Most small businesses are targeted by ‘the advertising mafia’ because they are a good source of quick revenue for large advertising companies such as newspapers, magazines, radio and even TV in some cases.
There is a sales pitch which I have heard so often, both from my own telephone and from my clients. It goes along the lines of:-
Advertising Salesperson “Good Morning Mrs X. How are you today? (they are not really interested in the answer and rarely give you chance to offer the reply)
Advertising Salesperson “We need to get your adverts booked as the space is looking full and I want you to get the best position at the best price”
Business Owner “I don’t think I want to advertise this month, I don’t think I got any returns from last month’s adverts”
Advertising Salesperson “That’s why you HAVE to advertise this month, you see people have to keep seeing your advert before they buy, so if you advertise for another 2 or 3 editions, the sales will start pouring in”
Business Owner “I cant afford to place ads for 2 or 3 more months, I need to get some revenue now so I am thinking of doing other forms of advertising”
Advertising Salesperson “ NO NO NO, that’s the wrong thing to do. We can put you in a really prominent position and I can do 3 for the price of 2 if you go up a size bigger.”
Business Owner “Do you really think that will help my business?”
Advertising Salesperson “Absolutely. People will see you constantly advertising and know that you are there, then they will start buying” So I will put you on the left hand side with all the other people advertising the similar products to you. You will get noticed if you add a splash of colour, thats only £60 more and has great benefit.”
Business Owner “I am not sure that I can afford that”
Advertising Salesperson “Well if you don’t continue to advertise where people have seen you before you may go out of business”
Business Owner “Ok I will take your offer and thank you for helping me”
Does this resonate with you in any way? It is a fairly strong sales pitch, but pretty much along the lines of what I have encountered, many times. Although I am not saying that everyone in advertising is like this, I am merely pointing out some experiences and I know that there are some really caring people who sell advertising.
Firstly, if you have advertised and you don’t know if you are getting any results, then you are not measuring and you HAVE to measure your results or how will you know what is working.
Secondly, people do not need to see your advert dozens of times before they buy. If they are suffering the pain and you have the solution, they will buy if you offer the right solution to fit their needs, they may need more information but if you qualify for being the provider of the cure for their problem, it won’t matter how many times you advertise, they are looking at you when they need you.
Yes, you do need to let people know you are here, you do need to educate people to your existence and your superb product or service, but you only do that where you get results. If you cant measure, you will be wasting lots of money.
Fact, most advertising does not work. There are many ways of marketing, which is different to advertising. Marketing is about creating strategies and planning to implement those strategies effectively. Building and maintaining relationships with potential, past or current customers. This results in adding value to parties, the customer and the marketer.
If all you do is say ‘Hey I am here, my business does xyz, come and buy” you are not going to build satisfying relationships that turn into value for both parties. People buy when they trust, and you can build that easily if you have the right strategy and work on implementing several streams of marketing.
Don’t feel pressured into placing adverts where they are wasting your precious money. Look at alternatives, and some very inexpensive and often free methods such as
Social Media
Article marketing
Referrals
Networking
PPC (Pay per click such as Google Ads)
PR
Direct mail (including Postcards, lumpy mail and traditional leaflets)
Exhibitions
Events
Seminars (either live or teleseminar)
If you are one of the 70% of businesses that do not know if their advertising is working, my suggestion is to Stop it or Pause it until you can put in place some measurement metrics.
There is a truly fitting statement I believe in ‘If it ain’t working, STOP it.’
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