Over the years, we have had several articles placed in various publications and the thought process here is it's a good time to revive some of them. It's amazing, the more things change the more they stay the same. Some things, especially regarding advertising, don't change. the names and the concepts may be different but the basic premise remains the same.
HOW EFFECTIVE IS MY ADVERTISING
A question that myself and many other advertising consultants get on a consistent basis. It is a legitimate question but one that is difficult to pinpoint. A lot of business owners and those who handle advertising for businesses THINK their advertising is effective but many times upon further analysis we find that it isn't as good as they thought. WHY? Because many businesses treat it as about as important as trash removal. It really doesn't matter, or so they think, when in fact it certainly does matter. An effective advertising or marketing campaign can make a world of difference. Sometimes that difference between PROFIT and LOSS. As I see the problem in many cases, people don't know about the various ways to advertise or the ins and outs of doing same. I've often heard people say I listen to radio station X so everybody must listen to it. WRONG!!! YOU ARE ONE PERSON, AND SHOULDN'T BE THE BAROMETER for whether one radio station is appropriate to advertise or not. I once had a business owner go back into his shop and ask the employees if they listened to the radio station I was representing. Fortunately, he came back and said they did so he bought from me. Good for me, but as a survey, seriously flawed. The real issue is RESEARCH. You have to look into every advertising medium, whether it be Radio, TV, print, social media, whatever. That should tell you much of what you probably didn't know already. Once you have done the RESEARCH you're a lot better off in making a decision. Now the question becomes HOW to do that RESEARCH. Your best way is to retain someone who knows the business.. This is not intended to make a self fulfilling prophecy but it should point out to all businesses that there is a better way to approach your business advertising needs. In just about every situation where we've met a business owner and reviewed their advertising we have made some changes and couldn't believe how some of their choices prior to hiring us were to be honest...totally ineffective. So when you say HOW EFFECTIVE IS MY ADVERTISING....make sure you have someone in mind like an ad agency or advertising consultant who can help.
Originally printed in the Herald January 2014
MY BEST ADVERTISING IS WORD OF MOUTH
If we've heard that once, we've heard it thousands of times. To which we often reply..."What do you think advertising is?" It's word of mouth on steroids to borrow a phrase. If most businesses had to depend on people telling other people about their business (which I'm sure they do) it may take a long, long time to get the word out. Much of your advertising can potentially talk to thousands in one shot. I have often used a particular morning radio show in my area to promote my client's brand. That particular show has over 500,000 listeners in an average WEEK. Imagine if you could reach that amount of people in one shot. It's possible. For some reason though, one of our biggest challenges as an ad agency is to get people to really understand that concept. Imagine, filling up a football stadium 10 times over. That's about 500,000 people. Wouldn't you like to tell that many people about your business. I'm sure you would. Of course, I gave you an example on the high side. Nevertheless, any amount of people you'd reach with the majority of advertising plans would be far more than you could reach on your own without the benefit of advertising vendors whether it be social media, tv, radio, internet or anything you could think of. Word of mouth, that's advertising!!!!
ORIGINALLY WRITTEN AS PART OF A CHAMBER SEMINAR ON ADVERTISING CIRCA 2016