5 Simple Ways to Maximize Your Business Advertising Budget

A business that has found its footing usually has more room to advertise than it did on day one, and that changes the question from "how do I get noticed for almost nothing?" to "how do I make sure this money is working?" If you are still at the stage of starting with very little, our earlier post on ten ways to advertise on a small budget covers the low-cost basics. This post is for the stage after that.

The useful way to think about advertising money is as an investment that you review, not an expense you forget about. No one can promise what an advertisement will return, so the discipline lies in deciding in advance what a response looks like for your business, for example an inquiry by phone, a visit to the store, a booking or a purchase, counting those responses and comparing them with what you spent. Each of the five ideas below is a way of tightening that loop. You will find more on the subject in our collection of media and advertising budget articles.

Advertising space is sold by reach, and reach you do not need is money wasted. The first saving is usually in targeting. If your customers come from a particular part of the Atlanta area, show your ads there and nowhere else. Online ad platforms generally let you choose locations, and some vendors offer geofencing, which delivers a message to mobile devices inside a defined area, such as around a shopping center or near your own door. A well-written offer that reaches someone close enough to act on it is worth more than the same message seen by people who live too far away to visit.

Two cautions apply. Availability and rules for location-based advertising vary by platform, and people can limit location sharing on their phones, so ask what is actually possible before you build a plan around it. And location is only one filter. Interests, past visits to your website and the words people search for can all narrow an audience. Narrower is not always better, because an audience that is too small teaches you very little. The aim is to leave out the people who will never respond, not to find the smallest group possible.

Whether an ad runs on social media, in search results, on radio or on television, when it appears affects what you pay and who sees it. The price of ad space depends on who is selling it, how large or prominent it is, where it appears and at what time it runs. Some hours and days cost more because more people are watching or searching, and others cost less and still reach the people you want.

Think about when your customers actually make decisions. A restaurant might concentrate its advertising shortly before mealtimes, a retailer ahead of weekends and seasonal rushes, and a service business around the moments its customers tend to notice a need. Ask sellers for the audience profile of each time slot or placement, try a few schedules and keep the ones that bring responses. Research the options, then decide deliberately what to buy and what share of the budget it deserves.

Many businesses pay for an email service and use only a fraction of what it offers. Email is easy to measure, it keeps you in front of customers and leads between purchases, and it lets you choose who receives which message by location, interest or past behavior. It is flexible enough to carry news, new products and services, seasonal reminders and practical advice that shows what you know. Use the reporting to see which messages draw clicks and replies, since open counts alone can mislead. Send fewer, better messages instead of more of the same, and clean your list by removing addresses that never engage. For a wider view of how email fits into a plan, see our page on email marketing.

An outside public-relations firm can be worthwhile, but a modest budget is easily consumed by fees, leaving little for the publicity itself. Often the better use of money is whatever creates something worth reporting: an event, a new service, a community project or a helpful guide. Then assign the telling of it to yourself or to someone on your team. Keep a "news" or "what’s new" page on your website, and treat each announcement, hire, milestone or community event as content you can share through social media, email and the local reporters and bloggers who cover your area. These are simple jobs that can be done in-house, and the money you save can go into reach.

Some advertising dominates in one industry and does little in another, and that is normal. Depending on your field, you may have to experiment before you find what suits it. The rule is to give each test a fair window, decided before you launch, and to stop when the evidence says no. It is tempting to keep adding money to something that might eventually pay off. Resist that, cut your losses and move the money to the activity that is bringing responses.

That only works if you can tell what is working. Keep a simple record of each campaign: what ran, when, what it cost and what came back. When someone new becomes a customer, ask where they first heard of you, and give different campaigns their own response path where you can, for instance a web page or an offer code reserved for that campaign. If you are spending your budget faster than you are learning from it, an outside view of your strategy may help. For more on measuring what advertising does, see our page on marketing analytics.

A plain test for any advertising budget is to ask whether each line brings someone to the counter, onto the phone or onto the lot. Advertising that cannot answer that question needs review, and the answer depends on the tracking behind it.

A sensible order of work is to define the response you want, set up a way to count it, tighten your targeting, test your timing and then review everything on a schedule. Keep your expectations honest while you do, because familiarity takes time to build; the post on what to expect from your advertising dollars makes a useful companion read. If you are weighing where to place your next dollar, start with our media buying page.