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Local Small Business Advertising Ideas: Where To Get Them

Guest post by: Claude Whitacre

Article Overview: Every local small business owner has the same question: How do I advertise? Where do I get good advertising ideas? Here is the answer.

Local Small Business Advertising Ideas: Where To Get Them

Local small business owners spend a great deal of money on advertising. Most of us never know if the advertising is paying off. Most never know if their advertising or marketing is any good at all. The problem is, we ask the wrong people their opinion. We ask our co-workers if an advertisement looks good. The CEO asks the treasurer what she thinks. The problem is that most of us are not experts in advertising. At most, we know what we like in graphic design.

So, where do we get great advertising ideas? Most of us never look outside our doors for advertising or marketing ideas. The smarter small business owners look outside their doors to other, more successful, business owners...in the same business. That a smart way to look for ideas. Copy what works. It's the franchise method. Test an idea, copy it, and deploy it to the vendors.

Te problem with his idea is that everyone in your business has access to these ideas. They aren't new. Soon you are copying the copier. You are playing "follow the follower". My mentor Dan Kennedy calls this "Marketing Incest".

Most tested and proven small business advertising and marketing ideas are found completely outside of your core business. These ideas can then be tested and translated into any business you like. For example, I own a retail store and sell vacuum cleaners. But of the 42 separate marketing and advertising methods I employ, only one idea came from the retail industry. One out of forty two. In fact, the most profitable ideas I use come from the restaurant, medical, and insurance fields.

The idea is simple. Find businesses that are actually owned by someone. Not major corporation, but businesses that have a leader calling the shots. Most successful companies have articles written about them and their CEO. In fact, there are hundreds of books out there on Amazon.com that hold all the marketing and advertising secrets these leaders used to grow their company. These ideas are plentiful, easy to find, and books are cheap.

You can read a book about an entrepreneur, and I see what made them successful. Then you just have to imagine how that idea, at least the core of it, could be applied to your business. Most great advertising and marketing ideas are similar or even identical across all industries. A few tweeks is all it usually takers to generate a profitable new idea for your business.

You can go to the library and take a day doing this; Look up magazines where there are direct mail ads running. Direct mail meaning that you can actually buy something from the ad, or at least request information. These are not brand building ads. Now find the same magazine from a year ago. Look at the ads. Which ads are the same from a year ago? Those ads are profitable. These are the ads to study. What do they have in common? A few hours of studying these ads will show you a pattern that great ads use. Now look at the ads that are there a year ago, but are not there now. What do they have in common? These are unsuccessful ads. What are the differences between a dozen of these unsuccessful ads, and the ones that are repeated for at least a year?

Now imagine that these successful repeated ads were used to sell your product (or at least get a request for information). A few simple changes are all that's needed for most ads.

I know this is boring work. I know it isn't exciting, and won't make for a great story when you tell your friends about it. But if you want to know the most profitable way to get advertising and marketing ideas for your local small business or retail store, this is it.

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Article Tags: advertising ideas, local advertising ideas, small business advertising ideas



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Top 19 Copywriting books - 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley. 2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner. 3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill. 4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin. 7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books. 9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association. 11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books. 12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books. 13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books. 16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books. 17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall. 18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop. 19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley. This should keep you busy for at least a year. Enjoy!
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
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These maybe the coldest franchises out there: - Here are the worst 15 performing franchises in regards to having the highest Small Business Administration (SBA) loan failure rates. The list is dotted with sub sandwich shops, fitness centers and car shops. WORST FRANCHISE LOAN FAILURES Failure % 1 OBEE'S SOUP SALAD SUBS 55.56% 2 LADY OF AMERICA 41.94% 3 COUNTRY CLUTTER (BED & BREAKFAST) 41.18% 4 COPY CLUB 36.36% 5 ALL TUNE AND LUBE 35.71% 6 PICKERMAN'S 35.71% 7 PHILLY CONNECTION 35.59% 8 ROLY POLY ROLLED SANDWICHES 34.78% 9 COTTMAN TRANSMISSION 34.48% 10 HAIR COLOR EXPRESS 33.33% 11 LEE MYLES AUTOMOTIVE TRANSMISSIONS 33.33% 12 GODFATHER'S PIZZA 33.33% 13 SMOOTHIE FACTORY 33.33% 14 BLIMPIE 31.39% 15 GOLF U.S.A. (RETAIL GOLF EQUIP.) 30.77% Source: Small Business Administration, SBA Loan Performance Within Franchise Code for the Period of FY 2001 - 2005


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