[1] Want to Grow Your Business? Dispense with Advertising Myths:

As you know, advertising is absolutely essential to the survival and growth of any business, large or small. So let's dispose of a few myths and help increase your prosperity!

Advertising Myth #1:
"Our business doesn't need Advertising ...
'Word of Mouth' brings us business."

Well, maybe ... at least to a degree. But for some businesses, failure to [a] understand the value of advertising and [b] use advertising effectively will reduce their chance of business success.

If you own a gas station on a lonely highway on the Great Plains, and your station is the only gas station within 200 miles in any direction, you probably don't need advertising at all, except maybe a big sign and a few billboards scattered up and down the highway.

If you own the only restaurant or shoe store in a very small town, "word of mouth" will probably bring in a few new customers as new people who move into your town eventually find you.

But if you're NOT the only place in town, your competitors down the street who do invest in advertising will gradually get the lion's share of business in your area.

And if 20% or more of the people who live in your town are disabled, as is typical of most places in America, and if those people (and their friends, and their families) don't know for sure that your place is accessible, they're unlikely to risk visiting your place at all if they do know that your competitor down the street is barrier-free.

Businesses that rely on nothing but "word of mouth" might manage to survive for awhile, but eventually they will inevitably lose out to their competitors.

Advertising Myth #2:
"We've Been Here for Years ... Most of Our Customers Know Us."

With the way people move around these days, maybe not. Stop and think about how many of your customers from 5 years ago haven't been in lately. Why??? Some of them may have died. Some have moved away. And some have just found other places to go.

And in that same 5 years, how many new people have moved into your neighborhood who don't even know about your business yet. How about visitors to the area? How will these people ever become your customers if they don't know you exist?

People who are new to a neighborhood don't usually know the difference between a business that's been there fifty years and another that's only been there for a few months. So how long you've been in business doesn't usually make much difference to them. To people who just arrived in a new town, every business in that town has been there longer than they have.

And most of the time, people moving into a new town are most likely to do business with those businesses that get their attention first with an effective buying message!

And if you're not willing to invest the time and energy – and money – to constantly promote your business and prospect for new customers, your business is losing out on business.

If you don't want to make that effort, you might want to think about selling your business now, while you can still get a little something for it.

Because your competitor down the street who does realize the value of effective advertising is going to eventually put your business out of business.

Advertising Myth #3:
"Advertising is Too Expensive."

That depends on what kind of advertising you buy. Rather than thinking of advertising as an expense, you should think of advertising as A BASIC INVESTMENT IN THE FUTURE OF YOUR BUSINESS that needs to be included in your budget. And then plan your budget to allow for a variety of advertising approaches and venues that can help your business grow.

Successful businesses invest as much as 15% of their gross sales revenues into advertising; and the most successful businesses may invest 20% or more. Effective advertising helps businesses to grow AND to build a more positive corporate image. Only by achieving BOTH of these goals will any business prosper in a competitive marketplace on a long-term basis.

Determining Which Advertising Will Be Most Effective For Your Business

The most effective advertising helps you achieve these two equally important goals:

1. Short-Term: To increase your sales in the immediate sense; and

2. Long-Term: To build and enhance your corporate image, or brand identity.

With respect to advertising as a means to directly increase sales in the immediate sense, advertising is ONLY effective IF it reaches YOUR potential target market and presents a compelling sales message to those who are likely to become YOUR customers.

With respect to advertising as a means to build and enhance your corporate image, any and all advertising can be effective on a long-term basis IF it demonstrates to the public at large that you folks are really nice people with strong commitments toward positive social goals, etc., and therefore your business is a great business with which everyone should want to do business.

In this article (and others in our Business Section) we will provide some insights to help you define and reach your potential target market by choosing advertising venues that will help your business reach those people who are most likely to buy what you sell AND we will also provide a few tested strategies to help you enhance your corporate image.