Business Advertising - Learning From the Offline Experience

By Ana Hernandez

Whether online or offline, there's lots of things about opening a new business that are difficult and you never truly realize just how difficult business advertising really is until you've tried to do it yourself. Don't get me wrong there are many simple techniques around for business advertising. The problem is that not all of them will actually work.

If you live in a pretty small town, you might be led to believe that you could do it in a pretty low-key way, right?

My friend Michael moved to one such small town and decided to open up a new restaurant in the downtown area catering to local businesses. Michael figured enough people would just see his place whenever they were passing by and that this would suffice to start up his customer base. Just to be sure, Michael had a big red sign painted up for the front of his place and threw an informal grand opening ceremony for his restaurant. He even went as far as placing an ad in the local newspaper.

Michael's turnout sadly, was dismal.

He had figured that it might be a slight uphill battle to start out this restaurant, but never imagined how difficult business advertising would really be. For the first week or two almost no one came through his doors and that's when Michael smartened up about marketing and business advertising.

Smartening up about business advertising means different things to different businesses...

For instance, I'm involved in an online business start up and I've had to learn to develop and use some pretty sophisticated tricks. For me, one system is all about maximizing my Google pay per clicks and improving my search results. I use keyword lists, write business articles, and link to popular websites as a way to promote my own business ventures.

In the case of my offline business however, I certainly do not need to bother with that kind of high-tech business advertising. Why? Because I have a well established local business after all, and have earned my business reputation through word of mouth referrals. In the offline world, the key to my business advertising was to maximize my walk by exposure and to develop a word of mouth reputation for my referral base. In the online world, I am an unknown factor and must earn the trust of my prospects through the delivery of good, quality information and dependable advise.

Just remember: Offline, location, location.... Online, information, information... Simple!

For some of my more competitive offline colleagues, like those opening up another 'medi-spa' in an overly-saturated marketplace community, this may mean buying up billboards on a local highway to the tune of $35 thousand bucks a month in rental fees! WOW WEE!!

I live in a very congested city, and although it baffles me to spend this type of money for business advertising, it's still a reality for most businesses and a much needed advertising technique for this particular market. Sure that billboard definitely gets lots of local drive by customers and introduces services to the not-so-local out of towners looking for these types of services while they're visiting our city.

Snazzy neon signs are another very effective offline business advertising strategy. The first thing I did before my doors even opened for the very first customer was hang my name high above the front entry of my office condo and put decals on the doors with my name, title, hours of operation and offerings clearly displayed.

For many offline industries, business advertising has very much the same common strategies. Additionally, there are many other smart strategies such as handing out discount coupons at a local grocer's. They may lose a little profit initially, but in the long run this serves to get them lots of repeat customers.

About The Author: Ana Hernandez DO is a practicing physician and self proclaimed marketing enthusiast. Her website at http://www.adminder.com/c.cgi?netrageouz&EzineArtcl is the portal to her delicious recipes for creating killer online marketing campaigns. Her online course, "NETfabulous! Marketing ECourse" is jam packed with tips n' techniques for both newbie and seasoned marketers alike. Subscribe for FREE at iBlog netrageouzly!