Don't Spend Money on These Ads

Are you interested in saving a ton of money on your marketing? I’ve got a great and simple solution – stop spending hard-earned dollars on marketing.  It’s just that easy!

By now, you’re already suspicious of my advice, right?  After all, this is a piece about sales and marketing.  How could someone like me (who makes a living from the marketing business) encourage you to stop spending money to promote your small business?

My bold advice comes down to this… if you are paying money to push out average, uninspired marketing pieces, I contend that this course of action is analogous to the absence of ads.

To further my point, allow me to lean on the wisdom of Seth Godin for a moment. He wrote a book called Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable. The premise of the book was solidified by a trip he and his family were on years ago.  They happen to be traveling the countryside in France and were initially in awe of the “storybook cows” that grazed near the thoroughfare. After some time, the ubiquitous presence of these animals lost their appeal. According to him, they went from common to boring quite fast. What if he were to happen upon a purple cow?  Now the presence of such a colorful bovine would certainly disrupt, what then had become, a mundane landscape.

The point is if you blend into the marketing landscape for your product or service, passersby have no real way of distinguishing you from another small business. In essence, you’ll be overlooked.

So with that in mind, let’s go back to saving money. Why in the world would you spend thousands of dollars, only to be overlooked? You would have been better off never spending the money in the first place. Am I telling you not to invest in marketing? Not at all!  What I am suggesting is that spending to promote lackluster ads is a total waste.  Spending money to promote brilliant ads, on the other hand, is incredibly wise and will prove to be lucrative.

So the major challenge that I’m issuing to your small business comes down to whether you’ll step up your game in the area of your marketing ideas.

So let’s bring this kick in the pants to a proper conclusion with the following points:

• You’re the solution. No longer be content with copying the other guy’s answer for the test your business’ brand is taking
• Embrace the risk.  There’s inherent risk involved with being a marketing-groundbreaker. Get comfortable with that idea if you’re about innovation
• Be ready to learn from failure.  Sure, you’re probably going to botch a few things along the way. Course-correct and refine your marketing ideas. You’ll look like a rockstar-genius in the end
• Find the gaps. What have others overlooked in your industry? Leverage such oversight in your communications

Walter Dailey is a marketing speaker, consultant, and creative director for DSV Media, a creative services firm specializing in Small Business Marketing and insight for small to mid-sized businesses.  Ask your questions: walter@dsvmedia.com.