NeighborWave has a simple strategy for working on your advertising. The same stuff applies even if you don’t hire us. The “you get” of this plan: Direct control of your advertising results. Instead of relying on market research and paid placements, this plan is an acknowledgment that much of the advertising industry delivers unclear results. The muddy market of unsure marketing results is actually a great opportunity for Small Business. Our strategy for your business is about you taking control of your own publishing in your own market and learning to respond to your market quickly. The result is a cost advantage over larger competitors while delivering a better quality response to real prospective customers.
- Focus on using the lowest cost methods first. Your first “Advertisement” should be a website.
- Almost everything about your website can be “Free” but do not use free hosting or “Free” listings. The price you pay for “Free” is usually your time.
- You should have an Edit Button (and probably training). WordPress on your company’s own hosting account is the way to go.
- In the beginning, just start by supplying complete information–don’t sweat anything else. Informational Advertising attracts the search engines and that is how people find you.
- Grow the resources IN Your Business: skills, tools, and confidence–including your employees, software, co-op methods, results tracking. Just grab the resources and bring them into your business.
- Improve your Ad Placement through practice with your website’s real world results. How many people that see a link to your site actually click that link?
- Improve your Ad Messages through practice with your website’s real world results. How many people that visit your site actually buy something.
- Now that you know how to see results, you can think over ways to improve your placements and messages by learning some of the advanced topics of marketing your business. What kind of aspirational customers are a fit for you? Which market segments should you speak to?
- Congratulate yourself and your staff for succeeding in taking control of your advertising.
- Now take what you have learned and create other low cost kinds of advertising: print, direct mail, TV, Radio… once you get the hang of it, it’s kind of like shampooing. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather rinse repeat.
And, yes, absolutely–this is exactly how NeighborWave helps our clients.