Is your Small Business Advertising Getting to

Potential Customers?

Print advertising is not cheap and the costs add up quickly for small businesses. I took these photos on a walk this morning near my house as they represent wasted advertising spend for all those businesses with an ad in that paper. These are papers that are never going to be read by anyone and such is the perceived value to the residents that they haven‟t even bothered to pick them up. Rather they just drive over them. The last paper run here at Redcliffe/Scarborough was two days ago.

Unread newspapers - marketing dollars wasted

„Wastage‟ is something that you need to factor into any of your marketing spend. How many people of the touted 200,000 readership a given paper/magazine are going to notice your ad and of those how many are actually interested in your product or service any way?

Once the paper has been printed or the radio ad aired then its marketing value is gone. No matter how little enquiry it drives - your money has been spent.

Where internet marketing can really shine for small businesses is that when your ad is viewed or website is visited, the person is already interested in what you have to offer.

Money spent on search engine optimisation has a lasting value. The whole purpose is to get your website within the first few results of the search engines so that you can get in front of the people searching for your product or service. Unlike print or radio once spent the investment keeps returning value week after week and becomes an asset to your business.

Some very unread newspapers

Another approach is paid advertising on search engines. Google Adwords accounts cost $10 to activate and within minutes your ads can start appearing when people search for a keyword or phrase that you set up. “redcliffe mechanic” for example. This provides a very focused audience who are already looking to buy rather than a shoot and hope approach by throwing your message out to random people.

With Google Adwords your small business is only charged when someone clicks through on the ad and visits your website, not for all the times that the ad appears. You only pay for results.

It also means that your paid ad doesn‟t end up rotting on the side of the road, unread and unloved.

www.redcliffemarketinglabs.com.au