What advertising media gets the biggest bang for the buck?

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Permalink Reply by Manash Sahoo on January 30, 2008 at 7:52am

I think that depends on your product or service offered. What ya selling? I'll take two. ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Boller on January 30, 2008 at 9:34am

selling software services to IT and i will get those out to you right away!

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Permalink Reply by Lorraine Ball on January 30, 2008 at 8:14am

Who are your customers? Teen age girls or their grandmothers? Small biz owners in retail space or virtual tech firms? The market definately defines the medium.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Boller on January 30, 2008 at 9:36am

IT dept's or Business Owners. I have a teenage girl and can't figure her out so I'm glad I'm not selling into that market.

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Permalink Reply by Erik Deckers on January 30, 2008 at 9:44am

You can also do some cheap/free things, like attending Business After Hours or networking events for your chamber of commerce (look at the Fishers Chamber too -- they have about 900 members). Of course, if you're doing work in Indianapolis itself, you should consider the Indy Chamber. But they have cut back on their BAH and networking events to a quarterly basis, not monthly. So if you take that route, start with the smaller ones first to generate some revenue, and then join the Indy Chamber later. Of course, you can also pay to get into Indy's events as a non-member, which saves you the joining fee.

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Permalink Reply by Lorraine Ball on January 30, 2008 at 10:31am

Is it IT departments or Business Owners? Strategy to reach each is different. IT is going to have to sell your solution to mgment. They will probably understand it better on the front end.

Biz owners, will make decison based on bottom line, caring less about technology.

For biz owners, I would narrow it down even further. If you only have 1,000 i would do very narrow cast email, direct mail and referral rather than a broad brush hoping to hit somethig.

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Permalink Reply by Erik Deckers on January 30, 2008 at 8:22am

Like Manash said, a lot of it does depend on what you're selling. If you're selling low-cost items that you can sell a lot of, then I would focus on direct mail (said the direct mail sales manager). There are four reasons why I would:

1) You can target it. By purchasing a mailing list of your ideal customer, you can choose only those people who are likely to buy.

2) It's measurable. Get a special 800# or new URL, and put it only on your mailings. Count the number of people who call in, and you can count the number of respondents.

3) You can personalize it. Thanks to variable data printing and digital color printers, you can personalize mail to people, and focus strictly on the benefits you think will speak to them.

4) It's more wanted/less detested. According to a Pitney Bowes study, 73% of people prefer direct mail over email for new product information, and 70% of consumers prefer direct mail for business communications.

So, that's my two cents. Keep in mind, I am in direct mail, so my answer is biased (however, there are a few DM companies in town, and I'll even tell you where they are.). You'll get good reasons from the people at ExactTarget (email), telemarketing firms, and event planners. The ultimate choice comes down to you. Good luck.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Boller on January 30, 2008 at 9:37am

Thanks Eric, good stuff to think about.

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Permalink Reply by Nicki Laycoax on January 30, 2008 at 12:46pm

If hiring a company to redesign our website is an option, then I would definitely start there. ( I think that falls under the long term, but we just don't seem to find the time to do it.)

If not, I would host a luncheon to let as many people as the budget allows, know what it is that our company actually does. At this point, I think that since the info on our site says web design, people don't actually know that we do custom application development.

***note to self; Nicki,with the posts that you have recently written about your site, maybe you should be focusing on your own site!*** :)

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Permalink Reply by Craig Bartels on February 7, 2008 at 10:46pm

The biggest mistake most people make is not knowing how to market on the internet. 95% of the marketing done online isn't effective at all..

I would recommend reading from the best of the best online.

Do some research on Yanik Silver and Dan Kennedy to start.

www.yaniksilver.com

www.dankennedy.com

You can get a lot of Dan Kennedy's material on ebay for a pretty good discount to what he charges on his website.

These two are the most well know online marketers ever, and they know what they are doing.

Unless you have serious $$$ to spend, I mean really serious $$$ like McDonalds, etc. branding is a lost cause.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Boller on February 14, 2008 at 1:11pm

Thanks Craig, I look forward to reading these.

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Permalink Reply by Craig Bartels on February 7, 2008 at 10:49pm

I never did actually answer your question, the best bang for the buck hands down is internet advertising. Maybe PPC would work well for you if you are able to capture your audience well. $1,000 wouldn't be enough to get good SEO going on your site..

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