A lot of business owners and sales and marketing reps do not know how to quantify their branding efforts. Most evaluate their advertising spend in terms of total cost. However, the cost of a campaign is virtually irrelevant. What they should be considering is cost per thousand impressions or CPM.
What is an impression? An impression is when someone sees or hears your ad or message. This is how you can quantify branding. Determine how many people will see or hear your ad, divide that by 1,000 and divide that by the total cost. This is what will need to make a media buying decision. Of course also keeping in mind your demographics, what percentage of that audience is your target market?
For instance… Say a business owner has decided that a lot of his target market reads magazines. One magazine is $500 a month for a full page ad. The second is $750 a month for an ad. Well, the $500 dollar ad seems like a better deal right? Not necessarily, you must determine the average cost per thousand impressions.
The same principle applies for all types of advertising. Some campaigns may be more focused on lead generation, some may be focused strictly on branding or awareness campaigns. Either way, your first question when considering a media buy is what is my Cost Per Thousand Impressions or CPM and does this medium reach my target market.
Spectrum Marketing Group is a multimedia marketing and consulting agency located in New Bedford, MA. Our marketing consultants can help you to implement an effective advertising and marketing strategy.