Advertising has come a long way since people used to carve
messages into the bottoms of sandals, and it takes a little bit
of research to make that progress do more for your small
business.

I say small business because I own and operate
a small business specializing in helping small business make the
most of their advertising budget by combining different forms of
advertising. Print advertising will never disappear, as
wonderful as the internet and television are there is still no
substitute for flipping through a newspaper or sitting in your
favorite chair by the window checking out some of your favorite
magazines. The problem with print advertising be it newspaper or
magazine for most small business owners is the cost. Unless you
commit yourself to advertising in multiple issues you will not
get the best prices and for most of us that usually results in
purchasing a smaller ad than we had hoped for. One of the
biggest downfalls of newspapers is the lack of target marketing
capability, about the only thing you can tell from most
newspapers is where the majority of the subscribers live
although you can get other demographic info like
income/age/education bracket but that's more info than we need.
Magazines do offer an advantage here by appealing to a much more
specific type of readership, demographic, target market or
whichever buzz word you prefer but that too is going to come at
a higher premium with similar sacrifices to the quality and size
of ad you would like to run.

Television, like magazines
can be very useful in reaching a very specific group of people
with your advertising, for example if you have a bait and tackle
shop you can just purchase advertising time during "Fishing With
Fred" as opposed to purchasing your time slot during the local
news. If there is a television show that you know reaches the
people you know would benefit from your product or service you
can contact the producers to find out how to buy commercial
spots during their program. Cable companies often offer
discounts on commercial production with the purchase of
commercial airtime or "spots" as they are called. These spots
usually are either 15 or 30 seconds long. With the falling costs
of video cameras in addition to computer video editing hardware
and software the cost of a television commercial is much more
affordable than most people think, you might even be able to
make one yourself.

Enter the web site, the most "bang for
your buck" an advertising dollar can buy. Nothing can provide
more information to a potential customer than a web site, giving
them hours or even days worth of information. Offering a place
to show photos, videos, maps and tons of other info most of us
could never afford to put into a tv or print ad. Combining your
web site with your other forms of advertising can lower your
overall advertising costs by allowing you to place a smaller ad
which now contains your web site address and your basic contact
info and some key information about your business and reduce
that thirty second tv spot to a fifteen second spot. If you
really crunch the numbers you can reduce the cost of your print
and tv advertising enough to pay for your web site and it's
hosting. And don't forget having a web site opens up all sorts
of advertising methods and venues that other forms of
advertising could not begin to hold a candle to.