Press advertising balanced scorecard indicators

Press advertising means placement of organization's advertisements in press. The press usually includes newspapers (daily national), newspapers local, newspapers local free and magazines.

Advertisements are subdivided into display advertising, semi-display advertising, advertorials, loose inserts and classified advertising. The choice of media, type of advertisement, its position, size, frequency and etc., largely depends upon the objectives of the advertising campaign. Press advertising is often used in pull and profile strategies and is characterized by medium targeting, very low cost per contact, fast speed of response, low percentage of response and high response volume that makes it a perfect tool if a company needs to raise awareness, generate leads, boost store traffic or direct sales and support other promotional activities.

There are quite a number of indicators that help to measure press advertising activities, for example, CPT (cost per thousand), reach, frequency, awareness, SOV (share of voice) and others. However, they differ in relevance and application. As to application, the indicators may be subdivided into those required at planning stage, those required for control and those that can be used at the both stages.

Thus, with regard to planning there should be mentioned CPT (cost per thousand), SOV (share of voice), reach, frequency and OTS (opportunity to see). These indicators allow for budgeting, campaign planning and cross-comparison across different media types and media vehicles. They may be used independently, though complex approach yields better results. The data for their calculations is usually easily obtained. For example, most of the media make researches of their readership and provide the customers with their results. This information makes the calculation of reach and CPT an easy task. SOV, even for competitors, may be calculated in-house as well or it may be outsourced to the specialized agency. In either case the main decision-making factors are budget and degree of precision. The calculations are also relatively easy and do not require a lot of expertise. As to the relevance, the most relevant for press advertising campaign planning are reach and frequency that create the necessary OTS and define the

budget. CPC and SOV may be regarded as additional indicators: CPC for media choice, SOV for budget decisions.

Among the indicators used at the stage of control there are Awareness Growth, Cost pr ad /Sv (cost of press advertising to sales volume ratio), Cost pr ad /Sn (cost of press advertising to sales number ratio), CPC/GI (Cost per contact to Growth in inquiries %) and all indicators with internal perspective that allow for control over activities of advertising and marketing departments. The control procedures over advertising campaign in press always present a certain issue, largely because sales and revenues are not directly related to advertising. The advertising in press directly influences awareness, knowledge, perception etc. that, as a rule, can be measured with a help of specialized research. However, the above-mentioned indicators reveal trends and therefore may be considered as additional means of control, especially when direct means are somehow unavailable. Most of the information can be obtained within the organization and the calculations are not difficult as well.

The indicators that could be used at both stages are those connected with awareness, SOV and other measures where input and output values are important for advertising campaign evaluation and market trends analysis.