List and explain the questions a small business owner needs to answer when choosing a media vehicle for the advertising message

What will be an ideal response?

Answer:
? How large is my company's trading area? How big is the geographical region from which the firm will draw its customers? The size of this area influences the choice of media.
? Who are my target customers and what are their characteristics? Determining a customer profile often points to the appropriate medium to use to get the message across most effectively.
? With which media will my target customers most likely interact? Until they know who their target audience is, business owners cannot select the proper advertising media to reach it.
? What budget limitations do I face? Entrepreneurs must direct their advertising programs within the restrictions of their operating budgets. Certain advertising media cost more than others.
? Which media do my competitors use? Is it helpful for small business owners to know the media their competitors use, although they should not automatically assume that those media are the best choices. An approach that differs from the traditional one may produce better results.
? How important is repetition and continuity of my advertising message? Generally, an ad becomes effective only after it is repeated several times, and many ads must be continued for some time before they produce results. Some experts suggest that an ad must be run at least six times in most mass media before it becomes effective.
? How does each medium compare with others in its audience, its reach, and its frequency? Audience measures the number of paid subscribers a particular medium attracts and is called circulation in most print media such as newspapers and magazines. Reach is the total number of people exposed to an ad at least once in a period of time, usually four weeks. Frequency is the average number of times a person is exposed to an ad in that same time period.
? What does the advertising medium cost? There are two types of advertising costs entrepreneurs must consider: the absolute cost and the relative cost. Absolute cost is the actual dollar outlay a business owner must make to place an ad in a particular medium for a specific time period. An even more important measure is an ad's relative cost, the ad's cost per potential customer reached. Relative cost is most often expressed as cost per thousand (CPM), the cost of the ad per 1,000 customers reached.