Finding the advertising strategy which works best for your business is a lot tougher than it might appear at first. There are plenty of ways of wasting your time when you try to do this. Here are a few of the most common ones to avoid which you should be aware of.
Choosing the Wrong Target Markets
If you don’t already have a clear idea in your head of who your target market is then this is something that you need to do before you go ahead and spend money on marketing. For example, there are different groups of people who listen to the radio, use the internet and read newspapers. It would be nice to be able to reach out to every single person in the area but this simply isn’t possible for all but the biggest of businesses. Instead, you should think about who you want to get your message across to and then work out how to do it.
Using Signs That Don’t Last
The signs you use to display your name, your logo and your offers is going to be one of your biggest tools in attracting customers. For this reason, you don’t want to use one which isn’t going to last. These aren’t particularly expensive to buy but it can be a real hassle if you have one which gets blown away, is stolen or simply looks old and tattered after a while. The likes of modern lockable notice boards are a smart idea for keeping the information you present good looking and safe for a long time. You can open them up to change the details held in your notice board on a regular basis so that you always have something up to date and relevant in there. A good quality lockable notice board will look good for a long time and will make sure that your business is visible to more people.
Not Choosing Your Battles Carefully
One of the key principles of marketing a small business is that of choosing your battles wisely. You won’t want to waste time, money and energy by going up against rivals with far more resources than you and you won’t want to see your confidence dented by doing this either. Ideally you will dedicate all of your marketing resources to the battles you can win in order to grow the business in a sustainable way. If you do this then you should feel comfortable about spending money on marketing because you know that it is going to give you positive results.
Using the Wrong Words
Of course, when you are trying to entice potential customers to buy from you then one of the keys is in using the right words. You could put up giant posters all over town and spend a fortune on lengthy TV adverts but if you don’t focus your efforts on saying the right things then you won’t have the impact you want to have. To do this right we need to go back to the first point we have looked at here and make sure that we know who our target market is. Once you know who they are and how you will choose to reach out to them, then the next step is to choose the words which will turn them into customers who help you earn more revenue. This is the part where you might want to get a marketing expert to help you out, although if you are happy to give it a go yourself then you will want to start off slowly instead of committing too much of your time and budget to doing this until you are more confident.
About the Author: Chris Hoole is a writer who realises the importance of understanding your target market and of using good quality lockable notice boards when running your own business. By concentrating on the important aspects of your business, you will be productive with your time.
Photo credit: Fabio Penna via photopin cc
