There's certainly no shortage of small business advertising opportunities available to entrepreneurs.
Sadly, most are woefully ineffective when it comes to truly bringing the small business a positive return on investment.
The reason:
Most small businesses use a common form of advertising commonly referred to as institutional or brand advertising.
You know what this is...
It's when a business attempts to "brand" their name in the minds of prospective customers similar to the way big Fortune 500 companies do.
Unfortunately, this approach to advertising requires lots of advertising capital - something most small businesses don't have - and lots of time to actually, if ever, achieve top of the mind awareness.
As well, brand style advertising isn't trackable and doesn't generate immediate results - something almost every small business requires when investing capital in advertising and marketing.
This is why two-step advertising, commonly referred to as direct response lead generation (DRLG) advertising, is the best choice for smaller businesses when it comes to generating new customers, clients or patients.
For clarification purposes, DRLG is focused on generating an immediate response from recipients in the form of generating a lead.
Meaning: the primary goal of DRLG is to generate a qualified lead.
Once the lead is generated, it gives the small business the opportunity to plug that lead into a follow-up contact system (like an email autoresponder). This is an incredibly valuable aspect of DRLG because as most entrepreneurs intrinsically know... the fortune in advertising and marketing is in the follow-up.
For example:
When a chiropractor uses DRLG as their primary chiropractic advertising approach, they will convert more prospects into patients from the follow-up contacts than they will from the first marketing contact (or initial contact point).
But, the ability to follow-up with leads is really just the beginning of what makes DRLG so powerful and effective for small businesses.
The next huge benefit is that because DRLG asks for an immediate response - generating the lead - it is easily trackable. This provides small business entrepreneurs with the ability to hold every dollar they invest in advertising accountable for a positive return on their investment.
Next, when DRLG is done properly, it also gives the entrepreneur the opportunity to segment leads into specific follow-up sequences. This increases conversions because it allows the entrepreneur to deliver highly-compelling, targeted follow-up messages to leads.
Again, let's take the chiropractor.
A DRLG chiropractic advertising campaign could include several different follow-up sequences for different types of leads (i.e. back pain, accident recovery, general health, etc.). And, anytime you a small business narrows their focus when marketing, they're better able to craft a more compelling message that resonates with prospects.
Lastly, because DRLG advertising always include a lead generation offer - offer being the key word - it generates an immediate response. Meaning: when it's done properly, it brings in money right away.
Overall, compared with brand or institutional advertising, DRLG brings so many exciting (and profitable) benefits to the mom-and-pop entrepreneur, without the huge outlay of capital or the time requirement. It really should be a no-brainer for the small business entrepreneur. Try it for yourself and see.
