Small businesses are often cash-strapped in the start. The situation calls for very wise spending to get the best results. Despite this, in the rush of going big, small businesses try to copy big businesses. They want to be like them and act like them. One aspect of acting upon this impulse is using expensive marketing mediums. It is often detrimental to achieving business goals.
There are three communication mediums that impact the audience as they are habitual of searching for products and offers on these mediums. For small businesses, they turn out costly, and small businesses quit them. However, by that time valuable resources and time are wasted.
Here are the three marketing mediums that cause small businesses to fail in reaching sales targets.
1-Advertising Billboards
The idea with billboards is that they catch a large number of eyeballs. The rationale is perfect but here comes the painful part. The areas or locations with most eye traffic have the most expensive billboards. The most lucrative areas are the most expensive ones. Cash-strapped, small businesses rarely have big budgets to bear the costs of advertising on billboards. In contrast, large companies have huge marketing budgets to spend.
Billboards are therefore very expensive to use for small businesses. They are just not the right medium.
2-Print Ads
Print ads can appear in local magazines, newspapers or advertorials. The painful part is that they mostly get overlooked. Unless someone genuinely interested in looking at them, chances of success are rare and short-lived.
Print ads are also expensive, both in terms of the required investment and the difficulty in measuring results. Print ads often target a broad audience, whose engagement and effectiveness is very hard to measure. It is another costly medium of marketing that will hurt your already slim finances.
3-Video or TV ads
Video commercials are time taking to plan. Then, they are expensive to make. Above all, they are expensive to roll out. A large number of people skip commercials on TV or on YouTube. Although the effectiveness of video ads can be measured, they still need to be run over long durations before sufficient data can be gathered. The cost incurred during the whole process can be better used in creating an explainer video.
Video ads are the most expensive medium of these three. The cost of making one and then placing one in the most lucrative slot is very high. Sometimes even beyond a small business’ budget.
These mediums can lead to a cost overrun. A better and more cost-effective method is to focus on creating valuable content for your target audience, and organically increasing your reach and visibility. You can always focus on gorilla marketing tactics to stay lean and boost awareness and reach more people.
