Advertising Basics for Business 1
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Reprinted with permission from Janet Attard* Copyright 2004. All rights reserved.
Advertising Basics
If you ask a dozen small business owners about the value of traditional advertising, you are likely to get a dozen different answers. The owner of the limousine service will tell you he couldn't stay in business if he didn't run ads in the local papers; the person who runs the resume service may tell you newspaper ads don't bring many responses but advertising in the Yellow Pages does. One computer programmer may tell you paid advertising is a waste of money, while another will tell you the ads she placed in trade magazines allowed her to expand her business from a little homebased operation to a company that now employs twenty-five people.
What businesses should use paid advertising?
You should consider using paid advertising if you sell products or services that you can market to people with very specific interests (for instance, all hobbyists who have an interest in decorative painting); need little explaining; must be sold to many customers to be profitable; or are traditionally advertised in newspapers, weekly shoppers, the Yellow Pages, the Internet or on TV or radio.
Are there any businesses that shouldn't use paid advertising?
Paid advertising may not be a good use of your money if you can only work for one or two customers at a time, if you are a consultant, if you sell creative services like writing or custom design, if your product or service needs a lot of explaining, or if no one else in your line of work advertises. In these cases the only type of paid advertising that might be worth considering would be ads or listings in trade directories or specialized trade publications.
Is there any good way to determine whether or not I should advertise?
One yardstick is whether or not your competition advertises. If the competition advertises, you probably should, too. And, you should advertise in the same publications the competition uses since your customers will expect to look in those publications for ads for your type of product.
Where should I put paid advertising?
There are numerous places you could advertise your products or service. You need to determine which places will help you reach the most number of likely buyers at the lowest cost. Among the places you may want to consider are:
- Regular or classified advertisements in daily newspapers, newsstand magazines, and weekly newspapers
- Ads in "weekly shoppers." These publications consist of almost all advertising and have little or no editorial content. They may be mailed or tossed on driveways or stoops and contain ads for plumbers, garage sales, hair salons, tire dealers, etc.
- Regular or classified advertisements in trade publications or special-interest publications
- Listings or advertisements in the Yellow Pages
- Listings or ads in trade directories
- Ads in card decks, which are ads printed on index-sized cards and mailed to subscribers of certain magazines or people who are known to buy a certain type of product or service through the mail
- Radio ads
- Network and cable TV ads
- Inserts in weekly papers or shoppers
- Classified advertising sections of web sites
- Text ads and sponsorships of Internet mailing lists
- Banner ads on targeted web sites
- Pay per click ads in Internet search engines
- Ads on the back of theater programs or church bulletins
- Coupon books or envelopes mailed to homeowners by a local mail service
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