I’m certain that you market your business. But, do you advertise your business?
I’ve heard so many web-based small business owners do their best to avoid using the word advertise that I’ve begun to wonder why. I’ve worked with enough clients offline to know that it’s not small business owners in general. Offline businesses use advertising constantly to get the word out about their business.
But it seems different for online small businesses. Somehow it seems that the word advertise is unclean or dishonest or something. While I haven’t quite put my finger on it, it is obvious that online small business tend to look at advertising differently. They often don’t consider placing ads – even Google Adwords.
This strikes me as odd because a few, well-placed advertisements can often drive far more than business than their cost.
But the more interesting thing is watching how web-based small business owners avoid using the term altogether. Sure, they talk about marketing, but rarely about advertising. Why do you think that is?
Yet advertising is simply a part of marketing. The best, simple, explanation of the difference between marketing and advertising was written by Rick Cockrum some time back.
“Marketing is the sum of the activities you perform to get the word out about your business and attract the customers you want. Advertising is one marketing activity. It usually entails publishing paid announcements about your business. At our theatre we advertise in the local paper weekly. Our marketing consists of a website, word of mouth from our customers (our best marketing), involvement in local activities, public service functions, involvement with local business groups, (etc)… . You can see that advertising, while important, is only a small part of marketing.”
Rick goes on to suggest that you should “use both.”
I fully agree. I’m a huge – I mean huge – proponent of word-of-mouth marketing and client referrals. Yet it can be difficult to grow a successful business just by word-of-mouth. I’m not saying it can’t be done. Heck, I did it myself. But I know that the right ads in the right places can speed up the growth process immensely.
And advertisements work. No doubt about it. Otherwise Pepsi, McDonalds, Ford and every other company in the world wouldn’t spend the money on it. Even spam email works. And that’s basically what spam is – a paid advertisement sent to your inbox. What makes it spam is that you’ve not given the sender permission to email you about their product. Yet spam must work otherwise no one would be paying spammers to send their messages.
Advertising, for good or bad, simply works. That’s not the question.
The question? Is adverstising working for your business? If so, how; what sort of results have you gotten? If not, why not; what have you tried and how did it turn out?
And if you’ve not tried paid advertising on the web, why not? What keeps you from jumping in?
Let’s talk about it.
(note: image from Pink Ponk on Flickr, 
some rights reserved)
The Coaches Guide 
My name is Dawud Miracle and I'm a 
43 responses so far ↓
Good writing. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed my Google News Reader..
Matt Hanson
Dawud, it occurs to me that the webworld is a very incestuous one. Unless you are spending a great deal of time in front of the computer, you have other channels for either purchasing or marketing. I suspect that this is the reason why there is so little advertising for online businesses.
I need to learn how to use adwords. Or pay someone to set it up for me. I just haven’t taken the time/invested the effort. Yet.
I will have some media products soon, so it is on my list!
The approach of marketing is what makes people avoid the word advertising like a plague.
Most ads use hard selling approach. I never click on them. I use Google to locate information, never directly to a product.
However, I found myself clicking on WebTrends ads in the past, since I’d like to download their white papers. Using this approach certainly helps increase click through. With proper lead nurturing process, this can also be very profitable.
I don’t yet advertise because I currently have more work than I can handle, coming from word of mouth, referrals and as a sideline from my blog.
As for when I do get around to advertising, I’m not going to do so online. First off, for one portion of what I do (build small websites for small business), there’s a lot of competition. But locally to where I am there’s ONE company in the whole county who does anything remotely similar and they make very pretty but ultimately not very functional or easy to use sites (from the client’s perspective) for literally ten times what I charge. I could easily and quickly make a list of ten things they don’t do that hurt their client’s sites. (javascript navigation for starters)
But hey, they sure do look nice.
So back to the advertising – I’m going to focus on my offline local market.
Interesting. I didn’t know “advertising” should be a dirty word, so I am doing some advertising, but I only just started, so I can’t tell you much how it’s doing yet.
I just paid my web designer for a Flash ad on my website to sell my services and e-Book. I have noticed a few more views of those pages in my analytics, but no conversions yet. I think you need traffic first.
