SEO – Philadelphia, Pa. Business Advertising in a Tough Market

If you are like a lot of folks, you feel the pinch of tough economic times. You ride down the road and see the business closings. The trend is evident in the restaurant industry where dispensable income is lacking and purveyors of fine dining are falling by the wayside. Your own competitors are closing up shop and your business is hanging on by a thread. What do you do? First you have done what all businesses are doing. You cut inventory to a just-in -time model. You cut back on your paid help. You actually are looking at advertising as a place to cut back on expenses, but you need it now more than ever.

You need exposure because guess what? People still need your services. If your company can remain standing, it will capture a large market share upon an upturn in the economy. Because others in your industry have gone belly-up, if your business remains standing, it will surge into profitability when things turn around. So, which advertising avenue will you take to sustain your business? The answer will be governed by your business model and your common sense.

Let’s explore a few advertising models:

Newspapers

Regional companies that service a given area will endeavor to reach potential clients through newspapers. Generally, a hook is employed like an offer or discount to get the immediate results needed to sustain business. Newspapers are temporary and they are expensive. They cater to a specific type of consumer, the shopper that wants a good deal. This type of advertising is like a band-aide that diminishes quickly in results.

Television and Radio Spots

Very effective in developing a brand in a given industry, these very expensive ads deliver a message to a given demographic, the listening audience of a given program. They work, but the cost of the ads has to be transferred to the cost of your good or service. Once you have pulled the trigger on this type of advertising, your sales price is set on the high end of the market. You have to be ready with the appropriate sales and production staff to close the deals and deliver the goods or services. Volume businesses that are set-up to cash in on the big advertising expenditures are the only ones that will benefit from this type of advertising. A roughly 10% close ratio is expected from all the churning of efforts in this model, in most cases.

Direct Mailers

These are affordable, but again like the newspapers a hook that offers a discount or a bait and switch type of ad is the most effective. Close ratios may be in the same numbers as with other media types, 10% to 20% is often expected. If your price is low enough, you can realize a better return on investment as far as gross numbers. When your mailer is done and you have exhausted yourself and your people, the net numbers may be disheartening.

Trade and Social Magazines

If your business is geared to a specific trade, not is a time that very low numbers will be realized because of the economy. Manufacturing and business services benefit mostly from communicating with the trades. Brand recognition is best in these outlets.

Signage

Businesses that put up a sign and letter their vehicles derive a continuing benefit from signage. “A business with no sign is a sign of no business.” Immediate results will be sporadic but the residual effects are sound.

Yellow Pages

The Yellow Pages have long been a staple of modern business advertising. It has long been realized that the Yellow Pages produces a certain type of client. When the fingers-do-the-walking, they are in seek of a better deal. Putting your business in a pool of like businesses that lack ingenuity and sell price will not propel your business anywhere but into mediocrity. Many of the Yellow Page companies are now realizing that they can no longer produce hard copies of their books. Where are the Yellow Pages going” They are going to the internet.

Internet Lead Sources

These establishments are set up and capitalizing on the internet. They are having a hard time keeping up with regional search elements of search. People want to buy regionally so if your good or service won’t fit in a shipping box, you better get with regional search on the internet and compete and beat these middle man operations. The cost is another factor to consider with this type of advertising. You are basically farming out your internet exposure and allowing yourself to be dumped into mediocrity like those businesses lacking vision.

Pay-Per-Click

The various outlets for pay-per-click advertising are diminishing in the results. This goes with the doorways that are growing in Social Media. People are frequenting the 500+ Social Sites and actually getting more information on these sites every day. The days when a majority of people went to their favorite search engine to find something are coming to a close. Expect big search to answer the call because it is in the best interest to better the organic results. Pay-per-click advertising on the major search engines will be diminishing in returns as the Social Media sites evolve and become more subject oriented. Competition will cause every outlet to become more stream lined and big search is shaking in its boots. Your business website will not realize any benefit in the organic SERPS from these efforts. Pay-per-click advertising is a stop gap measure toward immediate results. You be the judge of the effectiveness of these ads.

Business Website with SEO

A business website is much like a business sign, but it is much more in-depth than with the limitations of a sign board. Placement of your sign is important. As stated:

“A notable web-site albeit lacking SEO,

Akin to a vibrant sign-board placed in the middle of a forest,

Never will see traffic and is destined to rot away in insignificance.”

More can be achieved from a website than in all of the above forms of advertising. A business can capitalize on the advertising efforts of its competitors. Think for a moment. Your competitor chooses to spend the big bucks and you shovel in the sales!

Possibly your business is tanking online in the SERPS (search engine results pages). Maybe you have a good looking website. A high-school kid can design you a good web-site. In the implementation of professional SEO is where the cream begins to rise to the top. Your business website can attract the right kind of buyer, the value buyer. People that have been exposed to the hard sale performed by the fake urgency building, big marketing companies are averse to bologna. These folks know what they want and your company can be positioned to make the sale. The sale will be more profitable than the big advertised product or service. You can realize a much better ROI (return on investment) than your high rolling competitors.

The key is in the delivery of the company message. Free industry information that exceeds all of your competitors will sell. I know because I have done it. It works.

Your web-site will be lost in the forest if you have the mindset of your competitors and try the old ways of link-building. The problem is that it may be hard to get your site out of the forest if you continue down the old roads that used to work. The internet is much larger than ever before but there has never been more opportunity! The rise of social media, along with the elimination of Black Hat tactics, means that only quality will prevail in the future. If you have quality content, your site will remain on top in the SERPS and be frequented by many unique visitors daily. Your company will grow with only profitable business! A web-site is cheap to run as you probably realize. Never think however that results equal expenditures made! Effort equals results on the internet. Once your site is optimized for Social Media, you can take the reins, in house and carefully navigate through the web and remain on top.

ROI is the key to successful advertising. The future is the internet and your business needs to get listed in the SERPS on page one. Page one will afford your business a steady stream of quality business. Real-time advertising and an ability to change message and not become married to it are two great reasons to consider getting noticed online.

Get Noticed!

-Bob W