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What Is The Point Of Advertising?

Written by: Jonathan Hook

Article Overview: I was recently looking through some of my local Yellow Pages and also local business websites in my area when I started to think about the purpose of advertising. I get the weird feeling as I am flipping through some poorly constructed ads and websites that some (ok, a lot of) businesses don't understand the purpose of advertising.

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What Is The Point Of Advertising?

I was recently looking through some of my local Yellow Pages and also local business websites in my area when I started to think about the purpose of advertising. I get the weird feeling as I am flipping through some poorly constructed ads and websites that some (ok, a lot of) businesses don't understand the purpose of advertising. I think that some businesses advertise in the Yellow Pages or get a website or on the radio or on local TV... because they feel they have to. They think that this is the "thing to do", they do it because it is expected. They also see it as an expense.

Now, this last one blows me away because advertising is not an expense. Advertising is an investment to be made in your business and it should be using a tested and proven method. You should have a good idea what your return will be and it is best if you can turn it on and off at will. If your advertising is costing you money and you don't know why you are doing it,

THEN STOP!

Because you are flushing money down the toilet.

You don't advertise when you can afford it, you advertise when you want to produce results (typically sales). When times get tough for a company, they often cut back on their advertising first. Oh dear. How can a business expect to make money if they are not advertising? They should be advertising more to boost sales, revenue and profits.

The problem is that most advertising is done poorly and is wasted money. Poor headlines don't connect with customers, poor copy doesn't interest them, poor (or no) call to action doesn't invoke the driving urge to run to their phone and call you right now to place their order.

If your advertising does not produce a predictable, positive result for your business, then stop wasting your money on it. Get it fixed. And then turn on the tap of new profits.

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Home > Marketing > Jonathan Hook > What Is The Point Of Advertising
Article Tags: business websites, headlines, local tv, money down, profits, radio, sales revenue, tap, toilet, urge, wasting your money, weird feeling, yellow pages

About the Author: Jonathan Hook
RSS for Jonathan's articles - Visit Jonathan's website

Jonathan Hook is a marketing and business growth consultant. Jonathan and his partner, Randy, operate as the "Go-To Marketing Guys" and help businesses to achieve growth of 25-100% in 90 days by personally working with your business to analyze, design and implement a step by step marketing system that is guaranteed to work - without additional advertising costs. http://www.GoToMarketingGuys.com

Click here to visit Jonathan's website
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Related Forum Posts
Top 19 Copywriting books 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!
Re: New Homepage Layout! Re: New Homepage Layout! - Thanks for the feedback GT - I'm glad you enjoy the new layout! Point taken on the Forums Hot Topics - we'll see how it develops. Right now it shows topics that have over 1,000 views on them and it's sorted by the most recent at the top.
Re: 10 More Ways To Get Business From Twitter Re: 10 More Ways To Get Business From Twitter - Point taken GT - Next week I'll post a couple examples of how I've used Twitter in the past week that has had an impact on my business (and anybody can copy). Stay tuned!
Re: How can you help dreamers or those with no patience? Re: How can you help dreamers or those with no patience? - Ask them how much they anticipate earning and then get them to justify how they're going to get there. New entrepreneurs and some "Old" entrepreneurs will lack the vision of how to get from point A to Point B. Having them actually put some thought into the process will either get them to rethink and come up with a plan or will send them running if there's no solid business model.
Ideas for developing my business Ideas for developing my business - Advertising is the life-blood of any magazine. Get some advertisers and you're set. You've got your target market, now start working on the "buzz" around the mag.


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