I find it amazing, shocking and disturbing at how many small business owners, entrepreneurs … and bigger corporations … waste money on advertising! They don’t even measure!
Some of their advertising may be effective …
Most if it won’t work …
And it doesn’t matter if they’re buying banner ads, newspaper ads, pay per click, Yellow Pages, contextual advertising, radio, television, magazine … and the list goes on …
But, either way, we’ll never really know the truth because there is no mechanism built into their advertising to measure it’s effectiveness!
Tracking mechanisms such as:
- Offer codes
- Unique phone numbers (or extensions)
- Distinct coupons
This is one of the many downfalls of what’s commonly known as “brand advertising” or “institutional advertising.”
There are many (MANY!) examples that I can share with you … but, for the sake of the small business owner, I was inspired to show you an example of one that I just saw at the bowling alley.
Now there are a number of things wrong with this advertisement (such as no compelling headline or subheadline …) but I couldn’t help but wonder if the bowling alley was the best place to advertise this full service auto station? Is that where their ideal customer would look when they’re in the need of receiving auto repair work? Do you really think that people are taking down their phone number? Doubtful.
Chances are it is not effective … but, unless this business owner is tracking the success … he may never know and he may continue advertising in this fashion month after month … wasting money that could be better used elsewhere.
Edwards Demings is famous for saying: “If it can’t be measured, it can’t be improved upon.”
Here’s the payoff.
I was sitting in a business conference consisting of a few thousand people and the presenter asked everyone to stand up. He surveyed the audience and found out that:
and measured their advertising and marketing on a regular basis!!!
