A brand awareness campaign can traditionally be thought of as a challenging endeavor. Most small businesses think a brand awareness campaign means hanging up fliers, running radio spots, local networking, and other time strenuous activities that keep them from running their business. Most see that brand awareness is crucial to their continued growth but don’t think they have the resources to dedicate to it.
Advertising is often considered to be beyond the scope of a small business owner due to its cost, difficulty to track, and general uncertainty. Reframing this mindset can reveal just how accessible advertising has become. Big brands, like Lays, generally spend 1-3% of their revenue on advertising. Assuming Lays is earning $1 billion per year, this would mean an advertising budget of $10 million to $30 million. To illustrate the point, let’s assume it’s $20 million per year.
Let’s now assume lays is trying to reach everyone in the United States – all 330,000,000 of us. This means their advertising spend comes to $0.06 per person. Let’s now scale this to a small town of 100,000 people that can be serviced by say a local gym. If they spent $0.06 per person, they could achieve the same media saturation with a budget of $6,000 per year!
Now that cost is solved for, how can a small business save on time? There are several agencies and advertising partners who can work to make the most of your advertising dollars. Focusing on digital awareness advertising platforms like banner ads and connected TV can help to expose your business to your service area without the need to go door-to-door. Even if a business owner values their time at only $20/hr, spending 8/hrs a week networking can cost $160 in time lost each week! Building an awareness campaign that is targeted to your unique customers can save you time and money, allowing you to get back to the other aspects of your business.
