How important is cost effective advertising for small business?
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 at
10:29 pm
Thankyou!
what should the return be for example
Tagged with: Advertising • Business • Cost • Effective • Important • Small
Filed under: Small Business Advertising
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every penny counts! Everything must be cost effective
Cost effective advertising is not just for small businesses. Even big businesses need to have good Return on Investment (ROI) on their advertising spending. But this is more acute for small business because of limited funds
Depends on a lot of other factors. What is more important – the cost effectiveness, or the impact of your advertising. When you are running a small business – cash flow is king. So if you can hedge your bets on some inexpensive advertising or promotion that generates quick business…then you can spend more on advertising and promotion. But be careful to not generate more business than you can handle.
Do not discount the benefits of word of mouth advertising or referrals. If you can design a program to encourage word of mouth (reward referrals) then you will let you current customers do a lot of advertising for you.
Another option…depending on your business is trade. I do some marketing for a massage therapist…so I get massages. We both benefit.
It is critical because advertising is expensive in any venue it is purchased and if it is not effective, that is it doesn’t drive customers to your door, customer who buy something, it is a loss most small businesses cannot absorb.
New businesses cannot afford to run market placement ads and the like because these may remind the public you are there, but they do not generate traffic and they are very expensive for the return they offer.
No on watching the evening news is going to buy a $20,000,000 jet engine for General Electric, but they advertise their product anyway. Why? Your local utilities do too. Who else can you use? For these large companies, such nonsensical advertising represents their aligning their market in the eyes of the public. This is what we do, who we are, and why we do it. They may even run the ads with the idea of getting new investors on board. They are also used to affect public or political opinion about the company.
Since a small business is not going to be a publicly traded company, don’t let your ego get the best of you and start running ads like these.
Find out what works. You can usually negotiate a deal with the advertiser to try their medium at a discounted price before you buy real time or space. Once you find out what reaches your market, stick with it and be consistent.
Best of luck!