Online Advertising is the future. According to a study released Monday by the Pew Research Center, between 2011 and 2015, revenue from digital advertising in the United States is expected to grow by 40% and to overtake all other platforms by 2016. Including television! Experts project that by 2016, advertisers will spend almost $77 billion online, comprising 35% of overall ad spending.

This can only mean one thing for the coming future: Competition. The market for Online Advertising is getting more and more crowded every day and as the trend continues, small businesses are more likely to have their ads lost somewhere in the digital fray, costing them hundreds, if not, thousands in under-performing campaigns. Thankfully, there are a few easy ways of side-stepping this issue and ensuring that your ads are always visible and compelling.

Know Your Customer

You’ve probably heard this old adage before, but it’s especially true when it comes to advertising online. Businesses that are able to think like their customers are more likely to place ads in places where their customers will see them. What search engine do your customers use? What are they searching for? What websites do they visit daily? The answers to these questions are vital when placing an ad for maximum effect.

Get to the Point

Your customers don’t have the luxury of wasting time with frivolous words and neither do you.  For instance, LinkedIn limits you to a 25-character title and a 75-character message. That’s not much space to convince your audience to click through to your site. Make sure your call to action is simple, obvious, tailored and persuasive.

Check Your Results

If your ad has been running for six months and you’ve never received a single click, it’s time to try something different. Use the analytical tools in your advertising account dashboard to track your ad campaign’s success.

Use Relevant Images

Facebook and LinkedIn allow you to select a small image to go with your ad text. Use professional images and logos on each and every ad campaign. Grainy photos, photos taken with cell phones, and photos taken in poor light will give your advertising audience the wrong impression.

Run & Test Multiple Campaigns

Create and track results for several different campaigns. Keep an eye on the analytics to determine which ads are generating the most leads and clicks, and then try to repeat or improve your success on new campaigns. At the same time, remove less effective ads from the rotation.

While these simple tips can help ensure that you are getting the most from your online advertising dollar, there is no way to overstate the success you can achieve when you partner with a firm that has the talent and experience to maximize your marketing potential. This 89 second audit will help you see how.

Free, confidential “stress-test” for small businesses

Sometimes we can get lost in the details. Whether it’s completing that next order or dealing with day-to-day challenges, it can be easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Eventually, there comes a time when it’s necessary to stop, look around, and remember why you are in your business in the first place - to make money!

How are you doing? Are you attracting as much new interest as you’d like? How’s your flow of leads or rate of customer retention?

These are all questions that every business owner must periodically ask themselves because every business has one thing in common, CUSTOMERS. Sometimes, they can seem fickle, unknowable, and in this economy, just plain hard-to-come-by. And, the Internet has fundamentally changed many industries. USA TODAY recently listed the more connected nature of markets now as one of the “Seven Trends You Can’t Ignore.”

In today’s interconnected world, it’s imperative that you understand your prospects’ expectations and are matching your firm’s value proposition to those expectations. At Lauterback Marketing, we’ve developed a tool to give you some insights. Get a free, completely confidential report emailed directly to you when you test your firm’s marketing skills in our exclusive, "89 Second Marketing Audit." It’s quick, simple, and we guarantee it can lead your business to a more poised and profitable market position.

The audit is a simple tool to assess your marketing strategy and identify problem areas. At Lauterback Marketing, we have a long history of experience with small and midsize businesses. One of the things we do really well, as part of driving successful marketing strategies, is craft hyper-focused, benefit-driven messages that will heighten your customers’ expectations.

“We teach our clients how to find customers.”

Marketing Services for Small & Midsize companies

Business, by its very nature, precludes the fact that you can’t do it alone. You need employees to ensure that your product or service is delivered quickly and efficiently, suppliers to guarantee the upkeep of your operation, and most importantly, you need customers.

Customers and growth are the lifeblood of all businesses. However, maintaining a steady flow of new clients can be a challenge for any establishment, regardless of their experience or knowledge of the market. Some larger businesses operate entire departments dedicated to identifying prospective leads and marketing their product accordingly, but what about those who can’t afford such an extravagance?

You mostly likely have a pretty good idea of your own market, but if there are two things as certain as death and taxes, it’s that there’s always room for improvement and always room to expand. What a company in this situation needs is a “Marketing Playbook;” a quick-reference step-by-step guide to growing your business, and a coach who knows exactly which plays to call.

Lauterback Marketing can offer small to mid-size businesses both at just a fraction of the cost of a full time, senior-level marketing executive. You can’t do it alone. Let us help you grow.

Here is another important business development suggestion from Steve Lauterback of Lauterback Marketing. I hope you find it informative and useful. Pass it on to friends and colleagues who might need help in growing their businesses.

It’s always easier when a company’s products or services are unique or have some definable edge. But what about all the retailers, the wholesalers, and varied commercial and residential services providers? How do these Main Street businesses define themselves?

Every company can do better when it regularly emphasizes unique features and category beating benefits to make an impact on customers and prospects. If you’re not satisfied with current revenue and profit levels, it may be time to renovate your business development activities.

In the broadest sense marketing is all the activities required to find and retain customers. The problem for some businesses today is that this critical activity has been left to chance. Ask yourself:

• Am I doing enough to keep my company in the minds of our customers?
• Are my prospects listening to what I have to say?
• Are my direct sales activities effective?
• Maybe my operational strengths outweigh my business development skills?
• Would a different perspective help?

