STOP ADVERTISING? ARE YOU SURE?
I do not mean completely stop advertising, that might be a bit extreme! What I mean is stop all of the advertising that you are doing that you are not 100% convinced is really working for you, and spend the money you save on some of the other forms of marketing that are available to you.
We all get in a rut with our advertising and we just seem to advertise in the same places without really knowing whether it is working or not. We also tend to advertise in the places where it is easiest to advertise, we have the Yellow Pages guys coming to see us expecting us to advertise and we have the people from the local paper ringing us up expecting us to advertise with them etc.
Because these people are knocking on our doors these tend to be the places where most people advertise, because it is easier and they are telling us that our competitors are doing it, so we do not want to miss out.
A lot of businesses do not have a website and they do not use direct mail to market their businesses etc. This is because we do not have a website man or a direct mail man knocking on our door every year, the problem is that you will not know whether a website or direct mail campaign is any good or not until you give it a go.
The important thing here is that unless you test and measure the results of these new forms of marketing, you never know if there could be dozens of new customers waiting for you and they have not heard of you because you are not marketing or advertising in particular places or in certain publications.
There are many other options available to you where you could be marketing or advertising your business including; Websites, Online Directories, Online Banner ads, Direct Mail, Newspapers or Trade Magazines, Radio, Yellow Pages / Local Directories, Parish Magazines etc.
Many business owners advertise in specific places or publications because their competitors are doing it, this is not the reason to advertise, you must test all your advertising to find out if it is working, by doing this you will maximise the money you spend on your marketing.
