When you're marketing without money, it becomes vitally important that you understand the psychology that takes place when winning over customers. Frequency of communicating a particular message is crucial to your success. And, without money to advertise to your target market over and over, you must find ways to communicate with that market with the same level of frequency an advertiser with big bucks might have. Barter, cooperative programs, and negotiating 'per sale' advertising fees are a great way to start. You'll learn more about those shortly.

One thing evident in most businesses is that most of the advertising and public relations decisions aren't based on any real knowledge of what works or why it works. Studies, like those summarized in the next few pages haven't been easy for most entrepreneurs to get their hands on. Consequently, poor decisions have run rampant. So if you are determined enough to want to succeed that your are reading this book, then let's be sure you're armed with the information you need to make good decisions. So often "advertising" is blamed for marketing program failure, when in reality, nothing could be farther from the truth: "Communicating" incorrectly and lack of follow-up are usually the culprits.

There are four main areas of communication where businesspeople run into trouble: Consistency in message, frequency, media selection; and, poorly crafted messages.

The areas examined in the following studies address these, and other areas of media 'psychology' which will help you understand and get better at making media decisions.

Increased sales productivity is the key reason for any type of marketing communications. If your prospects are unaware of your products or services, they obviously can’t buy them. If prospects are aware of them, but don’t understand the benefits your products offer, your marketing communications can convey those benefits. If your prospects are reluctant to buy because they are not convinced that your organization can deliver and support your product, marketing communications can help ease their fears.

The following third-party studies are included for you so you can start seeing the relationship of advertising (or any form of marketing communication) has in your ability to persuade someone to use your products or services.

In addition, these studies will be excellent examples when trying to get a realistic marketing budget allotted. Oh, you have no budget? What you really mean is you have no money! That’s OK. Think of your budget as the time and energy you’re going to invest to get your products and services promoted. Since marketing communications (real money) budgets are often the first to get cut during hard times, many studies are noted that will (one hopes) prevent you from cutting your activities in this area ever again. You can still employ the correct processes and level of frequency necessary to get results — without ever spending a dime!

The recent Advertising Research Foundation/Association of Business Publishers (ARF/ABP) study brings the main benefits of advertising to light by demonstrating that:

In this portion of the study, profits were defined as estimated revenues minus advertising costs and costs of goods. The results were clear. Advertising not only increases sales, it can also improve the bottom line. The more advertising, the higher the profits.

When testing color ads from the beginning of the campaign, sales jumped notably higher than products advertised with black and white ads. A normal lag time of approximately four months after the placement of the first ad was noted, with sales climbing at a faster rate each month thereafter, than its black and white counterparts.

For months after all of the tested advertising campaigns ended, sales were still tracked. Advertisers who had the heaviest advertising schedules maintained higher levels of sales for longer periods of time, than those that had advertised less frequently.

When utilizing an advertising program that consisted of advertising in two dealer publications and one end-user publication, the study found that both end-user and dealer reader service inquiries increased. After the end of the campaign, the study determined that advertisers on a less frequent advertising schedule received .20 inquiries per thousand, advertisers with a medium advertising schedule obtained inquiries at the rate of 1.49 per thousand, and advertisers with heavy schedules received inquiries at the rate of 3.12 per thousand.

That means the heavier advertising schedule of the "high cell" test segment resulted in 15.6 times more dealer inquiries than the "low cell" advertisers.

The ARF/ABP study also showed that increased advertising results in more sales leads for manufacturers and more qualified prospects for the sales force to call on, proving that increasing the advertising schedule increases qualified sales leads.

In the advertising cells where potential end-users were exposed to a heavy advertising schedule, end-user (consumer) sales increased to 157 percent above the "no advertising" level.

Profits for the high cell were 3.9 times those of the "no advertising" level.

In other words, the study provides conclusive evidence that advertising is one of the most beneficial tools available to help increase sales.

Advertising simplifies the selling task and, among other things, delivers a stream of qualified leads coming to the sales staff, who then avoid wasting prime selling time on less productive prospecting or no prospecting at all.

