What Kind Of Advertiser Are You? Passive - Passive/agressive - Agressive

Business people look at advertising in many ways and take, or pass up, advertising for various reasons. Most of us know that the more aggressive the advertising/marketing campaign, if done right, the more customers and money comes in the door. As an example Roto-Rooter is an Aggressive Advertiser with radio, Internet, full page yellow page ads, and even some TV advertising, that has built a nationwide business out of their advertising and marketing. From a marketing standpoint who doesn t remember the Roto-Rooter jingle. Roto-Rooter that s the name Did you finish the jingle in your head? Their campaign was so good that I remembered it and am writing about it right now and giving them FREE advertising. How much better can it get? From the standpoint of advertising and marketing, they did a job and a half. Ask a friend who they would call for a blocked drain or sewer line and see if they don t sing the jingle out loud to you.

Then there is the Passive mom and pop advertisers who don t have a dream of becoming the largest drain cleaning company out there in the USA and who aren t ready to start working that hard no matter how much the payoff on the other end. They are happy with a yellow page entry with just their name, address and phone number under the category Drain Cleaning . Mom and Pop feel that if someone has a drain problem they will pick up the phone book and give the Mom and Pop Cleaning Service a call, because everyone knows that the big guys charge more to pay for all that advertising. They also depend on Aunt Martha to tell her son to call Mom and Pop because they do a good job and they charge a fair price much better than those big guys. This is passive advertising and marketing in the form of word of mouth .


The third type of business advertiser is the Passive/Aggressive advertiser. This group is composed of most everyone who advertises or markets their business. They are passive on some advertising possibilities. They may just have a regular listing in the yellow pages to draw in a few customers because they are listed there. It cost practically nothing, so why not?

And when these advertisers have some extra cash on hand, they try various forms of advertising and marketing, hoping to make that extra cash work for them and bring in lots more paying customers. Once they find something that works for them they often keep doing it. As an example, we have a local real estate agent who used her extra cash to buy billboard advertising. IT WORKED. She got lots of extra business from this expensive advertising method, but who cared about the cost. It more than paid for itself. A dentist decided that taking out a full page on the back of the yellow pages might just work for him. It did, even with the price tag of $35,000 per year. Cosmetic dentistry isn t cheap to begin with, and the expensive adverting brought in many new customers. Another local business person decided that the internet was the thing for her. It was new and innovative. She has a group of products that sold great at her shop and she decided to try and sell them over the Internet. Her gross went from $3,000 per month to around $45,000 per month within 6 months. And so the story goes.

If you are a Passive Advertiser, you may just be at your advertising comfort level and, if it is working for you, great keep it going. But if you would like to pump up the business a notch without spending tons of money, keep reading.

For the Passive/Aggressive advertisers and the Aggressive advertisers, let s take a look at some possibilities that could get you more business in the door, a lot more business in the door, or really pump up your cash box. What is the next best step for you? You know about the big forms of advertising of course: TV, Radio, Billboards (all very expensive), Newspaper, Yellow Pages, a website (far less pricy, but if you really want to make an impact it can cost a fortune too), flyers and classified ads, etc. (The latter can be far less expensive but often far less effective and might not portray your business the way you want it to be seen.)

The Internet is still a very viable advertising and marketing medium and can be used in place of TV, radio, billboards, newspapers and paper yellow pages very successfully if you know how to use it to get business to your door. This applies to those who have a website and those that don t. Here are the facts: The number of people using the Internet is increasing. 71% of US adults use Internet. 76 % do research on the Internet before they buy something or request a service. 91% of Internet users use a local directory or search engine to find information or find a business according to the Pey Internet & and American Life Project. Now those are astounding figures and unless you are a totally Passive advertiser, you need to pay attention to them and start using them to your advantage.

The big question becomes how can people using the Internet find you. The search engines have become too massive, too commercialized and it s difficult to find anyone who is not willing to pay a premium to be on the first or second results page of the search engine.

It used to be easy in the old days (a few years back) before we Googeled and Yahoo d and millions of competitors came on board with their websites. You simply did a website and went to a directory or a search engine (your choice of hundreds) and got your website link from there for FREE. People looking found you.

Not so any more. You can still do a website, of course (though you need to do it right and it can be costly). If you have a website and plan to compete on the regular Internet, plan on spending at the very least the same amount you paid for the website per year for advertising it. Commercialization has brought on hundreds, thousands, or even millions of competitors. Those who want to be found are paying a premium to Google or Yahoo of as much as $3 and $4 every time someone clicks a link and goes to their website. Believe it or not, it is worth it for some businesses. The question is is it worth it for you?

For most people the answer is simply NO! If your answer is NO, then how do you compete? Many are now reevaluating their websites to see if they even want to keep them or are already switching back to other forms of advertising that they can at least understand and feel they are getting something out of without paying such a high price.

By: Steve Horvath

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The author, Steve Horvath, has been a webmaster and Internet marketing professional since 1996. You can find out more about local directories and internet advertising at www.sfnorthbay.com