Four States Small Business Blog

Digital marketing is a valuable tool for businesses of all types and sizes. That’s because the internet plays a crucial role in how people make their purchasing decisions. In fact, 81 percent of consumers today conduct online research before buying a product or service.

When you are buying radio advertising in Joplin, you want a radio group who will partner with you to achieve success, who helps you craft a unique message, and who can reach more listeners than anyone else. At Zimmer Radio, Inc., we have the tools and experience you need for a successful radio advertising campaign.

The types of music people love, and the radio stations they listen to, usually say a lot about their demographic qualities and overall consumer preferences. That’s why radio advertising is so unique. It gives businesses the chance to access segmented audiences by targeting certain radio station formats and the listeners they tend to attract.

It’s not hard to recognize that we live in an instant gratification world. From fast food to movies on demand, we’ve become accustomed to rapid response. Kissmetrics, an internet data company, reports that 47% of consumers expect a website to load in under 2 seconds and 40% will abandon a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. For some consumers, two-day shipping for online orders is too long; they desire click-and-collect services that allow them to order online and pick up their items the same day.

The desire for instant gratification is often part and parcel of human nature, whether you’re looking at the world as a customer or as a business owner or marketer. As the path to purchase fragments, and micro moments and personalization become more important, immediate gratification becomes easier for the customer. However, as tempting as it is to look at marketing ROI in the same way, business owners need to remember that advertising is an investment, and advertising success and brand development take time to achieve.

In 1983, Advertising Age magazine published an article in which the authors cited evidence that consumers prefer ear-oriented messaging as compared with eye-oriented messaging. Speech is the primary form of communication for human beings, and for advertisers, this fact holds significant implications. It means that advertising for the ear is more effective than print advertising that’s designed to be received by the eye.

In business, every dollar spent counts against the bottom line. While owners and managers alike look for ways to pinch every penny they can, they tend to avoid skimping on important investments that offer growth opportunities. Unfortunately, many businesses don't look at advertising and marketing as an investment and don’t realize how important reaching customers with advertising is to increase sales and company growth. Price shopping advertising opportunities only to take advantage of your cheapest option can hurt your bottom line. In today's blog post, we'll discuss four major reasons for why cheaper isn't better, and why you should be hiring trained professionals that are willing to not only invest in themselves, but also in their product.

The concept of a marketing bridge for business was first introduced to radio advertisers in 1968, and it is arguably one of the most important elements of a company's marketing strategy. Simply put, it is the connection between what your advertising says about your business and what your customer experiences. It’s the forces that combine to make a sale. If your advertising tells people something about your business and they don’t see, hear, or experience it when they arrive at your store or contact a salesperson — in other words, if there is a disconnect — that's a problem. If any of these connections in the marketing bridge are broken or ineffective, it can affect whether your business makes a sale, thus affecting your bottom line. Advertising is the glue that holds the bridge together, but it is not a substitute for strengthening weak links.

As the market space becomes increasingly mobile-focused and reliant on multi-screen marketing, it becomes more and more important to know your customer's journey and the touchpoints your brand needs to capture in order to influence it. Customer Journey mapping is the key to truly understanding it in a visual way; it allows you to see the story behind the process from initial contact to consideration and purchase from the customer's perspective. This blog post will inform you on how to map your customer's journey along with insights for the customer journey mapping process.

A key factor of running a successful business is to have a plan, and while the marketing strategy is a huge part of that plan, budgeting for advertising efforts can often be overlooked. Typically, a significant portion of the marketing budget is allocated to advertising, which is why it’s important to monitor what is being spent, analyze the efforts, and make adjustments when needed. A strategic advertising budget is crucial to increasing revenue for your business. Without a plan, a business might overspend on opportunities that don’t create a positive ROI, resulting in a loss, or they might miss out on opportunities to save money by waiting too late and missing deadlines offering advertising opportunity bundles and extras.