AD-Vice May 2009 - Do your business objectives align with your advertising?

What is your major objective in running your business?

If you answered making money then I guess you most likely have the wrong job. To quote Zig Ziglar, a popular motivational speaker, "the only people who make money, work in a mint. The rest of us have to earn it". I believe that he hit the nail on the head. We have to earn money and we do this by earning the respect of our customers, suppliers, and business associates. Now there are many ways of earning the respect of your customers and business partners, but the best way is to give them the respect that they deserve. I have met with many companies and business leaders over the last year and yes, I have heard the same thing from most of them; "This is probably the worst year that we have ever had." My question is why? Has the world really stopped spending or have they just become more aware of costs? Over the course of the last 6 months, I have driven down many streets and have seen that many businesses have one major thing in common; they are all having 50% off sales. Now when one company starts this, others feel they have to follow to keep the clientele coming in. But what does it really tell the general consumer? Does it tell them that your are about to go out of business? Maybe. Does it tell them that your product was so grossly over-priced that you have been ripping them off for years and that you can drop your price in half and still stay in business? They might get that idea too. Maybe you could be telling them that you have just brought in a new line of inferior products compared to what you regularly carry. I feel that the major message that businesses are telling the general consumer is; shop around for the best deals as we are all dropping are prices, and if you don't buy today that is okay because someone will drop their price by 75% tomorrow. Don't laugh, I saw a company last week that was giving 50% off of all Sale items and then another 25% off of that if they bought today. At this rate if I, the consumer, waits just one more month, I can get it for free. So getting back to your business objective; is it working? Are you earning more or less.



Now let's turn this around and focus on earning respect. They know, just as you and I know that times are tough, and for you to cut your prices, you are in turn trying to cut your costs. Many times cutting costs means removing a level of service, cutting staff or paying them less. Sometimes it means that you are re-negotiating with your suppliers or even moving to different suppliers. When the level of service drops, it is usually followed by the level of customer loyalty dropping. When playing hard-ball with long-time loyal suppliers or moving to other suppliers that you don't really know, the effect is usually the same. Service drops and sooner or later that will affect your customer.



The outcome is generally not what most small and medium sized companies are really wanting; as the more customers that you lose, the more statistics are proven right. The big get bigger and the little guy or girl goes to work for them.



So what is the answer? I believe that it is two fold. First if 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers, then you had better treat them well. Second, you need to find more customers like the 20% and if you can do that your business will increase. Now if you have been in business for a while, this information is nothing new to you, but occasionally we all need a reminder. My question is if we all know this why are we advertising our prices at 50% off? (Yes, at times I have fallen into the same rut trying to encourage business). Meanwhile we are paying large amounts of money to increase sales from customers that are just looking for the best deal that they can get today, and not those that will stay with us in the future.


Now statically the average company spends 3 to 6% on advertising with the hope that the return on investment will be ten fold. This figure seems to drop during a recession with smaller companies, and grows with larger companies. Now if you are advertising in the newspaper, on a couple of radio stations and maybe even TV, how do you know exactly which medium is delivering you the type of customer (the one who is responsible for your 80%) that you want. How much will you have to spend to reach that type of customer?



The answer is actually less money, and just a little more time. Earn the respect of your customer by getting to know them, and know them well. Many years ago, I had contacted a number of equipment suppliers as I needed some pretty unique machines. Three out of the ten or so that I contacted made a point of really getting to know me. Even though I am no longer in need of that type of equipment, I still receive an email once a month with specials that they have and in fact will send me an alert if the exact piece of machine that I was looking for comes on the market. Do their sales people have great memories, probably not, they probably have a great database. Does it pay off for them? After all I don't need the equipment anymore. You bet! Because I still have friends in the industry. You get to know your customer better, by gathering information about them and you can get a lot of information about them when they visit your website. Through the use of on-line surveys, interactive customer forums, membership areas, and email programs such as Constant Contact that return an interest report as to what articles you customer's click through to, you can respond to your customers needs and wants. Through Google Analytics I have been watching a potential customer in New Brunswick average ten to twenty minutes a day for the last three days on our website, while another in Florida has been returning every other day for the last week.



So why are potential customers coming back to our website so often and spending so much time? The answer is quite simple; I try to change the content, add a new page, or add more to my photo gallery every day. If you were to buy the newspaper today, read it and then buy the newspaper tomorrow but the content was the same, would you buy it again the following day? Then, if your website content isn't changing why would someone want to come back to your website. Many people that have websites built are more concerned with the appearance than they are with the content. Although we encourage our clients to get websites with Content Management Systems, we can't force them to change the content. That being said, if you take the time to continually update your website it will pay great dividends and the Return On Investment will grow each day. You see, unlike a newspaper advertisement or say radio advertising that once it is read or listened to is gone, your website is on-line 24/7 and is available to an audience of millions. With an investment of less that it would cost you to reach 100,000 people, 4 times a day for a month on the radio, you can reach more for years and keep them coming back to you.



