Finding Small Business Advertising Advice

Published on this site: November 22th, 2006 - See more articles from this month

Getting advice on advertising your small business from an advertising salesperson is like asking the car salesman if your should buy his car or the one across the street.

The "home team" syndrome permeates the advertising sales game. No matter how effective (or ineffective) what they are selling is, they will defend it to the death. All the while taking whacks and pokes at competing media.

Here's the skinny: To advertise your small business you need a big mix of everything out there. No one newspaper or radio station is going to do it for you. Then there are all the other ways to keep your name and benefits out there.

What's a business owner to do? This is a lot like buying a major appliance. You have to be the expert before you go into the big box store because the minimum wage salesperson there only knows the days they deliver.

Before you can talk with any media salesperson, you gotta know the territory, so you gotta do a lot of research. Read everything you can find about small business advertising.

Understand the terms used by ad folks. Don't be intimated by day parts or tab inserts. Understand the role of business cards and the hidden costs of outdoor. Read. Read. Read.

Know the strong points and the weak points of every media in your marketing plan so you can't be buffaloed by a fast talker with an order pad.

In all advertising, always sell your benefits, not your features (who care if you are number one in the district or your business has been there 62 years). Beware the media salesperson will try to get you to star in your own ad with a big picture of you, or you reading the radio spot. That's not selling, that's ego. Don't fall for it.

There is a place on the Internet where you can see hundreds of articles all about small business advertising. There are categories for every media to make it easy to research and there is no cost whatsoever. http://SmallBusinessAdvertisingArticles.com

BIG Mike McDaniel - is the Small Business Advertising Expert. Get his "BIG Ideas for Small Business" Newsletter at http://BigIdeasGroup.com