• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Marketing Tactics vs Strategy
  • How to Advertise Your Business
  • About Niche Marketing
  • Contact Me
Beyond Niche Marketing

Beyond Niche Marketing

Get more customers. Grow your business.

  • About the Author
    • About the Book
      • Beyond the Niche
  • About Niche Marketing
    • How to Identify Your Niche Market

Need Help with Small Business Advertising?

June 11, 2008 by Kathryn Hendershot Leave a Comment

Small businesses need all the help they can get when it comes to creating successful and effective advertising messages. This is why many small business owners cringe when they hear the quote attributed to John Wannamaker that goes, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

You can almost hear the cries of agony from small business owners through your monitor….

“HALF of my advertising is going to be WASTED!?!?!

You mean I have to spend TWICE what I need to spend to get my advertising to work?”

Um… that may be overly optimistic. Seth Godin writes in his post 5 Common Cliches (done wrong):

Half my advertising works, I just don’t know which half. Actually, it’s closer to 1% of your advertising that works, at the most. Your billboard reaches 100,000 people and if you’re lucky, it gets you a hundred customers..

I deliver even worse news in my book and elsewhere on this blog… it’s possible that what IS working in your advertising messages may actually be HURTING your business instead of helping to build it.

I’m just overflowing with good news today, aren’t I?

It gets worse. Dominic Canterbury in his post “I know that half of my advertising budget is wasted, but I’m not sure which half” hits the nail right on the head when he writes:

I’m telling you this because as an independent business, you probably learned most of your marketing tricks by watching the big, successful companies. Very sensibly, you might have presumed that huge and expensive marketing departments headed by big-name gurus would actually know what they’re doing.

Turns out, though, the big boys really don’t know what they’re doing. No doubt some of it is working, but they don’t know how, when or why. And to make matters worse, it’s looking like the really big, flashy and expensive stuff is actually the least effective.

UGH! If you can’t learn from the big guys, then where can you catch a break? Well, there is a silver lining to this dark, dark advertising cloud… watch the successful SMALL businesses in your area and see what they’re doing.

The problem with this approach is you can’t see EVERYTHING they’re doing because you can’t be everywhere at once.  However, there is one thing you can look for in successful marketing messages… usually they speak to the solving a problem for a tightly targeted customer.  (Read my post The Power of Pain for more on this subject.)

Creating a tightly targeted “niche marketing” message is the first step in creating affordable AND successful small business advertising campaigns.  This is my cue to shamelessly self promote my book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results.

Filed Under: Niche Marketing Tagged With: need help with small business advertising, small business advertising, small business advertising resources, small business advertising solution

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

More to See

Newspaper Advertising

Newspaper Advertising Basics

July 26, 2022 By Kathy

3 Marketing Tips for Small Business

June 2, 2022 By Kathy

Tags

Advertising Advertising 2.0 advertising and marketing for small business owners advertising and the web Advertising Effectiveness Affordable Small Business Marketing Strategies Beyond Marketing blog blogging and branding branding branding and entrepreneurs building trust business building business marketing strategies business owner creating a product for a niche audience customer's reasons for buying Customer Service free PR major sale marketing campaign marketing magic marketing messages marketing plan niche market Niche Marketing niche marketing for small businesses niche marketing strategy niche marketing wisdom PR small business small business advertising small business advertising solution small business marketing small business marketing consultant Small Business Marketing Strategies Small Business Marketing Success Online social marketing Social Media Marketing target audience the long term value of a customer transparency viral marketing word of mouth advertising word of mouth marketing

Footer

Low Cost, High Yield Marketing

Beyond Niche Marketing is a guide to effectively marketing your small business without breaking the bank.

Pick up your digital copy of Beyond the Niche for only $9.99 by clicking the button below.

 

Recent

  • Local Advertising to Reach Your Niche Market
  • Newspaper Advertising Basics
  • 3 Marketing Tips for Small Business
  • Niche Market Products Can Grow Your Business
  • Niche Market Ideas and How to Find Them

Search

Tags

Advertising Advertising 2.0 advertising and marketing for small business owners advertising and the web Advertising Effectiveness Affordable Small Business Marketing Strategies Beyond Marketing blog blogging and branding branding branding and entrepreneurs building trust business building business marketing strategies business owner creating a product for a niche audience customer's reasons for buying Customer Service free PR major sale marketing campaign marketing magic marketing messages marketing plan niche market Niche Marketing niche marketing for small businesses niche marketing strategy niche marketing wisdom PR small business small business advertising small business advertising solution small business marketing small business marketing consultant Small Business Marketing Strategies Small Business Marketing Success Online social marketing Social Media Marketing target audience the long term value of a customer transparency viral marketing word of mouth advertising word of mouth marketing

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in