In 2020, it was estimated that businesses in the United States spent $240.3 billion on advertisements and the projection for 2021 Ad spending stood at $285.2 billion, an increase of 18.6%, says Zenith Media.
That’s to buttress the importance of advertising to small businesses in the United States and even the existing big companies around the world.
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Aim:
Advertising is a form of paid promotion to attract necessary attention to the advertiser’s core message, products, and services which is aimed at persuading the receiver of the message to take action.
One of the major things that will determine how far your small business will go is your disposition towards advertising and marketing.
Away from the U.S, another country in the North America where Ad spending is huge in Canada. 2021 data from statista.com show that Canada experienced $11.2 billion USD in Ad spending and it’s projected to grow in the years ago.
So, there is a good reason big organizations keep spending hugely on advertising despite the extent of their respective growth.
As a small business then, you must be always eager to keep investing in advertising to keep increasing your popularity in front of the target audience. Customers keep your business going when they patronize you.
Benefits of Advertising To Small Business
Advertising has the potential to impact sales and revenue and is, therefore, a prominent investment as far as your business is concerned.
When done rightly, an effective ad campaign can help get to a whole lot of people that constitute your target market, and trigger them to make decisions that will be favorable to your business.
Retention of existing customers
In today’s competitive business world, it can be a battle to get new customers, since many similar businesses are trying to get their attention.
When you eventually get a customer, do all it takes to retain them and make them come back or even refer your business and service to their loved ones.
Every small business owner must then realize the fact that customer retention is the foundation of their growth, and this is not negotiable.
When you are always advertising in the direction of your customers, you are helping them keep their attention on you.
With online ads, you can keep retargeting your target audience repeatedly, and also those that have done business with you already.
One may be wondering why companies like Google, and Facebook (now meta) still spend millions of US dollars on advertisements despite their monthly active users of 2.934 billion (July 2022) and their daily uses of 1.968 billion (July 2022).
Despite the over one billion users on daily basis on the largest social media platform, Meta spent at least $2.9 billion in 2021.
The giant social media platform wouldn’t want to lose an existing user and it aims to even bring on board more users. That’s the power of advertising to businesses
It is advisable to continue reminding consumers of your products and services. You can highlight discount pricing for loyal customers with some of these campaigns. Be creative with doing all it takes to make them ignore your competitors and focus on you.
Increase sales
Finally, advertising is important to your small business because it helps in making sales. When your business keeps making good sales, you keep sailing in the right direction.
Without good sales, the business struggles and could die. But advertising can interestingly help increase sales and make more money.
This is possible since your ad campaigns bring traffic to your website or social media handles (where they can make an order) or even your physical store.
According to some experts, many times, when a formidable business spends a dollar on just digital search ads, it can have an ROI that is over $10.
Tool for building awareness
Advertising is strong enough to help increase awareness of your business as well as what you are offering.
You should remember that there are already tons of brands doing what you are doing, and customers have a whole lot of options to choose from.
Therefore, if you are going to be remembered when a product or service is needed, then you must keep flaunting your business to their faces continually.
Ad campaigns help in achieving this. Aside from the exposure it offers, you will also need to get in front of your target audience again and again before they can decide to try you out.
Digital marketing is making this very effective and efficient, and you can take advantage of its configurations to become famous within your target market.
Being ahead of the competitors
There are many competitors in your industry, meaning you are not the only one jostling for the attention of consumers.
Many of your competitors are spending a lot of money on advertising. If you don’t do the same, they will most likely be ahead of you and take a larger share of the market.
You can give your business a good edge over these by giving your business good advertising now and then. With this, you will most likely thrive in your saturated industry.
Helps in educating the target market
One of the beautiful things about advertising is that it helps educate your target market about what your products or services can do for them and how what you are offering can be helpful to them beyond their realization.
You can also utilize advertising to explain to consumers what makes your brand stand out from the rest of the pack.
One of the importance of this is that the people will easily patronize the business they can easily trust.
When your audience is very familiar with what your brand stands for, it becomes easy for them to connect with your business, and in a short while (if all things are equal), they will start patronizing you.
You can decide to be creative with your ad campaigns in this regard. For instance, you can educate your target audience on things that are relevant to your business.
If you have a dental care business, for example, you can run an ad sharing helpful information about teeth. The aim is to establish yourself as an expert in their minds.
It helps in boosting the business reputation
You can take advantage of the effectiveness of advertising to improve the reputation of your business. It doesn’t matter what form of advertising you are using.
You can always emphasize whatever it is you want consumers to always remember while highlighting the best parts of your brand.
It is very much possible to make use of an advert to provoke certain emotions from your audience according to how you want it to go.
So, even if your business has made an initial error that has gone viral, you can still utilize a good ad campaign to draw the attention of the market to the positive sides of your business.
Getting new customers
The more customers you have, the more success you will likely record. Therefore, every business must give attention to whatever can help acquire new customers. This is one of the importance of advertising.
Today, digital and online advertising is making things easier, since you can streamline your marketing to just a specific target audience that contains people who will most likely buy your products or services.
Final thought:
Advertising is well worth the cost, particularly if it is properly used to boost products and services. It is one of the marketing strategies recommended by experts.
It doesn’t matter if you are simply trying to make more people know about your brand or if you are launching a new product or service, advertising can really do a whole lot of good to your small business and its fortunes.