6. Process of Advertising Campaign Planning

Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor.

• Identifying the target audience

• Specifying advertising objectives

• Setting the advertising budget

• Designing the advertisement

  • Message content, different appeals

  • Creating actual message

• Selecting the right media

  • The goal is to reach maximum exposure and minimize costs

  • Media alternatives

  • Selection criteria

• Scheduling advertising

  • Factors of scheduling: Buyer turnover, Purchase frequency, Forgetting rate

  • Scheduling approaches:

    • Continuous (steady) schedule – ad is run at a continuous schedule throughout a year

    • Flighting (intermittent) schedule – reflect seasonal demand

    • Pulse (burst) schedule – flighting combined with continuous when demand is high, promotion period or introduction of a new product.

7. Direct Marketing Methods

Direct marketing is a form of advertising that reaches its audience without using traditional formal channels of advertising, such as TV, newspapers or radio. Businesses communicate straight to the consumer with advertising techniques such as fliers, catalogue distribution, promotional letters, and street advertising.

Direct marketing is predominantly used by small to medium enterprises with limited advertising budgets which do not have a well-recognized brand message.

• Direct Mail

• Telemarketing

• Email Marketing

• Door-to-Door Leaflet Marketing

• Couponing

• Direct selling

8. Observation method in marketing research

Observational research (or field research) is a social research technique that involves the direct observation of phenomena in their natural setting. The main advantage of observational research is flexibility. The main disadvantage is it is limited to behavioral variables. Most frequently used types of observational techniques are:

• Personal observation (ex. observing products in use; determining the socio-economic status of shoppers)

• Mechanical observation (ex. eye-tracking analysis while subjects watch advertisements; on-site cameras in stores)

• Audits (ex. retail audits, inventory audits)

• Trace Analysis (ex. credit card records)

• Content analysis (ex. observe the content of magazines, or newspapers)

9. Experiments in Marketing Research

Experiments are a type of research based on the following logic. If you identify two or more groups that are equivalent, expose those groups to different treatments, and subsequently observe differences between the groups on some dimension of interest, then you can reasonably conclude that those differences must be caused by the treatments. The following are characteristics of true experiments: (1) at least one treatment group and one comparison group, (2) at least one outcome measure, and (3) random assignment of subjects to treatments. Experiments can be used to test the effects of different prices, ad appeals, sales promotions, product changes, or any other marketing actions being considered on consumer attitudes and, most important, behavior. True experiments with random assignment to treatments are sometimes impossible or impractical.