses,
commissions, and salaries must all be considered. For a salesperson in New York to make a single call in Los Angeles, the cost could be $500-$600 or
more.
Advertising Media
A wide variety of advertising media is available. Each has specific
applications to various businesses. We will examine some and see how they
apply to small businesses.
* Television. The biggest and most expensive. A single network television
spot can cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yet brief (10-30
seconds) spots on local television channels can often be a wise buy for
certain small businesses.
* Magazines. While the national news magazines are usually far outside the budget
of small businesses, local magazines, regional editions of national
magazines, and special interest magazines with relatively small circulations
often fall within the budget capability of small businesses.
Evaluating Advertising Media
In evaluating any individual advertising medium, you will normally want to
know three factors, as follows:
* Cost * Audience size * Audience quality
Each of these factors is closely interrelated. Let's take a closer look at
what is meant by audience quality.
Audience Quality
To a seller, a quality audience consists of thee people who are most likely
to buy the product. It does not mean rich versus poor or educated versus
uneducated. To the seller of janitorial supplies, a magazine with a high
percentage of janitors among its readers is a quality magazine. Why bother
with magazines that reach polo players, yachtspersons, or gourmets?
Conversely, the furrier would have little interest in advertising in a
janitors' magazine. The question to ask in evaluating the quality of a
particular medium is whether or not its audience is representative of your
market. The local suburban weekly may have a higher cost per thousand readers
than the metropolitan daily, yet offer a higher quality audience for the
local retailer. The suburb, not the entire metropolitan area, is the
retailer's primary market. To the seller of blue jeans, the local rock
station offers a higher quality audience than the adult-oriented radio news
show, regardless of relative audience size or audience income.
Audience Demographics
In selecting an advertising medium, it is frequently wise to examine the
demographics of the audience. The demographics are an analysis of the
audience according to social and economic factors.
Effective CPM
In measuring the cost per thousand of a particular advertising medium, you
are usually better advised to determine an effective CPM--in other words, the
cost per thousand people reached who are representative of your target
population,
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