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The 3 Easiest Ways To Waste Your Small Business Advertising Budget.

By: Susan

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When it comes to small business advertising, you would be surprised at how much wasted money is being spent by the majority of owners. This really comes down to not knowing what effective marketing is. When you start a business, more then likely, you really don't have a clue about how to promote your business. You know how to do what your business offers. Well, let me give you a hand and show you three of the easiest ways to lose your advertising budget.

1. Newspaper Ads

Buying a large chunk in the newspaper is one of the quickest and simplest ways to say good-bye to thousands of dollars. The larger ads usually cost upwards of a couple grand and depending on your product or service could bring you back about 1/10 of that. Ladies and gentlemen¦that is not smart marketing. Remember, we are going for a high return on investment (ROI).

Now, I'm not saying newspaper ads can't be effective in some scenarios, but how much do you really know about copy writing and triggering your customers emotions? I bet most of you haven't studied this for years like I have. Even to this day, I shy away from any newspaper ads just because even with the best copy written, you more then likely are not going to see a very good return.

Newspapers are going out of fashion these days too. The population is becoming technologically aware. They are using MSN and online resources to get their daily news. So, stop your newspaper ads right now and spend those budget dollars in a more effective area.

2. Yellow Page Ads

Pretty much the same scenario as newspaper ads. I believe they are about twice as effective as newspapers because our older generations still use the phone book to find things they are looking for. The ROI still sucks from YP ads though. This should tell you how bad newspaper ads are, haha.

As a business owner, I'm sure you've had a conversation with a yellow page salesman who tells you to spend your small business advertising budget on their largest option¦.wrong! They push you on branding your company and the more exposure the better¦.wrong! You aren't a large company like Starbucks or McDonalds. Your brand symbol or saying isn't going to benefit from wide range exposure. You need focused and targeted exposure. Yes, you need to brand your small business but not worldwide. I'm drifting from the subject of yellow page ads here, but I think you get the point. It's wasted money in most cases.

3. Fliers and doorhangers

Okay, these things can be highly effective, but like the above two scenarios, you must have great copy to get any effect from these. Here is one example from an old client of mine whose budget on small business advertising was wasted.

I asked to take a look at his marketing materials to see what he was throwing out there to get noticed. I was handed a single page brochure that was printed on his office copy machine. On this brochure, he had the name of his company, a photo of his office building, and a street number. At the bottom, he had in big letters “ Value, Service, Quality. That was it. Nothing else.

Now if I cover up the company name at the top, what does this brochure do for his company? Not a damn thing. What's it telling the reader? What's his business offer? How is that picture going to make a reader want to buy from him instead of his competitors. It could be one of his competitors fliers for all they knew.

This flier was communicating nothing. Now, how to fix it? Some quick changes that showed the readers how he was different from the competitors and also what he could offer them if they chose his business caused that simple flier to have a much larger ROI for his business.

These are just 3 examples of how you could be wasting your small business advertising budget everyday. Always market your business using techniques and methods that can be tracked. This way you can tweak and improve to increase the amount of money you get back. Very very important stuff!

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

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