Small businesses waste thousands of pounds annually on expensive advertising that will never bring them a single customer. Unfortunately many labors under the misconception that all they have to do to bring business through their doors is go with the biggest ad they can afford. Advertising doesn’t work this way.

Tips:

For an advertisement to work it must have a clear, quantifiable objective, nothing as vague as ‘to bring in more business’ or ‘to increase sales’.

The advertisement’s objective must be:

• Specific. How many new customers do you want to generate? How many products do you want to sell?
• Measurable. How are you going to work out how successful your ad is? One way is to ask to customers replying to your ad to quote a specific reference number or mention the ad itself to take advantage of a special offer.
• Targeted. You must make sure your ad is going to reach your potential market. If you’re a hairdresser offering a mobile hairdressing service, you need to target those people who for whatever reasons find themselves mostly housebound.