Newspaper advertising drains business profits faster than anything else but it seems everyone does it. At a guess I would say 95 percent of free newspaper content is advertising in one form or another. I would be surprised if much of it is cost effective but lemming-like everyone does it. Maybe they think it’s an essential overhead, like union dues, a till or insurance.
I have seen a half-page advert that explained everything about the restaurant except for a couple of vital things. There was no location given and no contact details. You couldn’t make it up. Many advertisers are situated on urbanisations most readers are clueless about. I often see advertising displays double or treble the size they need to be to have the same effect.
Like much else running a business calls upon skills that few have. Sure they learnt their trade - well some did. Being a competent whatever doesn’t make one a capable entrepreneur.
As a business assessment regional manager for the UK’s largest quality assurance based trade associations, I visited each week an average of twenty five businesses over twenty-years. I learnt much. I also learned that like politics, business life attracts those unsuited to it. Few business people welcome advice. It tells.
Invariably business owners I chatted with were congenial and self-effacing, many were disarmingly candid. Few negotiate advertising prices. It was rare for me to find someone who monitored response to their advertising or worked out an advertising budget. Often their advertisements were placed in woefully inappropriate media. I wonder if when visiting the bookies they placed their bets on donkeys. They do in business.
Many were unaware of glaring oversights until I pointed them out. I often asked who ran that side of the business. I was usually told their wife did. Did she have any experience? No. I asked if they had a marketing strategy. Such a question attracted blank stares.
Where a skill was required many had attended the obligatory courses. Yet, skilled or unskilled I can recall few business owners who had attended a business course or had a marketing or advertising interest. Not a course, not a book, not a DVD. It was like buying a car unaware that it needs a licence, oil and water, air in the tyres.
Here in the Costa communities one expects complacency. The lifestyle being what it is it would be unreasonable to expect the same drive and attention to detail so necessary to compete in the UK. Even so, I do think a half-hearted attempt should be made when running a business. In my next blog I will give you a few ideas for alternatives to advertising. They will cost you much less but pump your profits right up.