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Q Our company is releasing a new tackle box specially designed for ice fishing. We plan on advertising on the Web and possibly in magazines, as well as sponsoring special events. Are any resources available to help develop a process to evaluate the best value in advertising?
RICH FEMLING
ROSE CREEK ANGLERS
A To make a media choice in an ideal world, you would measure the total value of all customers who would be brought in by each advertising medium you choose, discounted by your current cost of capital, and then choose the medium with the best payoff.
You can develop a good idea of how effective your advertising is by asking your customers about the source for their initial awareness of your product. You will soon develop a sense of which advertising media are important in making customers aware of your product and which advertising your purchasers readily remember.
In this way, you can choose the best advertising medium using a "top-down" estimate, where you start with the highest media circulation or event attendance and progressively work with that number to produce an analysis of your advertising choices. Combine this with a "bottom-up" process in which you ask purchasers about their purchasing process and infer the best choices from your knowledge of the buyers.
For the "top-down" evaluation, individual media outlets can supply an estimate of their circulation and give you some demographic data on their subscribers. For the "bottom-up" analysis, you will need to gather information from your buyers, either at the time of purchase or afterward, by a survey process.
LORMAN LUNDSTEN
PROFESSOR OF MARKETING
UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS
OPUS COLLEGE OF BUSINESS
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