Many people have the perception that advertising is about building a brand. General thinking is that if you have a great product then all you have to do is get your name out there, and people will buy your product. Many adverts have the company name, show a few features of the product and maybe provide contact details. But that's where it ends. There is no call to action. If you think about it, that characterizes most of the adverts that you see out there. This type of advertising is fine if you are a large corporate with lots of money. But smaller businesses don't have that luxury. Your advertising needs to work for you.
How to Make Every Cent Count
In business people often learn how to create great products and how to perfect their service levels. There is a lot of emphasis on systems and management. Now these are all good things, but if you want your business to grow you have to learn how to market it better. Generic brand building advertising requires a lot of exposure. People need to see your advert and brand name repeatedly before they may consider purchasing your product. This strategy requires you to spend a lot of money initially without seeing any kind of return. Most small or medium sized business can't afford that type of strategy; you need every cent you spend on advertising to work for you and bring your new business. The only way you can achieve this is to be very smart and focussed in your efforts. Here are some tips:
Know how your clients find you. It's simple to ask: "Where did you hear about us?" or "Did someone refer you to us?" You may think your clients find you in the yellow pages but actually someone mentioned your name and they've simply looked your number up in the yellow pages. When you know where your clients are looking for you, you can focus your efforts in that area.Know the lifetime value of your customers. In this way you can calculate if your advertising is working for you. If, for example, an advert costs you £1,000 a month and your average customer spends £200 with you, then you know you need to get at least five new customers from that advert every month.
Test and monitor your adverts. Before committing a large budget to a project, test the advert on a smaller scale. An advert may bring you lots of enquiries, but it may not bring you any sales. You won't know this unless you carefully monitor your adverts and the amount of sales they bring in directly. A lot of the time it is trial and error, so experiment with different types of adverts and mediums.
Have a clear call to action. Your advert shouldn't just tell people about your products or services, it should make them want to buy them. Work on communicating your sales message and making an irresistible offer to your customers. This way, when they see the advert, they want to buy from you.
If you are using referral programs and customer incentives, then you are already ahead in the marketing game. Adverts certainly have their place and can attract new customers. But small businesses especially need to carefully consider what advertising mediums will work best. Most important, keep a strong focus on the outcomes you want to achieve. That will ensure that you make wise investments in adverts that work for you.
Melina Abbott helps small business owners get new customers and more sales. You can download her popular free bulletin - How to Attract New Customers in 7 Easy Steps - at http://www.businessbyresults.com/free-marketing-resource/
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