Larry the Ad Man's Blog

I hope you learn from my small business marketing and advertising tips.

"Advertising is to trade what Steam is to machinery" Thomas Cook.
It was an honor to be nominated for 2011 Canadian Weblog Awards.


Sunday, November 6, 2011

One ad in one medium will not work for you!

When starting out in business many new business owners fail to budget and strategize their business advertising during the planning process. Then, once up and running, they have no time to sit down and put together an advertising plan, because they are the chief cook and bottle washer, trying to master all other aspects of the business. As such, when an advertising rep like me, comes in and speaks to them about advertising, they have little time for me and even less to produce a good ad.

An ad rep can only do so much. I do NOT know your customers and what makes them frequent your business. I don't know your product as well as you do and know your overall customer service and in store them you may wish to convey. Yet, the advertisers who place one ad with me, will invariably say, "It didn't work". Like somehow the medium has failed. You couldn't be more wrong and short sighted. Many factors go into responding to an ad, the first of which is how many impressions you have of the business. If I offered you a free ad and said in the ad, all products are free this week, do you think you might get a response? If your answer is yes, then the message, not the medium is to blame.

And be prepared to answer the question to yourself, what is my expectation? When I spend $65 on a display ad in a community newsletter, am I expecting a flood of people walking in the door stating "I saw your ad in the newsletter"? Keep the bar of expectation low for one ad. Your goal should be over a time period like 6 months or a year. It should also be clear to you and your ad rep. what your goal is, so that ads are designed in such a way that goal can be reached. It should also be combined with other media to convey the message more strongly. That includes your signage, brochures, and other in house marketing pieces. In Marketing, remember Synergy. The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts.

It has been a rare day in the last 3 and a half years, that a client has raved about the response from one ad. I can only think of one. But there have been many lamenting " It didn't work for us" and once they convince themselves it is the medium, there is no convincing them otherwise. So is it the medium or the message? What do you think? Until next time, I'm Larry "The Ad Man".

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing, well they're a lot of benefits of Advertising because through this media business promote easily.well !
    Newspaper advertising is one of the most common ways to advertise in many countries. Radio advertising is based on the idea of creating an audio-only environment and placing the listener inside of it.

    http://www.mcaads.com

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