So looking at the business objective of earning more. You can reach out to your customers regardless of where they are located. Interact with them, get to know them and appeal to their interests all through your website and effective Internet advertising at a fraction of the cost of other advertising mediums.

AD-Vice is a monthly publication of AIFCanada. We put your Advertising In Focus.
Here is how you can contact us:
Phone: (403) 614-4700
www.aifcanada.com
Email: sales@aifcanada.com
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AD-Vice April 2009 - Are You An Expert In Your Field?

Do you live in Calgary and have a blog? If you do, you probably are trying to draw as much attention to it as possible. We would like to help, on June 1, 2009 we will be launching a new Internet Magazine and we want to promote your blog in exchange for posting your articles. This Internet Magazine will be written by the people of Calgary, for the people of Calgary. We are looking for blogs on Finance, Mortgages, Real Estate, Renovations, Fashion, Weddings, Human Interest, Sports etc. If you are a photographer and will let us feature your pictures we want to hear from you too. As we expect to get hundreds if not thousands of submissions, we can't guarantee that we will post every article or picture. But if we do, we will provide a link back to your blog or website. The opportunities are endless, from charities to your company. Too many newspapers and magazines are filling up our land-fills, so we want to help out the environment also.

As May 1st is just around the corner, email your blog address to us now for consideration, and we will consider your articles.

AD-Vice is a monthly publication of AIFCanada. We put your Advertising In Focus.
Here is how you can contact us:
Phone: (403) 614-4700
www.aifcanada.com
Email: sales@aifcanada.com
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AIFCanada reserves the right to accept or refuse any submission.

The Best Internet Advertising is Free Internet Advertising

Free internet advertising is one very important method for promoting your products and services to thousands of free classified ads.

Most of these free classified ads web sites give you the power to facilitate marketing with features such as classified ads submitter forms. Features like this give free Internet advertising an extremely fast way of getting your products or services on line. It is accessible 24/7 allowing you access anytime, it’s very effective and efficient and most of it comes free. No downloads. No sign-up fees. No hidden charges. No annual or monthly fees. No sales fees. It is absolutely free.

Free internet advertising makes it easy for you to put free ads on several of the premier quality web sites whenever you want, for free. This kind of benefit you get from free internet advertising can only do, to say the least, miracles for your business. Most of these free internet advertising companies give you 3 slots to advertise any product or service for free.

Free internet advertising is the perfect way and best way to make your products or services known to the millions of prospective consumers in the Internet and make your web site start producing money. There is an enormous audience for free internet advertising that is present in the Internet, that the probability of anyone needing your services or wanting to buy your products is very high. There are free services out there that may suit your services, products and web site. Browse the internet for the best free internet advertising for assessment on their amenities and features how to advertise or join your web site for free internet advertising.

Most web sites promoting free internet advertising have features like classified ads submitter where you can get a enormous exposure with instant results and expand your sales by large volumes over night, opt-in email lists non spam bulk emailing program, guaranteed 100% legal. Opt-in email lists are created by people who have volunteered or opted-in their email addresses to these lists. These lists are very effective for creating personalized email to prospective clients.

Free internet advertising provides a great technique for building traffic. People constantly search on online free internet advertising ads for specific services or products. Free internet advertising target clients inclined to buying a particular kind of product or service in mind.

And the best reason to advertise in free internet advertising is because it is absolutely free.

This article is re-published from World Articles Best Articles Around World
13.04.2009 | Author: admin | Posted in Article Marketing

AD-Vice is a monthly publication of AIFCanada. We put your Advertising In Focus.
Here is how you can contact us:
Phone: (403) 614-4700
www.aifcanada.com
Email: sales@aifcanada.com
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Why Companies Must Do Internet Advertising In A Recession

• Posted by Steve McGrath in Business, Entrepreneurship, Internet, Money, Traffic

I mentioned before that companies that continued to advertise during the last recession were in a better position than their competitors after it ended. Plus, companies don't need a physical product to do Internet advertising. For example, a DUI Lawyer could offer his/her services locally too.

The Internet factor

Unlike the last recession, the Internet is an advertising tool available to all companies big or small. This is a major factor since e-commerce is done 24/7. Even if it's 2am where a company is located, it's 2pm elsewhere in the world. If companies don't advertise on the Internet, their competitor will, locally or not. Plus, television is being replaced more and more by the Internet meaning more potential clients.

