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Your business needs advertising that works. I will show you how to create more effective advertising in this blog!
There is nothing more important that you will do for your business than learning how to effectively advertise. Effective advertising will not only generate new customers it will generate more revenue from current customers. My name is Sean Odell. I have spent a great deal of time and money researching and experimenting with proven methods to produce more effective advertising that serves great purpose in both the virtual market as well as brick and mortar business.
These proven and well practiced methods will generate more money from your current customers and create new ones as well. You will receive all the information to do this without assistance from outside companies. If you would like me to help launch a campaign with you, please feel free to contact me. My information can be found on this page.
Our country is very much turning into a service country. If businesses are not successful with their endeavors the American economy will surely fall to a level that we do not want to experience, or have our children experience. Great businesses have failed due to poor advertising. Do not be one of those businesses.
Remembering what the web really was.
We have to take just a moment to talk about some web history. This may be a boring subject for you. If so, do not worry. We are not going to spend a great deal of time on the topic. In order to create the proper perspective of today’s internet marketing methods there needs to be a recap of how the internet has evolved with regard to modern users and the way they do business.
The web was not exactly new in the early 1990’s but it was just becoming user-friendly enough for the average Joe to hear the words “You’ve got mail”. In fact, those catchy three words captured the interest of the general public to such an extent that they spawned a movie. The “e-mail” was moving from the virtual “Post It” note of the corporate world to the desktops of residential homes at a blistering speed. This new form of communication was exciting for all of us. It allowed us to almost relive the feelings of anticipation that was felt as we received that ever so precious note in the hallway during our school years. You may not understand this reference to the past if you are less than 25 years of age. The rest of you know exactly what I am talking about.
Websites:
This is not a topic that needs to be elaborated on for early internet. I just want to sum up early websites. Early websites were static, simple, served no real purpose, and cost a great deal to have. Enough said.
The infamous dotcom era of the late 90’s created millionaires in the blink of an eye. Dotcom businesses would offer their stocks and they would double in value on the very first day. Months later those same millionaires may have been moving in with their parents because the bottom fell out. The people buying their stock realized that they had no idea what they were buying, or why. K-tel Records was a company with stock that had little or no interest to the general public. When they published that they were going to post a site on the internet there stock went straight up. Why? Because we had no idea what the web was really for. We just knew that it was the in thing and if a company was first to the starting gate we were going to buy their stock. Silly us!
The 90’s were very important to businesses, the internet, and its users. The significance was not based on the money that it created and devoured. The significance of the era was how it defined what the internet was not to be. At that time the internet was not a place for massive commerce to take place. It was a place for surfing. We wanted to check stuff out, and learn interesting things. For the most part, fortunes created due to the internet had nothing to do with the internet itself. The fortunes were created by a hype filled stock market. Sure, the web was fun but we did not trust it enough to input our credit card numbers just yet. It would not be long before all of that changed. Commerce was coming, and coming fast!
Getting down to business. Leterally!
It is time to get down to businesses, literally. Earlier, we recapped a brief internet history. I did attempt to keep the yawns to a minimum. Let us talk now about how the internet has created an avenue for brick and mortar businesses to maximize their advertising dollars as well as increase how effective their advertising really is. We will also learn how advertising can keep generating revenue long after the end of an ad cycle.
Today the internet has earned respect and trust with its users. The security has been so greatly increased that the web is now a common place for the financial transactions of banks and credit card companies all over the world. In today’s society, internet users try to find ways to do all of their financial transactions on the web from the comfort of their homes. This saves them time and money. In commerce, time is money. When you save time you save money. This has created world wide trust on the World Wide Web.
Trust is a great thing to have. When someone trusts you they take note of everything that you have to say as if it were fact. This feeling of trust bleeds into many aspects of the web. If users trust the web to spend money they will trust it to hear about ways to save money. Remember, in order to save money you must spend money. Now, apply this same information to brick and mortar business. If a customer trusts you to do business with and also trusts the internet to do business with, how can they be combined to generate more revenue for brick and mortar businesses?
Advertising is an investment. Earn interest!
A successful web campaign is not as difficult as you may think. There are guidelines and proven methods that need to be considered and applied to any successful business endeavor. There are businesses that exist solely on the web and exclusively use the web to generate new customers and ignore real world advertising. There are also brick and mortar businesses that are not using the web to maximize the potential growth in their customer base.
Advertising facts you need to know:
· & nbsp; Do not limit your advertising campaign to just one media
· & nbsp; Immeasurable advertising campaigns are a waste of time and money even when they yield results
· & nbsp; A properly prepared advertising campaign will reduce advertising expense
· & nbsp; Good strategies will encourage customer loyalty
· & nbsp; Great advertising is planned over time and not ad to ad
Planning a successful advertising campaign requires the same perspective as planning a successful retirement savings plan. In order to optimize your return on investment you must have multiple income streams. The savings plan must also have measurable results. You would not invest your money with a firm that had no idea what your return would be. You should never invest your advertising dollar in a campaign that cannot be measured.
A properly prepared advertising campaign will reduce advertising expense.
