Small Business – Print Advertising
In the United States people read an average of thirty minutes’ worth of news per day. This readership supports a variety of news outlets, such as newspapers, magazines, and journals. Presently, the United States has the largest readership worldwide, and the largest number of newspapers, magazines, and journals.
Clearly, the savvy business owner would do well to advertise in print media. Some people suggest that digital media is a more modern option. Still, ignoring print media in favor of strictly online advertisement ignores the large circulation and great popularity of print media in the U.S.
Consider using print media as a part of your business marketing plan for the following reasons:
When an advertisement is published in print media, it does more than simply persuade the readership to purchase a product or service. It provides the business owner with a means for forming a strong corporate image with the publication’s readership. This aspect of print advertising is actually more essential than the more obvious goal of increasing customer base.
Print ads work well because they appeal to a reader’s emotions. The effective advertisement holds out the promise of betterment to a reader. This is accomplished via professional advertising design, including judicious use of color, layout, positioning, and language.
Print marketing professionals have an edge in that they can access readership surveys. These surveys gather data on readers of a publication, and allow marketers to more specifically target which techniques and strategies are most likely to be effective. They may offer incentives such as discounts or specials, or they may suggest to consumers that using a product or service will make them more cool or modern.
Print advertising also has the benefit of being tightly focused on an audience. For instance, a magazine that contains articles and information of interest and benefit to teen girls is going to be marketed to teen girls. Business owners whose goods and services are also marketed to teen girls would be wise to use this magazine for advertising.
Don’t listen to naysayers who suggest that print media is obsolete. They are wrong. Print advertisement is an excellent choice for urging a targeted selection of potential customers to buy your product or service.
What is in a Business Plan? The Key Sections
A business plan’s contents are no secret. Many books, articles, and courses describe the major sections of a business plan. Although variations exist, there are key sections common to most outlines in business planning literature.
Executive Summary
An executive summary, generally one page to a few pages at most, covers all of the main points of the business plan to come.
Company Overview or Description
The next section begins with an overview of the current situation of the company. This covers who the founders are and why they started the company, what the products or services offered are or will be, and what steps have been taken toward the launch to date.
Market Analysis
Sections detailing research and analysis done on the market for the business come next. This should begin with an overview of the market or industry, including its size, breakup, and trends it is experiencing going forward. Data on the specific customer segments and competitors for the new business follow.
Marketing Plan
A marketing plan then covers what is generally called the 4 Ps of Marketing: Product (description of the products or services offered), Promotion (the promotional tactics to be used), Pricing (the pricing strategy for the business), and Place (the location for a retail facility or other means of distribution for the product or service).
Operations and Management Plans
The next section or sections detail the plan for how the company will operate and be managed. This must include details on who the managers are and their qualifications, whether they are partners or hired employees.
Financial Plan
The business plan continues with a description of the financial results the business intends to see, and the underlying cost and revenue assumptions. The financial section also details the amount of capital needed, what the funding will be used for, and the sources of funding that are being sought.
Appendices
Finally, a business plan concludes with appendices of documents which support the plan further. The appendices include full pro forma financial statements (income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement) as well.
Business Plan – Purpose and Objectives
A detailed description of a new or existing business, including the company’s product or service, marketing plan, financial statements and projections and management principles, require a plan to be implemented. A document that spells out a company’s expected course of action for a specified period usually includes a detailed listing and analysis of risks and uncertainties. For the small business, it should examine the proposed products, the market, the industry, the management policies, the marketing policies, production needs and financial needs. Frequently, it is used as a prospectus for potential investors and lenders.
Think of it as a production line. What’s go in the start are raw materials and unfinished assemblies. Here, the raw materials include:
-Talent and initiative from employees
-Capital -Market position
-The company’s creditworthiness
-The firm’s earning capacity
-Assessment of changes in the marketplace.
It should have four major aspects:
- Its contribution to purpose and objectives
- Its primacy among the manager’s tasks
- Its pervasiveness
- The efficiency of resulting plans.
The Contribution of Planning to Purpose and Objectives: Every plan and all its supporting plans should contribute to the accomplishment of the purpose and objectives of the enterprise.
The Primacy of Planning Manager must plan in such a way that it leads to proper organizing, staffing, leading and controlling which support the accomplishment of enterprise objectives. Planning and controlling are inseparable. Any attempt to control without a plan is meaningless, since there is no way for people to tell whether they are going where they want to go. Plans thus furnish the standards of control.
The Pervasiveness of Planning: Planning is a function of all managers, which vary with each manager’s authority and with the nature of the policies and plans assigned by superiors. If managers are not allowed to a certain degree of discretion and planning responsibility, they are not truly managers.
The Efficiency of Plans: The effectiveness of plan refers to its contribution to the purpose and objectives. Plan is efficient if it achieves its purpose at a reasonable cost, when cost is measured not only in terms of time or money or production but also in the degree of individual and group satisfaction.
Procedures: Procedures are plans that establish a required method of handling future activities. They are chronological sequences of required actions. They are guides to action rather than to thinking and they detail the exact manner in which certain activities must be accomplished.
Rules: Rules are unlike procedures in that they guide action without specifying a time sequence. In fact, a procedure might be looked upon as a sequence of rules. Rule may be a part of procedure.
Programs: Programs are a complex of goals, policies, procedures, rules, task assignments, steps to be taken, resources to be employed and other elements necessary to carry out a given course of action; further supported by budgets.
Budgets: Budget is a statement of expected results expressed in numerical terms. Financial operating budget is often called a “profit plan”. This budget can be expressed in financial terms, in terms of labor- hours, units of product or machine hours or in any other numerically measurable term.
Steps in Planning: Being aware of opportunities, a manager should take a preliminary look at possible future opportunities and see them clearly and completely know where they stand in light of their strengths and weaknesses, understand what problems they wish to solve, and why and know what they expect to gain. Planning requires a realistic diagnosis of the opportunity situation.
Establishing objectives: This is to be done for the long term as well as for the short term. Objectives specify the expected results and indicate the end points of what is to be done, where the primary emphasis is to be placed and what is to be accomplished by the network of strategies, policies, procedures, rules, budgets and programs. Objectives form a hierarchy.
Developing premises: There are assumptions about the environment in which the plan is to be carried out. It is important for all managers involved in planning to agree on the premises. Forecasting is important in premising: what kind of markets will there be? What volume of sales? What prices? What products? What technical developments? What costs? What wage rates? What tax rates and policies? What new plans? How will expansion be financed? What are the long-term trends? Because the future is so complex, it would not be profitable or realistic to make assumption about every detail of the future environment of a plan.
Determining alternative courses: The more common problem is not finding alternatives but reducing the number of alternatives so that the most promising may be analyzed. The planner must usually make a preliminary examination to discover the most fruitful possibilities.
Evaluating alternative courses: From the various alternatives available proper evaluation should be done which may involve ash flow.
Selecting a course: The best alternative should be selected.
Numbering plans by budgeting Final step is giving them meaning by converting them into budgets. The overall budgets of an enterprise represent the sum total of income and expenses, with resultant profit or surplus and the budgets of major balance sheet items such as cash and capital expenditures.