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Advertising on a budget

Q: Seven months ago, I opened a small store selling futons, carpeting, and home furnishings located on a busy road with little foot traffic. I’ve advertised in papers and the phone book, but it’s like flushing money down the toilet. How can I get a better response on a shoestring? — Rudy Scott, Oceanside, N.Y.

A: What you need is a strategic marketing plan. Instead of throwing money at random venues—a little here, a little there—craft an advertising campaign to attract the customers you want. You probably can’t afford professional marketing help, so brainstorm instead with employees, family members, and friends. Who are your target customers? What are they reading, listening to, or looking at online? What can you offer that will lure them into your shop? …more from BusinessWeek. Flickr photo credit: Andyrob

By ArcherTC|2012-01-05T07:37:24+01:00December 5, 2008|Blog, Small Business|0 Comments

Don’t skimp on ad budgets

With corporate managers under enormous pressure to control costs and maintain liquidity in the current credit crisis, advertising budgets often appear to be a dispensable luxury in the struggle to survive. Executives who succumb to that temptation, however, put the long-term future of their companies at risk, according to Wharton faculty and advertising experts.

“The first reaction is to cut, cut, cut, and advertising is one of the first things to go,” says Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader, adding that as companies slash advertising in a downturn, they leave empty space in consumers’ minds for aggressive marketers to make strong inroads. Today’s economy “provides an unusual opportunity to differentiate yourself and stand out from the crowd,” says Fader, “but it takes a lot of courage and convincing to get senior management on board with that.” …more from Forbes.com. Flickr photo credit: shankar, shiv

By ArcherTC|2012-01-05T06:45:31+01:00December 1, 2008|Administration & Finance, Blog|0 Comments

Scratch and win customers

Bankers constantly fret about how to get customers into the branches since face time with a teller or sales rep is the best way to sell products and services and deepen the customer relationship.

Senior leadership at Fifth Third Bank faced this quandary after opening a string of de novos and expanding through acquisitions. What they hit upon to grab the attention of the public is to give away money-a quarter-of-a-million dollars worth.

“This campaign is a little bit different than some of the things that we have tried in the past,” says the bank’s Chief Marketing Officer Larry Magnesen. “We’ve been fairly active in the last few years in opening de novo banking centers in some of our key markets such as Chicago, Orlando, Tampa Bay, Nashville, etc. We wanted to see if we could put in a new program to put that plan [of building branch traffic] into hyper drive. The idea was to use something that would appeal to anyone, in this case winning a quarter of a million dollars, to get people who didn’t even think they were in the market for a financial product to come in and see us.” …more from U.S. Banker. Flickr photo credit: Shoshanah

By ArcherTC|2012-01-05T06:58:54+01:00November 1, 2008|Blog, Marketing|0 Comments