BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
ADVERTISING and BUSINESS MARKETING

Advertising is a campaign to achieve a marketing goal. This business function is essential not only to increase your business, but also to replace customers you lose for various reasons. A common mistake is to reduce advertising when business is slow. Instead, you may need to increase advertising to build up your volume.

Marketing, the selling of your business to consumers is accomplished in many ways using many mediums. Develop distinctive logos or color schemes for quick recognition on your business cards, truck painting and jobsite signs. Your trucks, for example, are not simply people and stuff movers, they’re mobile advertisements about your company. Keep them all in similar colors and styles with the decals in good shape and the vehicles in good clean condition.

Just as your appearance, smile, and even your handshake say a lot about you, so do your trucks and your Web pages and yellow page ads. Sometimes we advertise the wrong message, but we are still advertising. Creating an image across multiple mediums, such as trucks, uniforms, business stationary, and Web and yellow pages, builds and reinforces an image in the consumers’ mind. As with most business activities, you need a plan. An important first step in developing an advertising plan is to see what others in your field are doing, and know what is succeeding and what is failing.

Plan to distribute point-of-sale contact advertising items, such as refrigerator magnets on service calls or rulers when you pick up a set of plans. The advertising consumes valuable limited resources, money and time. Invest it in achieving a marketing goal.

Mike Holt's Comment: This is the fourth of a series of articles on Business Management. Watch for our next newsletter and, as always, we invite your comments and feedback. Please respond to Barbara at bjparks@atlantic.net.

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