So, I just tried 2 small ads on 2 small-ish blogs to try it out. I do not expect too many hits, but wanted to fine-tune any “issues” I might have before I get thousands to my site (hopefully LOL), kwim?
I think the only thing you can really do with advertising is try something and see if it works for your business. I ignore so many ads subconsciously that I really don’t know how anyone makes money advertising on blogs, but I figured the “big boys” wouldn’t do it if it didn’t work, so I tried it. But, I don’t see advertisements for Big Macs on blogs, either.
We’ll see what happens.
well, i don’t see a big difference however, marketing sounds a little bit professional
Advertising is an optional tactic. Marketing is necessary for survival.
Dawud–
I dislike advertising as a general rule. I’ve placed my clients in glossy magazines and online ads, but really they never get the response the client wants (I try to tell them 1% or less but they don’t hear). I do much better with press releases and newsletters.
I recently bought a Marble Slab Creamery and decided to remove my prejudice and do some advertising. Thhh. Very low results. We did better heavily handing out buy one get one free cards.
That being said, I agree with Rick about advertising being a component of marketing. Whether it’s necessary for all businesses, that’s a question each business has to find out for themselves.
Deceptive advertising is a dirty word often associated with web banner ads and adwords ads. They get higher click-thru rates than honestly placed branded ads, but whats the point. Conversion rates will be much higher with targetted and honest ads, while bringing the click-thru budget down.
Well, this is intersting. The best way to distinguish between advertising and marketing is to think of marketing as a pie, inside that pie you have slices of advertising, market research, media planning, public relations, product pricing, distribution, customer support, sales strategy, and community involvement. Advertising only equals one piece of the pie in the strategy. All of these elements must not only work independently but they also must work together towards the bigger goal. Marketing is a process that takes time and can involve hours of research for a marketing plan to be effective. Think of marketing as everything that an organization does to facilitate an exchange between company and consumer.
We definitely advertise online. And it has been a fantastic decision. Using mainly PPC set up on various medical website. Our Advertising has has a good conversion rate (which we can actually track) and the ads act as a form of marketing via brand impression.
Great post however I would like to comment about the SPAM part. CA did a study, and you can find it by googling, “accepting SPAM for a free computer.”
Most SPAM is nefarious and designed to engage in fraud or deliver spyware. The small amount of that is legitimate is for pharmacuticals and porn. Those two businesses probably do not need the advertising, but someone still thinks they do.
Advertising is a great way to build name recognitiono and advice for small businesses, SPONSOR LOCAL TEAMS AND CHARITY NEWSLETTERS!
You get your name out, you may get press, and hey your team could go to nationals!
I definitely agree that advertising does work. However, PPC can be very tricky. You have to be very cunning and detailed to be able to have a successful campaign. With PPC you will find that certain word arrangements or web addresses perform better than other ads with basically the same message. Therefore, I think that the work involved with running this kind of campaign deters a lot of people from using it(me included).
I accept we just started up a website to help our society .We trying to bring some positive ideas into the websites world since it seems like most of the time negative ideas seem to sell much better bigger than positive ideas. I agree there is too much room for exploitation in the web marketing line.The most funnniest thing is what you learn before getting to your desired goal .
nice post, i just visited your site through google search for marketing info. found great and informative.
I think after reading everyones comments people are just scared of spending some money in advertisement when they feel the return won’t be as much as they put in. I think most people are just scared especially with Adwords and PPC campaigns which can soak up tons of money and never result in conversions. It’s as if the mentality of the big boys use it but it won’t work if we competing against them and certain terms. I do believe that small business should at least try different mediums of advertisement and see if any works best for them not just write it off.
difference ? not really, just that marketing sounds more professional…other than this, both words mean the same thing
Advertising I have always viewed as the promotion or presentation of a product or service to potential or existing customers, whilst marketing implies (for me at least) planning of different activities designed to bring buyers/end users and sellers together to transact. Advertising is one way of marketing a product or service, or is one component of a marketing strategy.
I think that our society has been over marketed to and this has given advertising a bad name. I do believe you’re right when you say advertising can make more than it costs. It can also cost more than it makes. It is a matter of how good your marketing is.
