When you look at your advertising plan in the fourth quarter, you might realize you didn’t plan as well as you should have. Maybe you failed to use your entire budget, maybe the promotions you planned never happened, or maybe you got off schedule. Don’t despair. Sometimes year-end advertising and planning can provide great returns.

Even if your marketing had great success and you saw huge sales profits, it might be prudent to keep the accelerator down on the deductible ad spend through the end of the year.

After over 30 years working in both media selling and buying, I’ve learned a few tricks for milking those last few dollars from your annual budget. Here are some of the best ones.

Don’t leave money on the table

1. Do you carry products offering co-op programs that expire on Dec. 31? Make sure you use all co-op funds that are available to you. Most will not carry over to the next year, and will be lost forever.
2. Have a product you thought would be a top seller, but turned out to be a dog? Still overstocked with last year’s model? Promote a special year-end price on it.
3. Do you sell products to other businesses – machinery, software, furniture? Make a year-end marketing push to promote section 179 depreciation. This use-it-or-lose-it program allows businesses to write off 100 percent of equipment costs as long as the equipment is in service by Dec. 31.