The JP Revolution

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that advertising is all about getting new customers. That's certainly one reason to advertise. An equally important aspect, however, is the roll it play in helping you retain your current customers. We all are very insecure about the decisions we make throughout our lives; we internally question those decisions almost constantly. When we see an ad for a company we use, it validates our decision to chose that company. On the other hand, if we don't our memories can get very fuzzy.

One thing I hear probably more often than anything from small business owners (especially service businesses) is that they have all the work they can possible handle. However, when asked about their profits they all admit that those aren't as high as they would like. That's why before you make any decisions on how to spend your advertising dollar you should take a moment and figure out where your profit is coming from. not all customers are created equal.

In today's world, many small business owners are so overwhelmed by all of the marketing choices available to them that they simply choose to do nothing. They will then wear that decision as a badge of honor and boast that they don't have to advertise. They claim they "get all their business by word of mouth". You will find some businesses that survive that way, but for most survival is all it is.

In any community... if you ask residents to rank the 10 most successful businesses in town, there will never be a business named who didn't/doesn't advertise.

According to the National Associate of Small Businesses, 20 percent of small businesses in the US fail. The vast majority of those that fail rely far too heavily on word of mouth. By simply adding a branding campaign to your strategy, you can kick your word of mouth results into overdrive.

Each year, dozens of companies spend millions of dollars advertising in the Super Bowl. It's the one time of year when the ads get as much attention as the game. Why are they worth so much, though. Why would anyone spend a million dollars for 30 seconds. there are some very good reasons... and some very good lessons to be learned by small business owners.

A lot of business owners believe Facebook is the Holy Grail of Advertising... it's free and can reach customers. What they often forget (or choose to ignore) is that it's not really free if you want it to work. In business, time is money and It takes a lot of time to use social media effectively. The businesses that are actually growing using social media spend at least several hours a days interacting socially with potential customers. You can't just have a page and call it "doing Facebook".

Many small business owners view having a website and a Facebook page as being part of their marketing strategy. Truth is... society have evolved far past that. They are now a mandatory part of having a business. In the 1890's phones were considered a marketing tool... now you can't imagine a business surviving without one. That applies to websites and Facebook pages in today's world.

Business owners are constantly trying to evaluate the effectiveness of an advertising campaigns. Unfortunately, they often look in the wrong direction. If you owned a small retail store, it would seem silly to give the front door of your business credit for attracting all your customers. Sure, a few may have seen something in the window that caught their attention. But most were drawn by some other forces (usually advertising of some sort). For some reason, people believe the digital world works differently. But it doesn't.

Nothing drives success for a business more than top-of-mind-awareness (TOMA)? Even though business owners and marketing professionals hear the word TOMA bandied around often, few truly understand what it means and how it leads to success. This episode provides a simple analogy to make it easy to recognize how important it is that your customers think of you first when they need your products or services.

One thing small business owners often fail to recognize is how much their brand influences the success of everything they do in business. A strong brand determines how effective other campaigns are. Nowhere is this more evident than in success or failure of a Facebook ad campaign.

In the previous episode we discussed how misusing coupons in your ad campaigns can sometimes destroy your profit and your business. Like any tool, however, coupons can be useful in the right circumstances. In this edition, we take at those instances when you should use coupons and how to monitor whether or not they are having the impact you desire.