Page 168 - Duct Tape Marketing

152 Part III: Creating and Placing Ads

Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec

Continual

Flighting

Figure 10-1: Front Loading
Showing Heavy-Up
how ad Pulsing

schedules
can vary.

ߜ Flighting: Ads run or air for a period of time and then go dormant before
reappearing with another but lesser flight of ads. To succeed in flighting,
start with a heavy enough schedule to make a strong market impression.
That way, your business will benefit from the residual awareness until
you come back in with a light schedule to rekindle awareness, go dor-
mant, and then reappear with a heavy schedule.

ߜ Front-loading: Saturate the market with a heavy schedule of ads and
then pull back to a more economical schedule that aims to maintain the
awareness you bought during the early days. Front-loading is often used
to announce openings, promote new products, and jumpstart idle sales.

ߜ Heavy-up scheduling: Heavy-up schedules are similar to front-loaded
schedules, except that they rely on saturation advertising schedules
(also called blitzes) to be repeated several times a year.

ߜ Pulsing: With this on-and-off schedule, you’re in the media, then you’re
dormant, then you’re in, then you’re dormant, with no variations.

Evaluating Your Advertising Efforts

Armchair quarterbacking is a popular after-the-ad-runs activity. But your
advertising will be more effective if you set objectives and plan your evalua-
tion methods early on — back when the plays are being called — not after
the fumble has already occurred.