Now that we have talked about how to calculate your budget lets talk about some ways to invest it.

The first step is determining our goals for the buy. We need to set a baseline from which we can measure our buy’s success and the success of the overall campaign. We should start with looking at sales for the desired month of the campaign from the previous year. (If you are a new business, take a look at the industry standards or similar budgets to get an idea of where you should be.) We can also look at the last month’s number and average the two to get a more accurate baseline.

Now that we have a baseline, let’s focus on a message. Determine what you want to say and to whom you want to say it. The reason any campaign is successful is because of its message and placement for a specific target. (If you are focused on a branding campaign, focus less on a specific message and more on the perceived value you want to place in the brand.)

With a message in place, let’s focus on placement and implementation of the message. For example, let’s say that we are a cell phone company looking to increase sales of cell phones to young adults ages 18-25. There are specific places you want to make sure your message is heard such as bars, gyms, movies, music sites, concert venues, and social media outlets. More specifically, know your audience. Know things like what music stations they listen to and what TV programs they are watching. For smaller companies with less buying power, get involved with popular organizations in your city where this demographic hangs out. Partnerships with organizations are one of the best ways to reach people on a personal level.

Now, here comes the real challenge. How do you measure a buy or campaign’s success? First, take a look at our baseline. Did you move the needle at all in sales? If yes, let’s figure out what worked and where. These are called tracking devices and the best way to use these is through print and internet advertising. Using traceable bar codes on print offers and monitoring click through rates, not only on banner ads, but, your own website can be great indicators as to how effective your media was placed and if your message was clear. Measuring radio and TV ads can prove to be much more difficult, as there is no way to trace the direct effect on sales other than asking in store where they heard the offer from. The best way to trace any broadcast media is to have a call to action that takes all traffic back to the website to redeem the offer in printable form for presentation in store.

Lastly, at the end of each campaign or buy a performance evaluation should be done compiling data such as total dollars spent on the campaign vs. increased number of tickets (receipts) per day in store, sales per store, and count of most popular item(s) being sold. This will allow you to understand if the overall direction of the campaign was a success and what avenues to revisit in future buy’s.