When developing a three-month marketing budget, you might think it's better to advertise on as many channels as possible.  However, this tends to be ineffective. Many advertisers end up wasting money on marketing channels or advertisements that have little to no impact on branding or sales.  Others waste money by spreading themselves too thin in a single quarter.

Instead, you should develop an advertising plan after identifying potential buyers and determining the short and long-term goals of your advertising campaign.  By figuring out your goals and buyer persona, you can decide the best advertising channel to use and the ideal frequency of ads.

Determine Buyer Persona 

Figuring out your buyer persona is important because it will help you determine how your advertising budget should be spent.  You need to figure out the following things when examining buyer persona:

• Who are you trying to appeal to?
• Where do they spend time?
• What are their interests or preferences?
• What messages are they susceptible to?
• What media channels do they use?
• Do they use multiple channels?

In addition, you need to figure out the strength of your brand awareness among your potential buyers.  By measuring your brand awareness, you can figure out how much more you need to increase it to get more sales. 

For example, say your buyer persona is a white-collar office worker who loves online poker, goes on Facebook for a few hours, uses e-mail for a few hours, and listens to the radio in the car to and from work.  By getting this information, you can develop an advertising campaign that effectively reaches them. Furthermore, by knowing your existing brand awareness among this person, you can know how much you need to increase it on these channels to make more sales.     

Choosing the right channels

Once you know your goals and ideal customers, then you can figure out the right advertising channels.  Many people suggest using an omnichannel method of advertising. This means using both traditional advertising and digital marketing to create an immersive marketing experience.

However, an omnichannel advertising method doesn't always work.  Instead, you might find yourself using "spray and pray" tactics.  This means you end up spending money advertising on channels that don't reach potential buyers and take money away from more effective advertising channels.  Trying to appear on all channels at once with a single quarter's budget will not result in effective omnichannel marketing, but ineffective multichannel spray and pray.

A better approach is to focus on using a single channel effectively.  

However, just advertising a few times on one channel isn't enough.  When developing a three-month plan, it's important to dominate one channel so that there can be enough repetition of a consistent message.  Potential buyers need to be able to hear and/or see your advertisement at least three times to build recognition and trust. 

For example, using the radio is an effective way of reaching potential buyers.  Radio gets the widest reach with basic demographic targeting.  However, just putting a few ads on the radio isn't enough.  Potential buyers need to hear your marketing message at least three times. 

But airing it three times in one week doesn't mean that the same person will hear it all three times.  Instead, you need to air it more often to get your ideal buyer to hear it at least three times. In radio, the optional reach is airing your ad 21 times a week.     

By choosing the right channel and amount of advertising, you can effectively reach your ideal buyer. 

Analysis Counts

For any ad campaign, you should be analyzing how your budget and revenue are impacted.  You should also be examining how effective is your brand awareness and measure the return on investment.  By conducting this analysis, you can adjust spending tactics and how it impacts your long-term advertising goals. 

When planning a marketing campaign, you need to plan strategically.  You need to focus on defining your short and long-term goals and figuring out who are your potential buyers.  Once you know that, you can figure out the best channel to use. 

Stay Focused

Always beware of buzzwords like "multichannel" and "omnichannel" when planning marketing campaigns for the quarter.  High consistency and high frequency on a single channel will create more brand awareness and sales than low consistency and lower frequency across multiple channels.  By defining your campaign goals and identifying buyer personas, you will know which channel should be dominated   

To learn more about how you should develop short and long-term advertising goals, check out our ebook “6 Steps to Maximize Marketing ROI.”