Advertising Dollars

So why do most waste these precious dollars? They do nothing for a long time, then something happens and they take a shotgun approach.

They often dont want to invest the time it takes to be systematic about marketing they dont acknowledge that advertising is just part of an overall marketing strategy. But many admit that doing a better job of marketing would pay off even though it requires an investment of time and money.

If you spend an hour a year with the yellow pages sales rep and rerun your favorite ad in the local paper, youll get the same results.

Here are three starting points that can help you grow your business by 10% to 20% this year.

Get to know your market better. Ask more often - what can you do to give them better service? What brings them in? How can you get them to come back more often? What else can you do to help them? Make note and think about the information that you gather.

Spend some time on the internet. See what your competition is doing. When you find somebody using the internet to promote their business (and they are not your direct local competition) - send them an e-mail. Arrange a call to discuss their efforts with you. See what you can learn.

If you are in the service business, ask your clients for their email address. Send them some helpful related information on a monthly basis. Occasionally add special offers that will get them in more often or possibly get you a referral within their network of friends. Keep in mind that your small, local papers are always looking for local authors. Put them on distribution for your newsletter and include reprint rights.

You will never be a top business performer if you wait to measure your business performance using their bottom line. You need to have a few key ways to measure on a daily or weekly basis. This is especially true of your marketing efforts. I guarantee that the bottom line will start to look a lot more attractive if you find ways to track the results that you are getting from each advertisement, listing or ad that you place.