Yeah, it was a long lunch.
Not to drag an old thread out of the depths, but I did say that I'd write back. So, here goes:
that either company has one of two budgets to work from A) Unlimited, B) Shoe String:
Yeah, I see "unlimited" budgets all the time in advertising.
Sadly, I think those days went away back in the 80s along with the three-martini lunches. I joined the biz just a little too late.
Below are some thoughts (and yeah, it's pretty long, but these questions are kind of "loaded" and take awhile to answer properly).
The following are my own particular thoughts. Media planning is really more art than science, and the chances are good that other media planning professionals might disagree with my thoughts (as proven earlier in this thread
).
- Where should they advertise?
Well, this really depends. As I've stated from the beginning, aside from the budget question, you'd need to know what the goals are.
1) Are you trying to generate awareness for your game/product/service?
Let's take a couple of examples here:
a) a random d20 publisher probably needs to get a little bit of awareness out there. He/she wants people talking about whatever new product is out. By getting people to talk about the product and get some buzz generated, people can at least know the product is available to see if they want to buy it.
b) Someone who owns an online shop is all about awareness. He/she needs people to know that he/she has an online shop that sells all the d20 games (and other gaming supplies) that they need or want for their games. That's probably their big thing (as far as advertising is concerned - you're not really trying to get them to
buy anything per se, but you're trying to make them aware of what you have to offer.)
2) Are you trying to make a certain sales goal?
Another couple of examples from above:
a) The d20 publisher obviously needs sales. That's what it's all about. More sales means more money to pay people to develop more products to make more sales, ad infinitum. A good publsher will have some historical research (or hopefully know some friends in the business at other publishers) and can make a reasonable estimate of how many copies of his/her product is going to sell. (okay, I'm tired of the he-or-she so I'll assume that the publisher is male and the online shop owner is female). He also should have an idea of how much sales will increase given the number of advertising
impressions he's going to get with his advertising plan. Then, it's a simple ROI cost analysis.
Example: Bob spends $5,000 on an advertising media plan that generates 75,000 advertising impressions. He predicts that out of those 75,000 impressions, 2,500 people will buy his product. So, his cost to acquire 2,500 sales is: $5,000/2,500 = $2.00 per acquisition. If Bob makes less than $2.00 on each sale then this is a bad idea. If he makes $5 on each sale, then he might consider it (of course then he'd only be making $3 on each sale). So, of course the next step is for Bob to figure out how many of his books would have sold
without the advertising to see if it's worth it.
b) The online store owner probably isn't as concerned with getting sales from the advertising plan. Obviously she wants people to buy products from her online store, but her main concern for the advertising is to get people to her site. Once they're on the site, she has systems in place to entice them to buy. That's not really the job of the advertising. Of course, if she's smart, she'll put a special deal together (30% off everything! or whatever) that will generate awareness, get people to her site, and then once they're there, get them to buy.
So, long answer for "Where should they advertise"? But, without knowing objectives, target audience, and such, I can't really answer that.
- How often should they advertise?
This is another question that can't be answered shortly and succintly. In my opinion, each product or service being advertised is unique and deserves a unique plan. I'm not a fan of "cookie cutter" plans that are the same for everyone. Is the same person that plays "Spycraft" the same person that's going to play "EverQuest RPG"? Maybe, but most likely not. So, why use the same advertising strategies to target those people? It doesn't make sense.
A good rule of thumb for "how often" is to look at:
1)
Type of product. Is it really expensive (a "planned purchase"?). Is it something that someone would only need to buy once (most d20 supplements)?
If the answer to these questions is "yes" then you might want to consider one big "blowout" campaign to get your message out there right when your product is first available.
If the answer is to these questions is "no" (such as Magic Trading Cards or the online shop that you want people to visit over and over and need to constantly remind them that your site is there), then you might want to consider "blinking" your ads - running smaller space magazine ads over a more consistent length of time.
