Four States Small Business Blog

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.

In the modern digital age, consumers are diversifying the number of channels they use to communicate, do research, and shop. Operating in this fast-paced, multi-screen world, brands can find improved results when they combine traditional marketing channels with online channels. Most notably, a 2015 survey of 21 brands over 18 months found that brands combining radio and online outreach produced a 23% increase in sales and inquiries when using a mix and match channel approach for marketing campaigns, while individually, the channels only produced a 17% or 14% increase, respectively.

Certain elements are critical to every successful marketing strategy, no matter how large or small your business is. Some are obviously more important than others, like having a unique selling proposition, but others might not seem critical at first glance. Consistency is one of them, especially if you're engaging in marketing across different media, like radio, TV, print, digital, and more. In today's blog post, we'll take a snapshot look at the importance of brand consistency in your marketing and how you can ensure you’re doing it right.