This is a question almost all business owners are always asking themselves. And sadly the answer is yes and no. At the risk of sounding like a politician, there is no cut and dry answer.

Why, because there are many measures of success. And this goes back to my Advertising 101 Article previous to this post.

You see, before you can say it was successful, you have to know what you are trying to do. For instance, if you are trying to simply drive traffic to a website, this is one measure. If you are trying to create sales, this is another measure, if you are trying to create brand or name recognition yet another. If trying to generate contacts or conversions or eCommerce business, all of these are separate measures.  

I can tell you, that not all are the same, and certainly expecting Amazon or Ebay results are probably foolish in design.

The typical business wants to increase sales through advertising, thus getting people to your site, that don't convert into a contact or a sale, does not meet your needs.

Having owned a business that hosted hundreds of thousands of Websites in the past, I can share some tips to improve what is known as conversions, (contact to your business)

1. Design of your website. You must put calls to action on as many pages as possible, don't rely on a solo contact page. Offer something to get them to contact you. In addition, many sales questions are going to be answered by your website, without the benefit of being able to explain why you are better in person. So make the site dynamic and answer those most common questions. Add credibility, longevity, quality and price points if applicable.

2. People are very specific in searches, so having someone search for a specific item and land on a page that is general in nature is a sure way to get them to leave the site and look at the next one in the search. For example, someone who needs brakes and searches "brake repair in my area" and sees for instance a Firestone ad at the top, then clicks and gets the main page which talks about tires, is a waste of money. They want brakes, they need to land on a page that talks about brakes only. These are called landing pages and should be attached to any ad words you buy that are specific. The conversion rate will rise by 300% or more if they land on a specific page to their search.

3. SEO or organic search comes down to how many credible links from credible companies you have on your page. Most successful organic SEO websites have hundreds if not thousand of these. Make affiliations with companies like Amazon and Ebay and Google right on your page. Also keywords are important, but they do not come close to links. Add your verticals association links, vendors links, manufacturers links. And you will climb the free search ladder.

But remember, before buying Ad Word, building Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn pages, know your goal. What do you want all of these to do for you and design these pages to that end.

​Having been in the advertising world for over 26 years both as a provider of services as well as a customer,  I have decided to write a series aimed at the purchaser of advertising, with the hopes of helping them be more effective at advertising their unique business offerings.
In my career I have owned and operated publishing companies from Yellow Pages to Magazines, Direct Mail companies, Web Building and Hosting companies, ad agencies, an ad monitoring company and an SEO and Ad Word company.
But more importantly I have purchased millions of dollars of advertising in just about every medium available to promote my own businesses.
So I can give you the perspective of both the provider of advertising and the consumer of advertising.
Thus is this series I am going to provide my insight on how to begin the advertising process to how to use each medium to your best advantage.
Today we are starting with the basics. What to do before you make that advertising purchase. How to avoid mistakes, in advertising that can be costly and ineffective.
So let us begin with the basics you need to decide before moving forward with your marketing and advertising campaign.
Take some quiet planning time and sit down and ask yourself and then answer, the following:
 

