A quick look at things mid-market companies can do to increase the impact of advertising budgets and keep up with the competition.

No matter what size the advertising budget is, regional companies compete against national companies daily and struggle with making the most of media dollars. Mid-market and regional companies should consider these strategies to maximize their advertising budget’s impact.

1. Messaging needs to benefit the consumers

It’s easy for a company to talk about themselves and their offerings, because they live it every day but what you should be asking yourself is, will the customer appreciate it? Typically, the answer is no, not really! Instead you need to determine how your brand can improve their position. Maybe it’s based on price, maybe it’s taste, maybe it’s health or a durability position so you are perceived a better value. Whatever you decide it is, you need to remember it needs to clearly explain to your consumer how it will enrich them. Just remember this while composing your creative message, “What can I do for you.” That’s where many of the battles, if not the entire war is won.

2. Ideal Customer Laser Focus

No matter what the message is, the message vessels utilized are key to the success of any campaign. These vessels vary greatly based on the audience being courted and the markets themselves. The best place to begin is by researching each markets nuances and offerings. They will vary market by market for several reasons which I will address at another time. To achieve the proper efficiencies and effectiveness, a media plan except during an initial launch should be developed with laser focus on your ideal customers. It’s difficult to narrow the field of prospects but a narrowly defined target market is essential for efficient marketing and media decisions. This process is not done to exclude people, but rather to raise the voice and efficiencies on those who can impact your brand the most. Once you reach them successfully others will follow.

3. A combination of mediums provides a well- rounded retainable message

Consumers interact with multiple forms of media on several devices daily and your advertising plans must be concurrent as well. I’m not suggesting that you need to utilize all the tools at the same time. However, to utilize one single message or tool in today’s media landscape is more than likely at some point become nothing more than a waste of budget. Depending on certain factors such as the budget, the audience and the seasonality there may be to your campaign, should all come into consideration before deciding which tools you’ll use for that job. If you run multiple campaigns in any year you may want a different toolset for the next campaign. If you intend to run more than one campaign in a given year then it’s best to look at the yearly calendar as one encompassing strategy and then isolate tools sets for each flight separately. Remember recall and awareness are two key elements any plan must have to succeed.

4. Create more impact with flighting

The flighting is as essential to a successful campaign as the creative. Marketing and media, along with sale strategies are the catalyst to sales. Creative is much like a painting, it tells the story. While flighting is much like the matt and frame. Without both being coordinated properly the end result is not impactful. Media isn’t just buying a bunch of ads, it’s understanding the pieces, their strengths, timing and audiences to create the best compliment to the creative. Intricately understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each medium is imperative to create a work of art.

5. Repeat…. Repeat and Repeat

No matter what mediums are selected for marketing, repetition is one of the major keys to success. While there are differences of opinion among experts most in marketing agree that it lies between 7 and 15. That’s a very broad range which is why cross metering your frequency will help you secure these numbers while keeping the budget in line.

Mid-market companies that implement these strategies will find that advertising dollars invested will go much further. When ads reach the right people at the right time via several touch points with the right repetition the opportunity for retention and engagement increases greatly and will have a more sustained impact.