The following advertising research reports were produced by the Cahners Publishing Company. These reports focused on different questions than the ARF/ABP, and will give you more insight on the effectiveness of various types of advertising.

To determine the relative advantages of larger sized advertisements, Cahners Research analyzed 2,353 advertisements. The ads were sorted by size and then indexed against the overall average size ad.

As the size of an advertisement increases, the readership score increases. Two-page ads received scores more than twice as high as the average, while quarter-page ads scored 45 percent lower than the average.

To determine the average number of inquiries generated by ad size, Cahners Research analyzed 500,000 inquiries generated by Design News, EDN, and Plastics World. These inquiries were then slotted by ad size and averaged across all ads.

Inquiries, on average, will increase as the size of the advertisement increases. Obviously, the type of audience reached and the content of the advertisement play a major role in the number of inquiries generated. Certain audiences do not inquire at all, and the study made no attempt to analyze the qualitative aspects of audience or advertisement.

To find the cost of an average inquiry by the size of the ad, Cahners Research analyzed 500,000 inquiries generated by Design News, EDN, and Plastics World. Inquiries were sorted by ad size and averaged across all ads. The resulting numbers were then divided into the average rate for each size ad to arrive at the cost per inquiry.

While the number of inquiries increase as the size of the advertisement increases, the cost per inquiry also increases. If the quality of the inquiry is the same, then smaller, more frequent ads may yield better overall results.

To determine how long an advertisement in a specialized business magazine draws inquiries, Cahners Research analyzed over 175,000 inquiries generated by advertisements in five selected publications with 10-week inquiry processing cycles. All inquiries were charted on a weekly basis.

Even though ads draw most of their inquiries in the first few weeks, advertisers continue to receive the benefits of an ad for months sometimes even years after the ad is run.

According to the findings of the highly acclaimed John E. Morrill study on industrial advertising effectiveness, lack of advertising frequency is the single most common cause of "sales program failure." The study suggests that advertising below a certain low level of exposure (a frequency of about five advertising pages per year) seems to have no positive impact on sales.

An adequate exposure frequency appears to reduce the total cost of selling by 10 to 30 percent. Conversely, an advertiser might find that his costs of selling to groups exposed to a competitor’s advertising increase by 20 to 40 percent. The addition of advertising exposure results in an increase in sales per sales call of six to 25 percent the study notes.

Using advertising and other marketing communications properly is the key to success, however. The frequency and message are vital. We’ve addressed frequency extensively here. Ad copy or message will be discussed in depth later.

Frequency is a key to the success of any marketing communications program. More often than not, executives who are inexperienced with marketing communications, yet charged with the responsibility of creating a communications program, will expect significant results too early in their program.

The recent ARF/ABP (Advertising Research Foundation & Association of Business Publishers) study on advertising effectiveness found that it takes an average of four to six months for an advertising program to produce results.

The reason for this delayed reaction is twofold: the lead time necessary for advertising program implementation and buyer behavior patterns.

Since lead times, the time it takes to prepare and place advertising, is somewhat self-explanatory, let’s take a look at buyer behavior.

Buyer behavior patterns for both consumer and business products share some common characteristics: most buyers are fairly conservative and fairly skeptical. They tend to become even more so when the products or services offered are high-ticket items or when they encounter a new or unfamiliar product, service, or organization. Because of these facts, it typically takes a prospect nine impressions (a combination of advertising, sales calls, public relations, direct mail, etc.) before potential buyers will even take action to inquire.

Only a very small segment of our population is willing to take the risk of buying new products or services from a relatively unknown organization.

Frequent marketing communications including advertising, sound public relations, and sales programs create awareness, visibility, and credibility. This combination of methods, along with the consistency and presentation of your message, helps move the majority of your prospect base to a level of knowledge and confidence where they are comfortable enough to buy.

In other words, advertising and other marketing communications work when they are properly implemented for the appropriate amount of time to influence the majority of the buying public.

Table of Contents l Next - Chapter 2: Phase 1 of the Sales Process: Lead Generation - Media Without Money