I get that question very often. Unfortunately, there is no one answer that fits all. Not even the ‘magical’ social media is the silver bullet that gets new clients immediately. So how to evaluate the advertising that has been offered for your business?
I outline a simple process with step by step decisions.
First of all evaluate your business: are you clear who your Ideal clients are and how you help them? If the answer to that is ‘no’, then you do not need to do any advertising until you have that figured out. Otherwise you will be wasting money. If the answer is ‘yes’ then:
Second, evaluate the advertising offer: is this media consumed by your Ideal clients? If the answer is ‘no’ e.g. your Ideal clients do not read that newspaper/portal/go to that store, then you do not need to invest in this. If the answer is ‘yes, I believe they do’, then ask the salesperson behind the offer to provide you with statistics to confirm or overturn your belief. When you have statistics that say that your Ideal client is indeed a frequent consumer of that media then:
Third, evaluate how your product or service fits into the context of that media and how it is consumed. Let’s say that you are offered advertising in Metro Calgary – the free newspaper that is mostly read on C-train. You have already identified that your Ideal client very often takes the train and reads the newspaper.