Some numbers

Depending on your country/region, companies don't invest much in Internet advertising. Below, you will see the % of the total advertising budget that is spent on the Internet.

Quebec(Canada): 3%
Canada: 10%
USA: 12-13%
Europe: 20-25%

I knew that Quebec was far behind but I did not know by how much. This also show good opportunities for companies. Since the Internet has less competition, the cost of advertising will be lower.

Of course, geo targeted ads for Quebec would need to be in the French language. This would also open the field to French companies that are exporting to the Quebec market. The same could be said for European companies for the English Canadian and American markets. Remember, it's 24/7.

Geo targeting

Adwords is one of the method most companies will look at first. A company can geo target an ad so that they don't show it to those outside of a specific area. Here are 3 examples:

Best DUI Lawyer In Chicago
Let us defend you
Installment plan available

Best DUI Lawyer In Detroit
Let us defend you
Installment plan available

Best DUI Lawyer In the Country
Let us defend you
Offices in every major city

The first 2 are geo targeted to cities(Chicago, Detroit) while the last one is for the whole country(USA). The same third ad could be use for Canada too. They might have offices in Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal.

Depending on the city, the DUI lawyer might have to pay more while paying less for smaller cities.

Note: Having a good pay per click course will help companies or they will loose their shirts. They could also find a company to do it for them.

Branding

For many, they have a tendency to look at the Click-through rate(CTR). Depending on the goal of your ad, you should also look at the branding benefit. When you read a newspaper, you don't call every ads in it.

To brand itself more, a DUI Lawyer could buy banners on popular local blogs that gives news about the city, do restaurant/bar reviews, law related blogs.... The cost might be even less than doing PPC but the blogger could have readers outside of the city too thus not geo targeted. The ad might not have much clicks but it will offer branding power.

However, a company must select wisely the sites. Having a DUI Lawyer ad on a tech blog is not a good idea.

Conclusion

Most companies will make the mistake to cut their advertising budget. But by adding Internet advertising, it will help companies to survive through this recession by getting new untapped clients.

If employees can't have a raise or new equipment this year, the company must make them understand that offline/Internet advertising is what bring the money and paying their salary. Most employees should understand that because of the current recession.

Posted using ShareThis

For more information
Contact David Jones
(403)614-4700
sales@aifcanada.com
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www.halfpricedeals.ca

Calgary Advertises to 1000's with HalfPriceDeals.ca

Where can I find inexpensive Advertising that will reach 1000's of potential customers. The answer is HalfPriceDeals.ca, Popular in the United States with many broadcasters, the idea of marketing Gift Certificates at half of their redeemable value has come to Calgary.

Here are two scenario's that will paint the picture

1. A Restaurant who on average has the typical party of four come in and the average meal is $15.00 would provide Advertising In Focus with $40.00 Gift Certificates valid for food only the slowest days of the week. The Gift Certificates are sold on HalfPriceDeals.ca for $20.00, and the customers come in on the slowest night, spend $60.00 plus beverages, tips and GST. This provides a great introduction to the restaurant, and if the client is delighted with the service, selection and meal will return time and time again.
   
2. A Spa who has an average package of $80.00 would provide Advertising In Focus with $50.00 Gift Certificates valid for specific packages. The Gift Certificates are sold on HalfPriceDeals.ca for $25.00,and when the client comes in the staff are encouraged to sweeten the deal and sell higher end packages. Of course, the client will be delighted and return time and time again.

If you feel confident that after a client does business with you that they will come back then this is for you as we can guarantee getting the client to your door, or it doesn't cost you. If on the other hand, you don't think that customers will come back or refer you company to someone else, then you are better off finding another business.

For more information
Contact David Jones
(403)614-4700
sales@aifcanada.com
www.aifcanada.com
www.halfpricedeals.ca

Business Learns From The Average Joe

AD-Vice April 2009 - Low-cost and Free Advertising Techniques

Advertising, what is it? According to the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary it means: "the action of calling something to the attention of the public especially by paid announcements". Yet Princeton University defines advertising as: "the business of drawing public attention to goods and services". I feel that the people of Princeton are a little more correct in their definition. A lot of things are changing and changing fast in this world, and the changes in advertising are being driven by not major corporations, but individuals looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. With the current economic climate some companies are starting to move in the direction of the average consumer and using the Internet as a mass marketing tool. From Viral videos we get viral marketing and more and more companies are getting on the band wagon. Blogging, has been adopted by large corporations such as Dell, who have a consumer team that is dedicated to blogging. Imagine having a job writing your thoughts down and getting paid for it. Over the last month there has been a lot of talk about Twitter, which is actually a micro-blog. When I was first introduced to it by my son Spenser, I didn't get it. You have space to put 140 characters to tell the world what is on your mind at that moment. Not a lot of space if you are wordy like me, but I adapted and have learned that it is a great tool to market to the masses. So journey with me and watch as I take multiple projects and use various viral marketing techniques to advertise for my clients at little or no cost.

