It really doesn't matter what type of marketing you're doing, because all of them will use this same basic formula. I'll use flyer printing in this example.



First, you do your research. The exact nature of this research will change depending on what you're doing to be focusing on. With postcards the research will deal more with getting a strong mailing list, with posters about finding prime locations to put them, and with flyer printing you might go for the best areas to hand them out or put them up.

With these flyers you'll also decide what the focus needs to be. What is it that your customers are looking for? Decide that and have it be the emphasis of your flyers. The designs will also be based on what your customers like and don't like. Use previous examples to find a good design you can use to connect with your customers the most.

After the design is finished figure out how you're going to get this to them. With flyers you have a variety of different forms of distributions to go for, while other types of advertising won't give you that same level of variety.

I would also include in this research details about what all of the costs are going to be against what your budget will be. You might want to set a firm amount that is your goal and be sure you don't go too far over it. This is particularly important when dealing with the size of the audience you're hoping to go for. You might end up pouring so much money into the designing that you can't afford to get as many printed as you were intending to.

Once all of this research is done you'll move onto actually designing your flyers. All of the information you gathered can now be put to good use to create something that will best appeal to those you're focusing on.

After this is finished move onto the technical details. Set up the actual printing along with the details of who is going to hand your flyers to people or what stores will place your flyers on their bulletin boards.

I'm sure you'll notice that by far the biggest part of this has been the research done ahead of time. You can, of course, get to work on the actual advertisements before all of this information is gained, but you risk having to make quick and expensive changes to things if your information is counter to what you were expecting.

The best way to ensure success is with a strong research push well before your marketing needs to be taken care of. That way you'll be able to head off all future problems before they pop up.