A lighthearted look at the evolution of advertising points out the best economical approaches for today. Every business owner needs to know their customers' comments and preferences. Radio, television, or print ads have their place, but don't readily provide feedback, nor can this option fit into every advertising budget. Today, there are alternatives.
"Advertise, advertise, advertise" is the marketing mantra.
Advertising is one key ingredient for a successful business. In prehistoric times, advertising was accomplished by verbally spreading the word from one clan to another about someone's incredible cave art, for example. One clan told another clan, who told another clan... you get the idea. Before long, there was a line standing outside the cave to see the great art. That was the first advertising success story.
The human spirit being what it is, told that caveman that if he had something of interest to others, they would probably be willing to pay for it. "You can see my cave art if you bring me some fresh fish." Now we have the first entrepreneur. Combine that entrepreneur with that word-of-mouth advertising, and we have our first successful advertising campaign and first successful business.
People haven't changed much. We still want to show off our accomplishments or the accomplishments of others if it can make us a buck or two. It took a while, but the 15th century introduced the printing press which facilitated the mass production of newspapers, magazines, and printed ads. The 20th century brought radio advertising and the advertising king - television. Right on the hinges of the door to the 21st century comes the internet.
All this new technology made advertising very costly. A typical ad can involve the high cost of models and singers and writers....oh my. Startup businesses (and even existing businesses) have struggles on many levels to say the least; the road to success is on a very steep hill.
But relief is here! Word-of-mouth advertising is back and it's extremely effective. Best of all, it's mostly free, just like it was for Mr. Paleolithic. Social networks have become the 21st century "ad agencies." If you haven't set up accounts for your business in social networking sites, you're simply not doing it right; you're simply not taking advantage of today's best advertising practices the way the cavemen did.
You need to get in there and join groups and discussions common to your business. You need to make small talk (in 140 characters or less). You need to "follow" people with similar interests (even those who you never met before) to see what they're talking about, to see who they're following. Because, who they are following, may be someone you should be following too! Then you need to "invite" people (again, you might not know them) in case they'd like to see what you have to say. Your new "call to action" is a hyperlink. People can't resist them. Someone clicks your hyperlink and.... bingo.... you have a visitor to your business' website. Visitors might provide feedback about your business, which is the invaluable element missing from all other advertising for which you would pay dearly.
Hopefully, that visitor will surf away to the social sites and post a comment about your great business. Then one group tells another group, who tells another group... you get the idea. Eventually, hundreds of thousands of people will have heard about or visited your business' website and before you know it, you have a sizable number of steady customers who are carrying your business up that steep hill to the summit of success. Believe it or not, this works....very well.
Welcome back to prehistoric advertising techniques. Some things never change, they only get better over time.
Ann Rogers is Marketing Director and Co-founder of BizBuyLink.com (http://www.bizbuylink.com), a fast growing company that facilitates buying and selling of businesses. The site, fully developed in Web 2.0, became live in the first quarter of 2009, and has been attracting a growing number of business brokers throughout the U.S.
