Mamacuna Traders is almost a month old now and getting some attention from local media and a few fashion Internet sites. The PR campaign now takes second place to the Advertising Campaign. This is the part that many small and new business owners try to avoid. Why?
Because it's painful!
First of all, in your initial business plannings you put a nice little pile of money aside to blindly throw to the gods, right? That's advertising! But there are ways you can make it less painful to the wallet and to the ego. Your market. Research how your market gets their information. Baby boomers are not so easily swayed by print or TV ads, but receive most of their information through peer-to-peer advertising. Us, more mature individuals, receive information in a variety of ways with print still up there in the fight for our attention. With Mamacuna Traders we want to reach a broad age range of people with similar interests; the world, environment, human rights, collecting really cool and highly individualistic stuff. We are also an Internet retailer so going to print might be reaching the wrong audience. After much time and phone calls and lots of number crunching we chose to advertise on Care2.com.
What is Care2.com? It's a place where people from all over can gather and share their interests and concerns regarding the environment, spirituality, the animal kingdom, our oceans, human rights, you name it! So far, the reception has been great and I personally recommend the site to further connect with like minded beings.
How much does advertising cost? This depends where you want your ad to be seen, how large, color or no color, and how often. A modest budget could range from $1K to $3K a month for start ups. I know, it sounds painful but it is necessary to get your brand out there and noticed. And will they notice? Not right off the bat. It may take several viewings in order to compel someone to click through to your site.
How can you measure the success of your ad campaign. It's very easy if you start off with nothing. If you know how often your ad is showing or when you can track the response rate of page views on your website. But measuring ad results from print is more difficult still. So, in order to measure our success rate with Care2.com we will continue the campaign and then add on with a new marketing tool each month and again measure website activities. Personally, after being in marketing for so many years I look forward to seeing what type of advertising does the best for www.mamacuna.com; forums, email, online, maybe a forehead or two?
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