AD-Vice is a monthly publication of AIFCanada. We put your Advertising In Focus.
Here is how you can contact us:
Phone: (403) 614-4700
www.aifcanada.com
Email: sales@aifcanada.com
Twitter: aifcanada

Does Your Business Really Need A Website?

AD-Vice March 2009 - Modern day Advertising

The first question that comes to mind is,"Does every company need to be in the phone book or even advertise in any way shape or form?" If you are in business as a hobby, and you are just as busy as you want to be, then probably not.

However, if you are planning on growing your business or to stay in business in today's market, then you might want to consider the following. In 2008, 84.3% of Canadians regularly used the Internet. That was up from 67.5% in 2005. Have you noticed that the phone directories are starting to get thinner, and the phone directory companies have started to publish on line? In fact, they want to charge you more to put the same ad on line as you have in the book. As our population ages, the Internet is becoming a basic necessity as people are more willing to give up their television before the Internet. After all, you can watch many programs on the Internet anyway. As for the phone book, it is far faster to search for a company that it is to let your fingers... well you know what I mean.

Now, for some companies it is an essential part of doing business. Companies who are trying to reach customers in different locations (hotels, tourist attractions), or companies who ship their product around the world. But what about other companies such as renovation contractors, plumbers, financial advisers, or accountants. Do they need a website?

Here are the average month's statistics for the following searches:

A) renovation Calgary = 880 per month

B) Calgary plumbers = 590 per month

C) investment Calgary = 12,100 per month

D) accountants Calgary= 480 per month

Now if you are a renovation company that isn't on the Internet, you are missing 880 opportunities per month. Local businesses (dry cleaners or shoe repair shops, for example) also can benefit from a web site that shows their location, lists their services or offers special promotions.

And woe to those who think they don't need a compelling web site because they serve other businesses rather than retail consumers. Many businesses search for new suppliers online, then order from them that way, too.

Sometimes, if a customer can't find you on the web, they immediately dismiss you as being a reputable business. In short, if you want more customers, you should be online, regardless of your industry.

Your online marketing tool

For most businesses of any size, a web site is rapidly becoming the most basic requirement of a marketing plan. A site can help you reach one or more of the following goals:

• Help customers find you in the offline world – your office, your storefront, your phone number.

• Help persuade customers that you have the right service or product for them

• Help sell products online, even across different marketplaces, to retail customers or other businesses.

A simple site helps customers find you

The simplest possible web presence is a one-page site that tells people how to find your business in the "real" world. It should include:

• A relevant web address that relates to your company name and business.

• Your business address, complete with directions and a reliable map.

• Your business phone number, along with fax numbers if relevant.

• Your hours of operation.

• A clear and enticing description of what your business offers to customers.

This simple Web presence is most appropriate for businesses that serve local customers (a dry cleaner, doctor's office or plumber, for example) and that aren't actively looking to expand their customer base (as with a fully booked dental practice).

For better marketing, create an expansive site

If you're interested in active marketing for your business, you can expand your Web site to make it a more robust online marketing tool.

In this scenario, the Web site's job is to convince customers to take that next step: Buy the product online, call you to place an order or set up an appointment, or drive to your office or storefront. Your site is essentially your online marketing brochure, one that's more effective than a printed marketing piece. Web sites enable customers to dig deep into the information they care about, without overwhelming them with the stuff they don't want or need to know. That's hard to pull off in a paper brochure.

You can approach crafting the Web site as you would any other marketing brochure. Use color, graphics, photos and words to get across four key things about your business:

• What you provide for customers.

• What kind of customers you focus on and can serve best..

• How your business is unique from others who provide the same product or service, so customers can decide if your solution is the right on for them

• The personality or brand essence of your business – what your company stands for.

So yes, for good reasons

Unless you have all the customers you can handle, a web site can be a good marketing investment. At Advertising In Focus, we can help you find a domain name that's appropriate for your business and beef up your marketing arsenal with a compelling web site. Are you ready to start being successful online? The best way is to have a professionally built web site that you can control from Advertising In Focus.

AD-Vice is a monthly publication of AIFCanada. We put your Advertising In Focus.
Here is how you can contact us:
Phone: (403) 614-4700
www.aifcanada.com
Email: sales@aifcanada.com
Twitter: aifcanada