You need to distinguish between sales and marketing. Sales are the constant closing of deals or supply of products. Marketing is the process of generating constant exposure. Advertising results in exposure and awareness about your business and products. By being exposed on a regular basis, the prospective buyer / client will turn to you when in need of your product or service.

The medium does not carry all the power in any advertising campaign. The effectiveness of the advertisement is vitally important. A business would advertise in a local newspaper merely for the sake of advertising, “at least we advertise in the Moon Herald – they have been in this area for 80 years” but often these ads do not attract any new clients – at least the existing clients know you are still out there.

The ad must draw attention like the picture above. Lately there are literally thousands of ads in the market. When no business is generated, the medium is often blamed. It does not matter which medium is used, it is the content of the ad that matters. A business would change to another medium and would supply its standard artwork as being used in other mediums – guess what! – it is the artwork or ad that does not work, not the medium. The business would then go back to all the other mediums that were used before. With no success, the economy and everybody else would then be blamed.

The secret is to change your ad. Put up a product or service as a special, get a slogan, get a proper design team like www.clickonit.co.za. – do not use your nephew’s buddy that can do the job, you have invested Millions in your business, unmeasurable effort and time, but you are willing to take a chance on logo design, ad layouts, web site design, hosting etc. These are the most important elements that represent your business.

1. creating exposure for your business
2. creating awareness of your products/brands
3. sales of specified products

Even if you do not have any product on special, it is still very important to keep on advertising. People would often say ”I have tried advertising – It doesn’t work for me” – “I have tried the Business Promotor – it’s not my target market”, but they keep on displaying the same old boring ad that somebody that is not around anymore has put together. They toil and stress to manage sales teams to chase targets. At close off the sales teams are jumped upon on how inefficient they are.  They carry on doing the same old stuff and get the same old “maybe”, “I’ll think about it”, “I’ll come back to you”, “I have to speak to my wife/partner”, “I’ll forward it to head office”, “I can’t afford it now” and then the same person buys the more expensive product from the opposition.

Someone has once said that it is not viable to advertise his Trucking business in the Business Promotor as it is not his target market. His opposition advertised – a business person from elsewhere picked up a business promoter in a local guest house and was so impressed with the ad, that he contacted the company, congratulated them on the exiting and professional ad, commenting that a business that has such a professional ad, must also have such a professional service delivery – he is now negotiating to replace his whole fleet.

Every medium fails if it merely delivers messages or ads no one cares about. Many ad campaigns are so predictable that most people did not even notice it. With so many advertisements out there, especially in the local papers, all the ads have the same trend and being compiled by the same person for years, your ad might get lost in a clutter of ads that were only sold to cover the space and not the object.

Some people might even have seen your ad, but were not interested, maybe the ad was not interested, make people more curious! Be clearer, sometimes the designer concentrates more on creativity and not on clarity, the ad might look stunning, but does it carry a message?  Do not expect any ad to return profit during the first placement – it happens, but not always, marketing is constant exposure. When you advertise on a regular basis, change your ad often – it will create interest, have the same ad over and over again become boring.

Deliver your message powerfully and remember – broaden your vision, we live in 2010, be open for change - other cultures might also need your business or service.

For personal assistance contact us at: -email-