1. Who is my customer? And this question has many legs. Is my customer driven by demographic, such as age or income, by status such as homeowner or renter, local, regional or national? Are they gender based? The idea is to identify who you are trying to reach? Once you know the answer to this you can ask the right questions of the representative of the medium you are using. But the basic question will be, will this medium reach the targeted customer I am after.
2. Is there a list I can buy that gives me access to the specific target I am after? Research this, if yes, this may prove invaluable.
3. Do I have in place the people and systems to service new customers once my advertising brings them in? Keep in mind, the advertising is designed to get them in; it is your responsibility to make them want to come back. Simple things like who greets them initially are often left to chance. I once owned a call monitoring business that recorded all calls from advertising vehicles, and when I listened to these call for my clients, it amazed me how unprepared the person answering the phone was to entice the customer to follow through with a sales visit. In many cases the lowest paid and least trained person in the company was the first contact, costing the business untold sales opportunities. Do you have a follow up system in place to make second calls? Are you prepared for a spike in volume so as not to chase away the business?
4. How much do I have to invest in advertising? Believe me all advertising works if you are willing to commit enough dollars into enough frequency. But this is the challenge. The cost may be prohibitive, but buying advertising that you do not commit enough dollars and frequency into is one of the biggest mistakes businesses make. Buying one ad in the newspaper is a waste of money; you need about 20 of them in successive weeks to make an impact. Buying one radio spot is again a waste; it has to be heard 27 times to be remembered. Buying SEO or Ad Words and sending people to a website that is not set up to convert them to a contact, is foolish. Traffic to a site is not the intention, conversions to sales is. But that will be a whole blog in the series.
5. What is my message, is it value, is it superior service or product. Know what it is you want to sell before nilly willy creating ad copy.
6. Who is my competition and what are they offering in their ads. Do I have to compete with the offer, how am I different? What advertising vehicles are they using?
7. What do you read, listen to personally or pay attention to the advertising in, in your local area. Your customers are not likely different than you.
8. What is a new customer worth to me? This is such an important piece of information. Some examples: An Oil Change service will change the oil of a car about 4 times a year; their typical customer will own two cars. So how much is the oil change times four times two and that is what a customer is worth? One new customer generated by your advertising that you convert to a repeat and loyal customer is worth about $300 a year. How many do you have to get to make the advertising worth the investment? You could go further and determine your cost to provide that $300 of service and calculate the profit and use that as the number to measure the return on investment.
   1. This works with any business, take a restaurant. How much is the average ticket, how many times a month does a regular customer visit, do they come alone or with friends. Figure all this out and you know what a new customer is worth to you in terms of either revenue or profit. In this case, if the average ticket is $10 and they come twice a month and bring one friend each time, that customer is worth about $480 per year, now how many years will they be customers, all generated from that advertising.
   2. A dentist as another example, the average new patient is worth almost $3,000 a year.
   3. An Insurance agent’s new customer is worth about $75,000 over the life of the relationship.

You get the point, before you buy advertising, ask yourself these questions and then research which medium will be most likely to return the largest number of new customers and the lowest cost per to acquire.
 
Written by Anthony Wunsh
President
Welcome Marketing, Inc
Distributor of Town Hall Guide
630-756-3131
[email protected]

​ Regardless of budget, preference, mistrust, disbelief or just plain stubbornness, you must advertise your business.
Why you ask? I am glad you did!
Every business loses up to 20% of its customer base each year, no matter what; these are lost customers which must be replaced.
But where do they go, why do they leave and what happens if you don’t replace them with new customers?
Well some of it is out of your control, some of it is directly contributed to you and your people and some is nature.
 
Here are the top five reasons you are losing your customer base each year.

1. They move away. Every community turns over 20% of its residents each year. Ten percent moving in and ten percent moving out. The average community turns over 100% every five years. And the average home owner owns their home for seven years or less. Once they move they have to find new local businesses that want to do business with. This is a high value, highly targeted advertising opportunity to get new customers and make them repeat and loyal customers without having to try and take them from your competition. They are looking for the services you provide. By definition they are the easiest and many times the lowest cost to reach.
2. They die. Sadly there is not much you can do about this, people die.
3. They are upset at something your business or your people either did or did not do for them or with them and they are angry and looking to use someone else.
4. They are influenced by others advertising.
5. They are looking for bargains and moving to coupon or discount shopping habits regardless of service history.

Altogether this adds up to over 20% of your customer base each year. And don’t take my word for it, do your own research.
So even to stay level in revenue you must find a way to attract t least 20% of new business or new customers or new revenue each year just to not lose business.
 
And advertising your business is the only way to do this.
 
Advertising takes many forms from creative advertising, which tries to keep you in top of mind for when they need or want your service, to directional which tells them how to get in touch with you when they do need your service, to motivational which drives them to take action now to use your service. And there are mediums and advertising vehicles that fill all of these, some of these or one of these. You have to first decide what you are trying to accomplish before choosing how to advertise.
 
Advertising has many faces as well, especially in today’s world. You can use word of mouth, you can go digital, using social media and web based service like SEO and Ad Words for search results, you can use Television and Radio, you can use print, you can use direct mail, you could print novelties like pencils and pens and pass them out or door hangers and pass them out.
And to be honest all of them will work to some degree if you commit enough money for enough frequency and consistency in the message. But choosing the right one for your business which brings in the most potential business for the lowest cost is always the challenge.
One of the fastest growing most cost efficient ways to reach high value prospective customers who are in the market for your services, is our Town Hall Guide. We find new movers, and we get you noticed by people just moving into your community who must find your services and establish new relationships with the businesses in that community.
 
In the end advertising of some kind is a necessity, because the last thing you want to do is advertise your business for sale or going out of business because you didn’t replace those customers who leave by osmosis each year.