It may sound like a strange question on day before Thanksgiving but it really isn’t. When scheduling your promotions it is like a game of chess. You should always be thinking at least 3 moves ahead.

In this case each "move" should be one month. Therefore you should have been thinking about your Valentines, or February promotions as you fall asleep after your big Turkey dinner.

There are a few reasons why you need to have your promotions figured out that early.

Getting Promo Out Takes Time.

By having it all worked out months in advance you give yourself enough time for logistics. Getting concept down, getting artwork put together, printing, and mailing all have to be done and this can take several weeks from being an idea in your head to being a piece of promo in your customers hands. You are also going to want to have piece in your customers’ hands at least 2 weeks before sale or event.

Get Message Out Multiple Times.

If your company spends $1000 per week on marketing then you could save $1000 per week by not doing any marketing. That is true but it is simple and shortsighted view of situation. However, if revenue generated from that marketing is $1010 you have actually just lost $10 by not doing it.

Most times margin is not that slim. We generally bring in around 10 times what we spend in any given week. That means for every $1000 we spend on marketing we bring in $10,000. If we decided that we were only going to spend half of what we were normally spending we would automatically save half of our budget. That is great but we would likely lose up to half of our weekly sales income. In trying to save half our budget we actually lost 9 times that amount.

It all comes back to your Return On Investment. That’s ROI I am always talking about. If you only make what you spend on your marketing it is not doing its job. The money that you spend on your marketing is your investment. The money you bring in on sales is Return On that Investment. That is why your ROI is most important statistic to consider when trying to divide up your marketing budget. Putting more money into a marketing strategy that has a higher ROI doesn’t cost you more money, it makes you more money. Saving money by lowering your marketing budget doesn’t sound so enticing when you think about it that way. Unfortunately many businesses cut their marketing budget first when trying to stay afloat during slow periods. They are actually hastening their downfall.

You have heard it time and time again, "It takes money to make money." It is as true today as it ever has been. You have a good product or service, you run your business well, only thing that you need is good marketing and that will eventually pay for itself.

Perhaps by now you are convinced that you need to spend some money on promoting your business.

Maybe you are still stopped by big question, "How?" What do you really need to know, and how can you actually make it work?

Let’s start with "Basic Principles" of promotion.

What is Promotion?