For The Small Business Owner
Electronic Media
Electronic Media is simply any medium that uses electricity to deliver your advertisement. Below are summarized the advantages and uses of Broadcast Television, Radio, Wired Television. Depending on your advertising market size, some or all of these choices may be viable choices for your small business. It depends on market size because costs can and do vary based on the population of the area you're advertising in. For example, a small business located in the Los Angeles, CA area probably cannot afford to effectively advertise on Broadcast Television or Radio Stations. Conversely, in Charleston, SC where the population is approximately 10% less, then so are the advertising costs. Electronic Media Advertisements are best for persuading. A :30 or :60 Second commercial is not nearly enough time to give every little detail about your business, but it's plenty of time to grab the attention and the interest of consumers and to get them contact your business for information about your products and services.
Radio
Radio is known as the Big Frequency Medium. In radio you air your commercial numerous times per day so that listeners are hearing your ad over and over and over again. Because each radio station in a given market area is programmed for a different demographic group, you can demographically target your ads to the consumers most likely to do business with you. For instance if you were wanting to promote your nightclub to women in their early twenties you might select a Contemporary Hits station, or if you were selling NASCAR memorobilia you might want to advertisie on a country station, or if you were a hardware store you might want to advertise on a sports/talk station to target men in their 30s. If your business is located in a big metropolitan area, like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, Radio may be reaching too many people over too great a geographic area and will likely be too expensive a proposition. Conversely, if your in a more rural area or a smaller metropolitan area like Charleston, SC; SanDiego, CA or Pittsburg, PA it might be an ideal adverising medium for your business.
Broadcast Television
Television has been touted by some as the most effective advertising medium as it combines full color pictures, audio, motion and emotion. (Editors Note: If you can afford it!) Broadcast Television is often called the Big Reach Medium. In other words, lots of people are tuning in to these stations at any given time. When I talk about Broadcast Television I mean the local affiliates of the big 5 television networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, UPN. These stations reach a very wide geographic area and usually only inside metropolitan areas. This medium uses the sheer volume of viewers in a shotgun approach. Because there are so many viewers at any given time, the right small business could advertises just a few times a week on one of these stations and be very successful. In order to make this work you need to make sure your business can service the whole area these stations cover, otherwise you'll be wasting some of your advertising dollars. Again, in a large or medium sized metropolitan area, Broadcast Television may reach too many people over too large a geographic area and be too expensive for a small business to afford to use effectively.
Cable (wired) Television
Cable TV or Wired Television Advertisements air on non broadcasted television networks like ESPN, Comedy Central, MTV, BET, Lifetime, CNN and so on but usually in very specific geographic areas or zones. In other words you can advertise your business just to homes within a 10-15 mile radius of your business. This will keep your costs down as you aren't forced to advertise to consumers in areas unlikely to drive to your location. The Cable TV medium shares all the best qualities of Broadcast TV: Full Color Motion Pictures and Sound but like radio is demographically targeted by network (some cable systems offer up to 40 network options), and is affordable to air numerous times to build repetition in the consumers mind.
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