In the past few decades, we have seen more and more people break free from the 9-to-5 tradition to follow their dreams and start businesses of their own. The thrill of working for yourself is something that can’t be put into words. In a perfect world, you’d see sales rushing in as soon as you launch.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world. What most people find after their exciting and even nerve-wracking journey to launch their own company is that they aren’t attracting enough attention.
It’s at this point that we millennials refer to our favorite tool for solving problems. No, it’s not counseling or financial consultations, heck, it’s not even liquor (debatable). Our generation is addicted to consulting Google when we have a problem.
So you search “how to make more sales in my business” and read a few articles on popular marketing tactics. Well, your problem is solved, you’ll just dump a few hundred dollars on PPC marketing and rent out a billboard spot and the cash will be flowing in right? Wrong. What many people don’t realize is that not all marketing tactics are created equal.
The internet is filled with outdated and ineffective marketing tactics that people around the world still waste money on. We all know how frustrating it is to get a bad ROI after dumping stacks of cash on marketing.
Today we’ll look at some of the outdated marketing tactics and why they aren’t a viable option. Hopefully, after reading this post, you won’t be the next casualty of inefficient marketing.
Yellow Pages
Ah yes, our good old friend the yellow pages. Getting an advertisement slot in the yellow pages is without a doubt the most effective way of advertising your business. That is of course if you live in the 1950’s.
People no longer rely on books, they just search the internet to find the information that they need. That doesn’t mean that phone books have no place in our modern world. Phone books are very useful even in this technological era that we live in, they serve as excellent firewood.
Advertising on the yellow pages is like renting a billboard in an abandoned town, no one will see it. Not only will your business get less exposure, they’ll also charge you more for it! The average cost per click on online ad spots is around two dollars. In comparison, yellow pages ads cost a hefty $10 per call. You’ll be paying five times the price for a fraction of the exposure.
PPC
Another popular trend for eager business owners is to dump hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a pay-per-click or PPC campaign. This type of marketing isn’t entirely a waste of money. On the contrary, people tend to achieve great results with PPC marketing. So what’s the problem? It doesn’t last.
PPC campaigns are hard to sustain because they are very expensive to run. Most ads will cost you around $2 per click. You’re probably thinking “that’s not that much” and you’re absolutely right, $2 is chump change.
But what happens when you get 500 clicks per month? Suddenly you’re spending $1,000/month on paid search results. This form of marketing is effective in small doses. However, we humans tend to take things too far.
When we find something we like, our amygdala (the part of our brain that handles our emotions, emotional behavior, and motivation) tells us to do it again, and again, and again.
The point at which most marketing tactics fail is the point when we blow them out of proportion. When it comes to increasing your long-term revenue your best bet is to do some content marketing.
Unlike PPC, content marketing offers steady growth over a long period of time. Doing some content marketing is also significantly cheaper than running a PPC campaign which gives you a better ROI.
Another drawback of paid search results is the trust factor. Searchers will see people ranked high on organic results as more credible than those who are shown on paid search results.
The reason for this is that consumers will trust a brand more if they feel that they have earned their way to the top as opposed to just buying their way there.
Billboards
The titans of the highways, billboards. Go back a decade and you’ll see that renting out billboards is a very efficient form of advertising. That said, unless you have a time machine, there’s no logic to using billboards to promote your business anymore.
You’re probably wondering what could have happened to turn billboards from prime ad spots to wastes of space in less than ten years. One word, smartphones. Ever since the rise of the smartphone era, people have been glued to their screens. Whether they’re at the mall, walking on the sidewalk or even while they’re driving.
The reason billboards worked so well in the past was the fact that people had no choice but to stare at them while they were stuck in traffic.
Nowadays most people spend their time going through their social media feeds as opposed to looking at the billboards around them.
Televised Commercials
30-second commercials often cost over $300,000 to run on national networks. A few years ago, predating online streaming services, companies still had a chance of getting a good ROI despite the high price tag of televised commercials.
But in recent years, we see fewer people watching live television. Most people record their favorite shows on their DVR and watch it later while they are armed with the ability to skip commercials. Recent studies show that around 86% of people skip through commercials! The Guardian
The most common time for people to watch live TV is during sports events such as the World Cup or the Super Bowl (commercials during the Super Bowl can cost up to $5,000,000!
The rise of Netflix and other popular streaming services only contribute to the decrease of people who watch live television.
The Bottom Line
There are plenty of viable marketing tactics that you can use to market your business, just make sure that you don’t end up wasting all your money on outdated or ineffective advertising methods.
Doing your homework is the simplest way to find out if a marketing method is actually worth the money. Ask other business owners how they market their company and read relevant articles on credible websites. As long as you do some proper research then you’re sure to make a killing.