Say that a business invests $20k a year in advertising. This business runs an ad once a month and inserts a coupon here and there. Keep in mind that these two methods represent the majority of how businesses advertise and a business will usually see results from each campaign. Results will very but are almost always present. The problem with campaigns like this is that they are over after the ad cycles. Your investment stops returning revenue.
What if the results of your advertising do not have to end after the ad cycle? The fact is, results from each campaign can yield revenue for the life of your business. This is easily attainable by having a properly prepared advertising campaign.
Good strategies will encourage customer loyalty. Customer loyalty should be the focus of every advertising campaign. If you learn nothing else from reading the information on this site, learn that creating an ad campaign that focuses only on getting a sale is a wasted campaign. Do not base your advertising on the sale. You should always base your advertising on the amount of revenue that will be earned over the life of a loyal customer. Creating loyal customers will create a successful business.
The web is not enough!
Where do brick and mortar businesses advertise? The common choices are newspapers, magazines, television, and radio. All of these forms of advertising are expensive. The media choice for your business will more than likely depend on the amount of money that you have budgeted for your advertising expense. They are very expensive. If your business can afford an infomercial than you will probably use one to generate more business. If you have a hair salon or some other brick and mortar business than an infomercial is not going to be your media of choice. Businesses like this will often use coupons, inserts, and other printed media. Even though the products or services of brick and mortar businesses may vary, the advertising methods they use have remained the same since inception.
Spending less on advertising will change your bottom line even if your gross revenue does not change. If your business generates $150k a year and you spend $25k on advertising your bottom line changes to $125k before you deduct all other expenses. What if you were able to reduce your advertising expense by $10k while producing the same, or better, results? This would raise the $125k to $135k. Your just raised your bottom line $10k while the amount of products and/or services you sold remained the same. Does this interest you? Of-course it does.
You must be able to measure the results of your advertising.
The most import part of advertising is the results right? Wrong. The most important part of advertising is broken down into three major questions. The answers to these questions will be the numbers that you will use to really show how effective your advertising campaigns are.
- “How many people saw the ad”?
- “How many people were interested in the ad but did not purchase”?
- “How many people purchased”?
There is also a fourth question. 4. “How do you maintain a relationship with those who were interested in your ad but did not purchase”? I will define this more clearly in another section. Right now I want to explain how to attain the information for the three major parts listed above.
How many people saw the ad? This question will always have an element of unknown. We have to trust the numbers that are provided to us by the media we choose to advertise. If you are putting 5000 inserts in newspapers or magazines the maximum number of people who might see your ad is 5000. We know that all 5000 inserts will not be seen. Any numbers used are guesswork at best. Traditional advertising strategies have two numbers for measurement for this campaign. The fact that there are 5000 inserts being circulated and the number of sales made as a result of the campaign.
How many people were interested in the ad but did not purchase? You are more than likely asking yourself how this is possible. In order to accomplish this there has to be a step in between the ad and the actual sale for the customer. This step is a call to action by the customer in order for them to get the savings that you are advertising. It is simple to create. To do this we will incorporate the web into a real world marketing campaign. Please click on “Campaign Example” in the menu and see how to specifically accomplish this.
Campaign Example:
Mr. Widget sells the best widgets on the market. Mr. Widget’s normal ad campaign consists of a magazine ad once a month. Mr. Widget has been working with Sean Odell and they are launching a multilevel campaign that will generate more data to help Mr. Widget understand how well his advertising is really doing.
The print portion of the campaign will use the same media that has been used previously. The wording will be different and ads will give a simple web address where the customer can print out a coupon, or other document, which will be redeemed for the discount in Mr. Widget’s store. The usual catchy ad content will still be used. The only thing different is that customers will print the coupon rather than cut it out. There will be a percentage of people that are interested in Mr. Widget’s products but will not actually make a purchase. This simple call to action for the customer to go to a website and print the coupon, or other document, will generate a number that is greater than the number of people who actually make the purchase. This is measured by a simple hit counter that keeps track of the number of visitors to the webpage. The page will hot be available to search engines or have links to it from other pages. The number of visitors to this page will be generated solely by the ad campaign. The counter will keep track of every customer that visits the page to see the saving even if they do not print the document. At the end of the campaign you check the counter and you have a whole new spectrum to your ad campaign. You obviously know how many people made a purchase because they brought the document for the savings. Now you also know how many people viewed the page during the promotion.
Why is this new information so valuable? If you run a campaign of 5000 inserts and you get 50 coupons redeemed but only 60 people viewed the page you know that your ad content is not really generating a great deal of interest. You customers either buy or they do not. You can adjust your ad accordingly. On the other hand, if your campaign has 50 coupons redeemed but 300 people viewed the page with the coupon then you know that you are generating interest and there are a great deal of potential customers and you can adjust your ad accordingly. This strategy makes the unknown, known.
NOTE: You do not have to use a printable coupon. You could put a catch phrase that they tell the cashier. You could use a number for the promotion if you wish. These are all elements that you can experiment with to improve your results.
Using this simple technique you can see how well your advertising is really doing. You may need to change your media. You may need to change your content wording. You can experiment and see with great detail how many people are really being affected by your ad content. You can take this information and modify it to improve your results.
Remember, I can always help you with anything that you need. Feel free to contact me. My contact info is on this page.