Creating a brand doesn’t happen over night. It takes years for products to be able to position themselves, the way they want, in the mind of consumers. Millions of dollars are spent on creating a ‘brand’. That is, when we speak about big business, but what about small business, like the local florist, or the hometown car dealership. Obviously these types of businesses don’t have the budget or the need to run national campaigns and spend millions of dollars just to plant a seed in the mind of consumers, but we can’t forget that the art of ‘branding’ whether you are big or small, is one of the most important elements in running a success business. Now, many small business owners would beg to differ with me on this point. Most business owners that I speak with are more concerned about making the phones ring and the doors swing. Making consumers feel or think a certain way about their ‘brand’ isn’t necessarily on the top of their list, especially now a days when advertising budgets are shrinking and the economy is in…. well… turmoil. The point I want to make here is that ‘branding is the element that will make consumers buy. Planting that seed, establishing yourself in the market place is the key. And, yes, there are ways you can do this at a reasonable price.
Turn on the television, open a newspaper (If you ever do actually open a newspaper) or turn on the radio. All advertising that we hear is directing their audience to go to the web, visit their website and give up your e-mail address. Why? Well, this is where companies have an opportunity to hear what the consumers want. For years, all businesses had only one option when it came to advertising…. Get a strong effective message, and put it together in the form of print & broadcast and wait to see what happens. Now, things are much different. There is no more guessing, atleast, not at the level that it once was. Websites now give the upper hand to the consumers, not the company. Now consumers have the power to share their opinion with companies and other consumers like them. That is what the web is all about, getting people together that are alike. I know when I go out and have fun, I usually do it with people that are like me, share my interests, and for the most part, people that I get along with. This is the step that most small business owners aren’t seeing yet. They look at their website efforts as something that they should do simply because they are suppose to. I strongly believe, and many people in the advertising industry would disagree with me, that if you have a website, and it isn’t one of the top websites in your industry then you simply shouldn’t have it. Your website is no different than your actual store, yes JUST AS IMPORTANT. Think about this for a moment, people enter your site, just like your store, they get a feeling when they arrive they shop around and they exit. Surfing the web for a product is no different than going to the mall and going into 20 different stores. I suppose the only difference is that online you can visit 20 different stores in your underware. Anyway, this is what I am seeing across the board with small business, not enough effort on their web inititives. The web should be the start. About 10 years ago ad budgets where set like this:
New Advertising Efforts Old Advertising Efforts
Internet Television
Television Radio
Radio Direct Mail
Direct Mail Internet
Let’s look at the “Old Advertising” first. Typically budgets would work bottom up. First get all the television set for the year, then all our radio ads, and if there was any budget left over maybe they could throw some money at direct mail or newspaper, and if they really played things right they could sprinkle the Interenet with a fancy new site, or run some display ads.
“New Advertising is completely different, now we are going top down, Starting with the Internet, making sure that we have everything in place on the web first, reason being is that people can spend all day on your website and it isn’t going to cost any more money, your website is never closed, the lights are on 24/7, where the :30 second TV spot is going to cost the same no matter what. Now, we have to start with the website, just like you would look at your store. When you start a business, one of the first things you need, if you are in retail anyway, is a store. You wouldn’t want people coming to your store and have empty shelves, dirty floors and no signs telling people where to go. The same goes for your website.
Then, keeping on track with the “New Advertising”, once we have implemented a great web presence we continue down to Television, Radio, Newspaper, directing all of our efforts to having people visit your site. The website is the foundation of your advertising efforts. It is important to realize that these mediums can not work independantly, everything must stay consistent. Remember “branding”. We still need to maintain the same feel to effectively target our audience.
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