One of the default responses that small business owners have when talking about growth is advertising. To a lot of them, advertising is synonymous with marketing.
Let’s all get on the same page with regards to definitions. Advertising is a marketing tactic; just like PR, special events, networking, speaking or writing. Marketing, on the other hand, is a core element of your business; much like finance, operations or HR.
You cannot run a business without some form of marketing. For a lot of companies, the default marketing strategy is word or mouth or referrals. You can, however, do a lot of marketing activities without spending a penny on advertising.
You see the big Fortune 500 companies spending hundreds of millions on advertising. Let’s look at an example of an Apple advertisement making fun of Microsoft hoping to fix it’s Vista problems through advertising:
Advertising is costly, hard to measure and is losing effectiveness faster than the Titantic sank. Thanks to Jeff Sexton, at Future Now, let’s look at a few companies that have made a national splash by focusing their efforts on the customer experience and viral word of mouth instead of advertising:
1) Zappos
2) Krispy Kreme
3) StonyField Yogurt
4) Silk (soy milk)
5) Smart Wooland more…
Let me ask you a question that makes a lot of people open their eyes and think:
If advertising is such a wonderful business growth strategy, why don’t you see more ad agencies actually advertising to attract new clients?
Think about it. And trust me, it’s not that they don’t want/need the work.
That’s a great question about advertising agencies. I think that word of mouth marketing is the most cost effective, but if you are local, you can run out of “mouths” eventually, especially in a small town. I know almost everyone in my little town, and everyone knows me, so I’ve gone online to forums, blogs, and creating a Web site, which has helped drive in more customers. And, that was all nearly free (except the Web site hosting, of course).
Advertising using certain methods like radio and news paper has been loosing ground. You have have many other ways of advertising that are more effective, like online advertising. I guess it depends on your target market, how much you willing to spend and how measurable is the form of advertising.