Advertising looks basic and straightforward. You can pay for ads and let the ads run on its own. However, there is more to it than it seems. Companies require more research and a lot of time analysing your ad results to achieve the best returns.
Before you spend your money, use SMART goals to analyse your company’s ad objectives. SMART goals are:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Timely
How can your company adapt to these goals when allocating budget for your ads?
Being SPECIFIC also means being sustainable – think about the What, How and Why. What does your company need at this moment in time? Why do you need to achieve this? Is this ‘Why’ aligned with your company goals?
With your Specific goal, speak to your team to now analyse and look at how much is needed? What will you be looking at? Your engagement rates? Click rates? Purchase quantities? When will you know that you have reached your target or goal?
Attainability refers back to your company’s capacity. In analysing this to allocate your ads budget, finance is crucial. How much are you able to spend to stretch or increase and push your brand for further recognition without harming your company?
Next, is to ensure that the objective of your ad aligns with your company’s goals, vision and mission. How relevant will your ads return be to your day to day progress? Is this ad investment worthwhile to spend? Will it benefit the company as a whole entity?
Finally, we are all running against time. While time does not wait, companies need to take advantage of the time you have – to build on your progress, growth and planning. What is the duration of time you are allocating to achieve your goal for these ads? If you have a small team, can your staff take on the extra workload?
The first steps to planning are often the toughest. Once you’ve laid out your SMART goals, your later stages will be more manageable. Mainly because you have checked and analysed your capabilities beforehand, you will have fewer worries later on!