2)
Product life cycle. Most d20 products seem to make 90% of their money in the first three months they are for sale. So, what's the point of running a small little ad several months in a row that no one is going to notice? You might want to consider running a larger, full-size ad only once or twice to get that attention right away and get enough people to buy your product as soon as they see it's available.
Again, with the online shop, the story is different. The owner is not coming out with another shop or anything. That's all she has. So, she constantly needs traffic coming to her site. In this case, running a bunch of smaller space ads over a longer period of time is probably a good idea.
There are of course many other things to consider, but these should give you a start.
- How much should they expect to spend?
I addressed this one up at the top. The ROI is the best rule-of-thumb to use here. Of course, if your goal is awareness, then you'll have a different measurement. Instead of cost-per-sales acquisition, you might look at cost-per-click (cost of people clicking onto your site). Or even cost-per-impression (how many total impressions do you want to generate)?
- What should they say/show in the ads?
Well, honestly my expertise is in media planning, not in copywriting or art directing. But, in general, if you want someone to act upon the information in your ad, you need to give them a reason to act.
So, for a d20 publisher advertising a new product in a magazine ad, of course you're going to talk about the product attributes and show some catchy visuals. But, a good idea might be the old "visit
www.bobsd20company.com" for a free .pdf download of XYZ (a free adventure that goes along with the product, a four-page summary such as Green Ronin did w/ Hammer & Helm [it worked for me!], etc.). Or, even a "free product w/ purchase" or if you can handle the logistical nightmare, a coupon. Just talking about your product is nice, but to get someone to take action (buy your product) you need to "incentivize" them.
For the online game shop owner, she would most likely talk about the breadth of her store offerings (which publishers, "I get the newest stuff before the brick-and-mortar stores", etc.). Visuals are good here, but probably not as important as getting across the main point - she has lots of stuff for sale, and it's cheaper and more convenient than getting it from a B&M store. Again, an offer here is key, especially something like a "first-time buyers get a free copy of. . .".
This is really a function of what your message is and it relates to the "how often should I advertise?" question. The smaller the ad, the smaller the cost, and the more often you can run the ad at the same budget. But, the communication value of a smaller ad is less than for a larger ad.
A specific example (this relates to TV, but it's applicable). Ever see a regular 30-second commercial on TV, and then later see a shortened 15-second version of the same commercial? You'll notice how they can say fewer things about their product, and it sometimes seems "choppy" or "unfinished". There are companies that have actually researched this and found that a 15-Second TV Commercial only has about 75% of the "Communication Effectiveness" of a 30-Second TV Commercial. You can take this information and make a comparison to using a smaller-size print ad or a "button" versus a "banner" or "interstitial" for online ads.
Well, in general, color communicates more effectively than B&W. In newspaper, the use of color (either spot color or four-color) really makes an ad "pop" and stand out from the other ads out there.
In a four-color magazine, the use of a color ad is probably just expected. How many times have you seen a B&W white ad in a color magazine and thought "Those people don't have enough money for a color ad - they must not know what they're doing"?
This is of course a generalization. General ad theory says that the communication value of a B&W ad (I'm talking about print ads here) is less than for a color ad.
Background art or not? Dark background with light text or light background with dark text?
This is really getting into the art direction of the ad, which I am not really qualified to speak about. I can tell you, however, that light type of dark backgrounds has been tested as harder to read than dark type of light backgrounds. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do light on dark, it just means that it's generally harder to read. ALL CAPS are also much harder to read than a mix of upper and lower case letters, because many capital letters tend to look alike or blend together (OQ or FP for example).
Ok, I'm sure this falls into the realm of what you'd prefer to charge for, but throw us a bone and I'm sure you'll get some people repaying you for your kindness.
I hear you. And, I hope this helps. If anyone has any specific questions, please feel free to e-mail me (my address is on the first page of this thread). It's much easier to talk specifics than to generalize.
Even a Top seller of the day!
