Looking at how companies advertise, you start to notice there are two types of companies: first consist of very big companies like EV1 that purchase premium spots almost everywhere (industry magazines covers, every issue, etc.; major online campaigns), the second one advertises on a much lower budget, trying to get a link here and there, some try advertise locally.

In your opinion, do you think it is easier to manage big advertising budgets to achieve marketing objectives or do you think those working with small budgets have a bigger challenge in front of them?

Best,

The trick behind effective marketting is to make big out of small. HUGE multinationals usually have enough money to launch big marketting compaigns and usually also have enough money to brush off the loss if the campaign is a dud.
A good marketter is one that can make alot of of little!
I htink its sometimes easier to work with less money in a campaign because the risks are very low.
Just my opinion though, I'm sure everyone has their own views.
Regards,
~Equinox

Isn't this the opposite? If you work with a small budget and make a mistake - your whole effort gets lost. That's quite a risk right there.

Yeah, but from my side, I'd be alot less stressed dealing with 1000 dollars rather than $20,000...not that I've ever had that much money anyways

I prefer working from the ground up. Even if I was given a $20,000 advertising budget, I think the last thing I'd do would be to spend it on ad placement or buying links.. There's a LOT of very effective things that can be done for little to no monetary cost.

There is definitely the level of mass advertising where it pays off to put a big investment into it.. but you need to make sure that you're able to back that investment up AND that its not your "only hope". Advertising campaigns can be done well and they CAN be effective, you just have to know your audience, know them and create your advertising campaign to reach them.. and then make sure you advertise in the right places .

-Jonathan

It's all relative.

With a lower budget, your return expectations are much lower. With a large budget, your expectations are extremely high. The larger hosts have to have their ads perform each and every month to obtain the needed quotas for purchases, growth, revenue, etc. on a much higher level. (I would lean to the side of it being a bit harder for smaller companies as larger companies tend to get the chance of having their brand already established, and much larger WOM possibilities, thus driving in more results for less advertising).

Start small by dabbing into several things, work with the sites you wish to advertise with on test campaigns and see how they work out. The key is tracking, always track... visitors, exposure, conversion %s and of course... most importantly, CPS.

Then weed through the useless slots and increase on your bigger ones.

Just echoing Taylor on this one.. tracking is SOO important. You need to carefully monitor the things that you do and as you see results (or don't), you tweak things.. you make those small changes.. you test test and do more testing.. Marketing is an ever evolving process.

-Jonathan