Should I pay for advertising?

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429 followers

I have been a marketer for nearly 20 years now and I have worked with many business owners, both big and small - so I've seen a lot of good things as well as some not so good things.

Let's talk about the smaller guys now, because a lot of us are just starting our businesses so we are in the small business category. The first reaction I would get from a small business owner is that "advertising is so expensive!" They try to do grass roots advertising like fliers, posters, etc and that can be good up until a point. It is, however very labor intensive and slow to grow your business, if at all. It's sad but some of these little guys never buy into the idea of advertising to the masses and eventually succumb to their lack of experience in promoting their business.

Then we had the small businesses who jumped in whole hog and spent a lot of money on advertising. As a salesperson you would think we'd love these clients, however if not properly monitored and analyzed the spending would often get out of control and their debt was the thing that made them go under. We didn't enjoy watching a client go out of business because of over spending, but usually there were big egos involved (some people just love to be on TV or radio) and it's difficult to tell someone to curb their spending in your media because they'll just take their business across the street anyway.

That was in the old days when there were only traditional types of advertising - TV, Radio, Print. Today we have so many options that the small business owner can bring customers to their doors (or websites) and they can all still be free and very effective at the same time.

One day soon I'll do a training on this subject but for now I will tell you to first focus on building content and bringing value to your reader - because this is your product. You shouldn't be thinking about advertising and opening a store without any product on your shelves so the same goes for your blog. I know we all want to learn about how to put a bunch of affiliate links on our site and get adsense to insert ads, etc but in this case you need to build it before they will come.

As you build your product and create the environment to attract readers, you could promote your blog posts through Facebook and ask family and friends to support you. In the certification courses there is training on social platforms like Pinterest - which is free, Facebook - which is free, Twitter - also free.

In the beginning stages of your business build your following through non-paid, social channels and don't be too quick to spend a bunch of money on your advertising just yet. I could go into return on investment and customer acquisition costs but that's a conversation for another time. Just make sure you are not spending more than you are making, and keep tabs of these numbers to make sure your business remains solvent.

I hope you find this information helpful, please leave me a comment if you can and I look forward to sharing more soon!

Aloha,

Annie T

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Recent Comments

8

Great article Annie

Sounds like good advice. Thanks

Thank you Mary. My hope is that I can help folks avoid the common pitfalls when trying to promote their business. Glad I can help!

Thanks.

Aloha! You are welcome. I hope there are things you can use in my post. Have a great WA day!

Hi, Annie sound advice, there comes a time in any business cycle where advertising will bring benefits, the things about online business is that we can effectively target our client base when we know what we are selling that is.
Like everything research is the key, really like your take on things.

Hey Alex! Thank you for your kind words. I've done a lot and seen a lot so I hope my sharing can help people avoid some common mistakes. Thanks again!

That is what makes WA the place it is the sharing of knowledge and insights, is a hard combination to beat.

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