I started my first dance school with a tiny little square ad in the newspaper which cost me $400, which felt like a significant investment at the time! There was no Facebook. There was no Instagram. There was definitely no TikTok. So if I wanted people to know I existed, the newspaper was where I needed to be. 

And do you know what? That tiny little square bought me enough word-of-mouth marketing that I had 70 students turn up on my very first day, which absolutely exceeded my expectations. Turns out that first $400 in business was the best money I ever spent. 

These days, there are so many options when it comes to marketing that instead of seeing this as an amazing opportunity for exposure—we become completely overwhelmed by it all! 

So I thought I’d do a round up of 5 Rules To Remember when it comes to Paid Marketing in Business. 

Meet your audience where they are. 

If your audience aren’t on Instagram, or TikTok don’t spend your money and energy on those platforms. Consider the habits of your ideal client or customer and the marketing channels they would engage with on a daily basis. Are they on Pinterest? Do they love Twitter? Are they professionals who prefer to engage on LinkedIn? Would they read a magazine? Wherever your potential audience is interacting is where you want your business to be. 

It’s not all about social media. 

If your business has a local footprint, there is still great value in newspapers (print and online) and radio. When I worked at the radio station in Port Macquarie I once talked about a great hair straightener that you could get from a local hairdresser. That one-minute segment went on to sell 20 hair straighteners in one morning for that salon! It was a really good lesson for me, especially now having my own businesses, about the power of radio if your target market is there.

Don’t discount an opportunity because it’s “old”.

Despite the expression “print is dead”, it’s far from dead to the right customer. Sure, few people pick up the physical yellow pages anymore, but plenty of people still use online directories, whether that’s something like the Yellow Pages App, or a more industry-specific directory hosted monthly in a popular magazine, for example. Other “old” forms of advertising that still yield great results for the right types of businesses include mailouts (think of the magnet for the local plumber or electrician you have stuck on your fridge, or the calendar from the local pharmacy!) and community noticeboards. 

Avoid putting all your eggs in one basket.

As tempting as it can be to just pick one advertising outlet and go “all in”, it’s important to be creating multiple opportunities (touchpoints) for potential customers to discover your business. In order to give yourself the best opportunity to become well known, especially if you’re a small business in a local or a regional area, then you want to be across as many touch points as you can afford.

Be aware of the next steps. 

Once you’ve put all of this advertising out into the marketplace, make sure that you have a really clear understanding of the customer journey from the point of learning about your business and on. What next step do you want them to take? Have you given them a clear call to action? If they go to your website or social media channels, will they recognise it as being the same business as the ad they saw? Do you have a way to capture their email so you can continue to nurture them as a potential lead? Your energy shouldn’t end with the ad. If you want to see results, the ad needs to be the start of a customer’s journey with your business.