The Perils Of A Big-Hitting Strategy

Many companies who are looking to make themselves more prominent in the public eye will go for a big-hitting strategy. Although it is expensive and maybe a risky strategy, they will buy TV time and record an advertisement to be shown on a local or regional station. Alternatively they may take out a full page ad in a newspaper or place short, repeated ads on the radio. By spending maybe more than they should, they hope to pull in customers.

The problem with this approach is that no matter how much you spend, you cannot guarantee success. It is very hard to predict the future with any sort of accuracy and, if you place advertising on national TV (on a certain station), you can never be sure that something will not happen between the placing of your advertisement and the time it is meant to run, causing everyone to watch the other side and losing you that marketing punch. It may be unlikely but you cannot guard against it, and it shows the perils of putting all your eggs in one basket.

If you want to bring in customers, history shows that you need to build attention from the ground up. As you get more attention, it gets easier to increase your pull. Doing this gradually rather than going for it all in one hit is the way to go. When you can afford to place TV advertising, go for it – but as a gamble it just doesn’t represent odds that are worth taking.