Did you know my company provides complete marketing support to businesses like yours, companies that may not need or can’t afford a full-time marketing professional? Because we work with several companies simultaneously you can enjoy the benefits of an experienced marketing specialist at a fraction of the cost of a full time employee.  

How long has it been since you looked at the offering itself? Is what you are selling really what the market desires?

Every product and service has a life cycle. From typewriters to the corner drug store the world has moved on. If you have been proactive it is likely the business has evolved with the market.

We work with many businesses that have fallen behind the curve, some in dire circumstances.

Unfortunately, many smaller companies with competing internal agendas have not anticipated the future and may be in trouble.

The consistent theme is always the same, they are hoping to get their old world back, but that’s just not going to happen.

Lauterback Marketing has keen experience in re-engineering small and midsize organizations to bring out what still has value to the market.

Your company has internal strengths that can be combined with opportunities that employ your skills, your people and even some of your specialized procedures and equipment.

To find out how Lauterback Marketing can assist your business to get back on track call 973-889-9393.

Here is another important business development suggestion from Steve Lauterback. I hope you find it informative and useful. Pass it on to friends and colleagues who might need help in growing their businesses.

Identifying your target market and motivating them to action is probably the greatest need and weakest skill for businesses large and small.

Here are some of the most important factors to consider for increasing sales right now. Don’t place another ad or meet with another prospect until you understand these key points.

Be crystal clear about your likely customers. Profile your market then learn all you can about their needs, desires, problems and pains.

Find out how your prospects get information on products and services like yours, and determine how best to communicate with them. Start by creating some questions then call some of your current customers and ask them.

Create several provocative offers and be prepared to test the response to each one.

Establish the true facts about how your offering can solve customers’ problems or fulfill their desires.

Create statements that compel prospects to take action now. Develop powerful headlines, list all meaningful benefits, and address objections.

Determine the easiest ways for prospects to respond to your offer and anticipate the risks a prospect will consider before he or she takes action.

Recently I was asked by a prospect to explain the difference between advertising and marketing. It made me realize that marketing really is a mystery to many small business people.

Advertising is one part of the marketing function. It’s the part where you use different means (like TV or online ads, postcards, etc), with words and pictures to make impressions with customers.  But, communicating you message is only one part of the customer finding process.

What do today’s suspicious buyers really respond to?

Marketing is a process that starts by assessing every business activity from the customer’s prospective.

• At the planning stage we design our product or service for ease of use and customer appeal.
• We examine our customer base to create an accurate profile.
• Armed with this information we develop provocative and bite-size resonate messages that customers and prospects are likely to respond to.
• We convey these messages through a variety of means so the message can be heard over the din of the market. This includes traditional advertising, the web and email, social media (like Facebook and Twitter) engineered word of mouth, free publicity, and much more.
• We build relationships by properly directing our sales staff and other employees to focus on serving the customer and becoming ambassadors of the brand.
• We do it all without shooting from the hip. Instead we engineer the customer experience by creating a thorough marketing plan based upon an unbiased examination of the internal strengths and weakness of the firm. We also assess the external opportunities and threats presented by market trends, innovation and competitor activities.
• And, we do it consistently (when busy and when desperate for business).

It’s all marketing… It’s never been more important and it’s never been more difficult. If your small business ($1 to $25 million), doesn’t have a qualified marketing prospective represented within the mix of talents that make up your organization (professional firm, manufacturing, service company), then consider developing a mechanism to better connect with the people looking for what you are selling.

The closer your business comes to delivering on the entire purchase experience the higher the customer satisfaction and the greater the opportunity for a flattering referral. Nothing beats a strong testimonial from a recent customer to stimulate the next sale.

If you think beyond the usual parameters of adequate service, if you become curious about what the customer would love, and are determined to deliver it, your business will prosper.

It is marketing’s job to assist in determining what customers’ value. It is marketing’s job to help align the company to be able to deliver on the entire purchase experience. And it is marketing’s job to determine all the ways of communicating important distinctions to present and future customers.

In today's "excess capacity" economy, potential buyers have more choices then ever. They have loads of competing products or services to choose from, plus an excess of substitutes like joining a country club instead of installing a swimming pool.

Over the last few years, with more and more sellers chasing better-educated buyers, the inundated buyer is programmed to efficiently pair choices to a manageable few. Since customers really yearn for better choices, you must build imaginative products and vigorously communicate important service distinctions that will get you "inside the circle."

Marketing is that essential business function assisting sellers to engineer the "to-market" process and convey value to potential customers in all the ways we touch them.

I hope you will consider this idea as another piece of a long term, market-led process for your business.

Lauterback Marketing has worked with over 100 NY & NJ small businesses of all types over the last 10-years. We can create a sustainable business development process for any business.

Contact Lauterback Marketing today.

It has to be the truth!

Are your customers satisfied? Nothing is more disparaging for accomplished marketers than to hear someone say, “Oh, that’s just marketing hype,” when referring to promotional claims for a substandard product or service.

In today’s competitive climate the standards of performance are not set by your industry, your engineers or even your ego. Success depends on meeting the customer’s expectations. Marketing cannot be expected to substitute for an aging product or substandard service.

It is marketing’s responsibility to interpret customer expectations, evaluate competitor’s products, and then be instrumental in internally raising the bar.

How refreshing would it be if the post office emulated the Disney World model for service, or if all cars came with the reliability of a Honda? Who sets the standards in your company?

I hope you will consider this idea as another piece of a long term, market-led process for your business.

Lauterback Marketing has worked with over 75 NY & NJ small businesses of all types over the last 10-years? We can create a sustainable business development process for any business.