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Advertising your business today is nowhere near the same as it was 10 years ago, much less 5 years ago. We have so many new ways to reach our customers, and spark their interest in our businesses, that sometimes it can become overwhelming to both the customers, as well as to the business owner. Which type of advertising is right for your business? Newspaper? Magazine? Radio? Internet? Direct Mail?
Chances are good that if you have ever advertised your business that you have reviewed many different types of advertising, and probably have tried at least two or more of the most popular choices. You may have even tried all of them, hopefully with great success from at least one of them. The challenge is finding which method works the best for your business, while not spending a fortune doing it. Each of the most popular types of advertising has its pros and cons, like anything, and some will work better for your business than others will.
The newspaper, in print at least, is slowly becoming a thing of the past. If it weren't for the coupons, comics,and crossword puzzles, I am not sure that newspapers would even have half the subscribers they do. But since we live in the age of the internet, newspapers have evolved to the internet and electronic formats for those of us on the go. Newspapers, just like most everything else in news gain a large chunk of their revenue from print ads. Quite frequently, when you place an ad in the paper, that ad will carry over to the newspaper's online presence as well. This of course may cost you a bit more, but will certainly gain you a larger audience.
Magazines are a little different, in that they usually are only published once a month and their ads are usually for high dollar full page spreads from large companies. But if you've ever read the back pages of a magazine, you'll still find a few pages of small advertisements for small businesses of all types. This can be a great place to advertise if you have a product that would be geared toward a specific group of people, like say a fancy new singles dating website would be advertised in a young men's magazine. These ads would be in every magazine published across the country. Imagine the possibilities!
The radio of course is a local only advertising avenue, which is excellent for a small business which is not able to cater to a national market. Maybe you're an attorney who specializes in personal injury. Advertising in the local area will certainly gain you a large volume of listeners who may need your services. The ads will usually run several times a day, and most often you can pay for a specific time slot - maybe you as the personal injury attorney would pay for a slot during rush hour.
We all know the internet is where it is at these days. There are many ways to advertise online, however the most popular is usually with keyword pay per click services, such as Google. With a service from Google, you are able to see not just how much money you've spent on clicks, and where those clicks are coming from. It can take some time to be able to tailor your click campaign to the right phrases or key words, but in all, this is a great way to gain tons of traffic in a short time to your web site. If you get 100 hits, you ought to expect that least 5% of those will be new customers, provided you've chosen your keywords properly.
Direct mail, while it seems to also be making its way out, is always a great way of advertising still. You are able to choose your market yourself, and mail your enticing deals and offers directly to the people you'd like to see as customers. While this method can be quite costly, when you consider the cost of the actual mailings and the ever increasing cost of postage, it can also be a great way to introduce your product to your community.
The main point is that with the vast majority of businesses in the area are all competing against each other you have to be able to be creative in your marketing campaigns. Engaging your customers by telling them about something interesting within your business, and giving them a reason to want to check you out further is the only thing that your marketing campaign needs to focus on, no matter what avenue you've chosen.
Carmella Martinez
LowKeyMedia Marketing Team
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