Advertising is extremely effective… when done well. Part of the problem is that web advertising is still a young and poorly understood field, which makes life difficult for small businesses looking to the web for cheap marketing solutions. It’ll be a while yet before the internet becomes the marketing panacea that so many people are already making it out to be.
Advertising is often looked at as being the promotion of, or presentation of a particular product or service. Marketing, is perhaps a more long term strategy that can build brand and followers on a continual basis, perhaps more about creating image in the long term.
Great tips about advertising and marketing. Great to know the exact difference advertising and marketing
Advertising I have always viewed as the promotion or presentation of a product or service to potential or existing customers, whilst marketing implies (for me at least) planning of different activities designed to bring buyers/end users and sellers together to transact. Advertising is one way of marketing a product or service, or is one component of a marketing strategy.nice
Yes Usualy Marketing Is More Important Then Advertising, Both Can Help But Marketing Is More Expensive And Get More Results Cause Marketing Is Mean You Can promote By Flyers,Radio,TV, Etc…
Marketing: The systematic planning, implementation and control of a mix of business activities intended to bring together buyers and sellers for the mutually advantageous exchange or transfer of products.
Advertising is a single component of the marketing process. It’s the part that involves getting the word out concerning your business, product, or the services you are offering. It involves the process of developing strategies such as ad placement, frequency, etc. Advertising includes the placement of an ad in such mediums as newspapers, direct mail, billboards, television, radio, and of course the Internet. Advertising is the largest expense of most marketing plans, with public relations following in a close second and market research not falling far behind.
Advertising is really needed now.I mean the blogosphere is already crowded with too many blogs vying for their share of the pie.If you want to stay ahead of them you really need to have advertising as a part of your marketing strategy.
Isn’t this the age-old question!! I’ve always thought about it as advertising has to show a direct ROI but marketing can be a bit less direct. An ad should get you business immediately but with a marketing campaign it can take some time.
Advertising is any activity that seeks the attention of potential clients, so maybe all marketing efforts can be seen as advertising. Marketing activities have the same goal as advertising ones. Promotional products are an example of how marketing and advertising efforts can be so closely related.
Advertising is a dirty word. As a guy with a marketing degree, it amazes me how often “marketing” is used as a nice way of saying “advertising”. I’m even more amazed at how many small business owners actually advertise without understanding the marketing they should be doing. Without research, competitive analysis, and understanding one’s positioning in an industry, I think advertising is a game of chance.
The one negative aspect of advertising in some people’s minds is that companies advertise what they cannot sell otherwise. Sometimes we see certain businesses start advertising like crazy – you come across their ads everywhere. You might think – oh, they are probably expanding, oh some might think – are they having problems which they are trying to fix by excessive
advertising?
Advertising is a part of marketing. Both are really needed to become successful.
Good point. Especially at the end – it’s all about return. “Your Marketing Sucks” is a great book that I recommend to people, where the point is very clearly made that the only metric that matters for advertising is sales. If it wins awards for creativity but doesn’t make you money, who cares?
There is a difference, but they are very related. Both are essential in both online & brick-n-mortar marketing.
Great points, sometimes it is difficult to know the difference between the two and they get lumped together.
Nice and interesting article, thank you for sharing. Please keep on blogging.
Best regards.
Hi all,
I am agree with those who said that the marketing is more powerful.
clevo repair
Good points when people market with out adverting it does not work
Marketing is when you have a focused plan to a specific market with targets and an offer. Advertising is a biproduct of marketing.
I think the more forms of advertising you use the better. It is important to try to figure out what your clients will be looking at or listening to and get in front of them as often as possible. Good Luck.
I think the issue is sometimes that people think that advertising and marketing are mutually exclusive – ie should I do marketing or advertising? In reality, as any marketing student and university will tell you marketing is an all emcombassing area including Product (offering), Price (discount, premium etc), Place (distribution, where and how your sales are made) and Promotion (including advertising). If you don’t promote your business in some way though advertising, PR, etc etc, you won’t get anywhere – as it’s no use having the best price or product if noone finds it. In reality most of these “online marketers” have little training in traditional marketing – which can be a good or a bad thing – and are just playing word games.
Advertising is great for the brand to funnel traffic in, but conversion is even more important then and being able to differentiate the different traffic and conversions. You have to keep up with it all.