How do we solve the
Small Business Advertising Dilemma?“Even if expert professional help is available to diagnose our problems and prescribe effective cures — and it rarely is — we can’t AFFORD it.”
For most of us, there’s only one answer… we have to become OUR OWN specialists… we have to learn how to DO IT FOR OURSELVES.
In other words… when the doctor’s out of reach, it’s smart to learn — and practice — First Aid!
That’s not as ridiculous or intimidating as it may sound.
For a start, nobody knows YOUR business better than YOU do. And you can usually get free or low-cost help to create layouts and copy from the media (remember – the media is like the pharmacist, not the doctor).
Our needs are also very different to those of BIG business advertisers. They have to commit to huge, widespread media buying to get their message across. Small business advertisers like us can run leaner and cleaner, making any necessary changes quickly, from day to day.
On top of all these advantages, though, there’s one H-U-G-E benefit we can tap into — IF we can just tear our attention away from the nonsense constantly being spread around, usually by people who are either as ignorant of the real problem as their small business clients are, or who have a vested interest.
These are the so-called advertising “experts” who want you to believe that it’s all about LOW leverage factors like layout and copy — “killer copy” and “dazzling, eye-grabbing design” — for one very simple reason…
They want YOU to buy THEIR copywriting or design services!
In other words, they’re really advertising “pharmacists” – NOT advertising “doctors”!
Would you really want to hire them when they’re so ignorant of the REAL problem or, if they DO know it, they’re so willing to DELIBERATELY HIDE IT FROM YOU… just to get you to buy their services? *
Either way, your chance of wasting more money for little result is HIGHER.
Sadly, there are plenty of unwitting small business advertisers willing to pay these “experts” for glitzier packaging to wrap around a non-existent strategy.
*To be fair, the reality is usually that these people are trained in copywriting and/or layout and design, but NOT in marketing or market communications strategy development. It’s a bit like the bad old days, when your barber was also your doctor. (That’s where the traditional barber’s sign — a red and white striped pole — comes from. They used to wrap bloodied bandages around a pole to advertise their businesses!)
Would YOU trust a person who’s trained to cut and style your hair with removing your appendix or diagnosing and treating pneumonia?
It’s insane, isn’t it? As insane as… (well, you get the message, we hope).
To discover that H-U-G-E benefit YOU can enjoy, click this button…
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The GOOD news (at last!) |
©1998 The Profit Clinic. All rights reserved.
This page updated 23 August 2002.