When many small business owners and professional service firms think of marketing they immediately think of advertising. This is inevitable, I suppose, as it’s one of the most obvious examples of marketing communication.

All too many small businesses therefore use advertising when they perhaps don’t understand how it works and haven’t got the right message or offer to appeal to their target market.

Advertising alone is unlikely to help you achieve your marketing goals and unless you have a set of clear objectives, an exceptional message and concrete ways of monitoring the response rates you could find you waste an awful lot of money very quickly.

You wouldn’t be alone in feeling your advertising spend is wasted and many others have felt forced to advertise for all the wrong reasons too. Here are some of the most common reasons I’ve heard business owners give for advertising:

“We have to be in the Yellow Pages – every other solicitors firm is in there.”
“The local paper was doing a 10-page feature and said they wanted us to take part, we felt flattered and didn’t want to miss out.”
“No, we don’t measure how many sales come as a result of our weekly adverts but we’ve been doing it so long it must be working.”
And there are many more which include being pressurised by advertising sales people, being sold an unbeatable offer or offered an exceptionally low rate. But to be honest none of these reasons are good enough unless you are convinced advertising will deliver the results you want.

Take a break before you advertise
It’s very easy to avoid wasteful marketing and advertising but it does involve a bit of thought. Luckily – once you’ve considered the questions below you need never feel forced to advertise again.

What business goals are you trying to achieve? For example do you want sales growth, to break into new markets, to launch a new product or to protect your market position against new competitors? Be as specific as you can when setting your goals – this will help determine what marketing path to take.


Who’s in your target audience? Considering this really carefully will give you all kinds of clues as to where and whether you should be advertising. If you consider this in relation to the publication you are thinking of advertising in and can convince yourself your target audience will see it and respond positively, maybe it’s the right thing to do. The more targeted you can be the better the result.


Is your message clear? If you are selling a product do you have a very clear reason for customers to buy your ‘widget’ rather than someone else’s? If a service, have you really captured what it will give to your clients?


What action do you want people to take? All too often adverts don’t have a clear call to action. Considering this point alone can cause some businesses to realise that they don’t really have a compelling message or offer.


What alternatives are there? And how much do they cost compared to advertising? Advertising may seem the most obvious way to promote your business – but what about things like writing articles, generating news stories, direct mail or events. All may be much more effective in achieving your goals.


What specific measures are you going to put in place to assess the effectiveness of your marketing? This is crucial, especially for advertising. The spend can often be so great you really do need to be sure you can measure whether it’s delivering a return on investment.
So the next time you are considering advertising as the magic solution to your marketing problems, the next time your local paper or radio station calls with an unbeatable offer at half the normal rates just stop, get out this list of questions and have a long hard look at whether it will really help you achieve your goals. Don’t be forced into advertising just so that you are seen to be doing something. It won’t work

Further Reading
If I’ve whetted your appetite for more information on how you can avoid making expensive mistakes when it comes to advertising take a look at the following articles on the Second Opinion Marketing website:

How people buy and the role of advertising and marketing – this article explains the stages that people go through before they actually make a purchase and explores how and when advertising is most appropriate.


How advertising works - this article explores how advertising works and why one off ads won’t work for you.

Written by Teresa Harris, Second Opinion Marketing. Teresa is an independent marketing consultant working with professional practices, small businesses and public sector bodies to develop effective marketing plans which achieve their business objectives.

As a marketing coach Teresa works with new marketing managers and small business owners to enhance their marketing performance.

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