Small Business Advertising That Works

“Advertising is salesmanship in print.”
- Claude Hopkins

We’ll define small business advertising as any marketing communication intended to persuade or influence an audience to buy your products or services, or take some other action that you want them to take. Or as Claude Hopkins put it, advertising is salesmanship in print.

Many small business owners are reluctant to continue using advertising to promote their business because of previous negative experiences with small business advertising. Ineffective advertising CAN be expensive and often doesn’t produce the desired results. Therefore, most owners figure that it’s not a good way to attract customers and make sales.

The truth is that advertising CAN be a very effective way to attract your ideal customers, increase sales and grow your business. In fact, when done correctly, effective advertising is often the fastest and easiest way to get new customers for your business. The key is to understand the difference between effective and ineffective small business advertising.

Why Most Small Business Advertising Doesn’t Work

One reason why so many small business owners get poor results from advertising is that they are often trying to use the same advertising strategies that huge multi-billion dollar companies use in their advertising. They reason that if it’s good enough for Coke or Toyota, it’s good enough for them.

The problem is that the advertising goals of a multi-billion dollar company are very different from the advertising goals of a small business. Huge companies use advertising for branding, to seed and position their products or services in the mind of the consumer so that when they go to the store and have to choose which kind of soft drink to buy, they pick Coke instead of one of the many other alternatives.

The purpose of branding is to build awareness, gain exposure and position the brand at the “top of mind” of the consumers, not to motivated them to take action.

Coca-cola spends more than an estimated $230 million in advertising in the U.S. alone, and more than $1 billion worldwide because branding works: Coke is one of the most valuable and widely recognized brands in the world. Branding is also VERY expensive.

Since small businesses don’t have a couple hundred million dollars to spend on branding, this type of advertising is typically NOT going to work for them.

The Type Of Small Business Advertising That Works

The good news is that there is another form of advertising that DOES work for small businesses: direct response advertising.

It’s called direct response advertising for two reasons:

1) It’s directed toward a particular target audience (your ideal prospects) and not to consumers in general, and

2) Unlike branding, which is about positioning and building brand awareness, the goal of direct response advertising is to influence and persuade prospects to respond or act in a specific way.

If you’ve ever gotten sales letters or specific offers in the mail before, then you are familiar with the direct response concept, but it applies to every form of advertising, not just direct mail. Direct response advertising can be used on any communication medium or channel including radio, television, print ads in newspapers and magazines, Yellow Pages, catalogs, direct mail, and particularly using the Internet with Pay-Per-Click ads, articles, banner ads, advertorials, and other forms of online advertising.

Key Principles of Effective Small Business Advertising

According to the SBA, typical small businesses should expect to budget at least 5% of gross revenues toward advertising. But that’s often ineffective advertising that doesn’t work and that’s seen as a necessary cost of doing business.

When you learn the principles of effective small business advertising, you stop seeing it as a “cost” and start seeing it as an “investment” that gives you a return of 2, 3, 5 even 10 times the amount you invest. When every dollar you spend on advertising brings you more money in business, the math becomes simple: you’ll gladly spend as much as it takes to get the level of business you want!

I’m just going to give you a high-level overview of the key principles here, we’ll delve into the details in future articles:

1) Use a two-step marketing and advertising approach – Instead of trying to sell your products or services directly from your ads, the two-step marketing approach uses ads as lead generation tools. The goal of the ad is to attract ideal prospects and get enough of their attention and interest so they gladly give you their contact information and permission for you to continue marketing to them using more cost effective means. This approach works particularly well on the Internet, but is also very effective in radio, television, print and direct mail.

2) Compelling, focused message – Effective ads tend to provide a simple, compelling, focused message that attracts your ideal prospects and encourages them to respond the way that you want them to. Don’t try to say too many things in one ad. Speak directly to your ideal prospect and what they care about most.

3) Targeted to a specific audience – Instead of trying to speak to “everyone”, effective ads focus on a very specific and targeted audience that is likely to respond to the compelling message in the ad. This is not the place for “mass marketing” efforts that try to reach out to everyone. Each ad needs to be carefully designed for the specific audience it’s targeting.

4) Testing and tracking – Because smaller companies don’t have huge advertising budgets and lots of money to burn, testing and tracking becomes even more important. With testing and tracking, advertising becomes more of a science than an art. Use codes, specials, and offers to test and measure the performance of headlines, copy, placement and timing of your ads.

5) Specific call to action – This is the 2nd element of direct response advertising. Include a specific call to action that tells your prospects exactly what they need to do next, whether that means visiting your website, calling a phone number or sending a request for more information. Tell your prospects what you want them to do.