From a consumer standpoint, advertising on the internet, or on internet TV is fascinating to me. If I mention having a glass of wine on Facebook for instance, I’ll get ads on my sidebar selling me hard liquor, as if having a glass of wine makes me a party guy. If I mention riding my exercise bike, I’ll get ads for all the latest fad diets… they’re all assumptions made by computer programs based on key words, but of course, someone had to program those algorithms and connect those key words to their ads, and it makes me wonder who are these people?
Ad executives are really not that much different than they were back in Mad Men days, as far as I can tell, just without all the sexist behavior in the office (although plenty is left in the ads themselves) and with fancier technology… and mathematicians and computer programmers on their teams. Their job is to sell stuff. And it works. At least the numbers say it does… or do they? When times were good, no one batted an eyelash at the billions of dollars sunk into advertising each year, but now that economic belts are tightening, as a business owner I have to wonder if it’s worth it… especially when I see ads targeted to me that don’t even remotely factor into the life I lead.
As a business owner, I do a lot of research into advertising and especially advertising on the internet. Despite its personal feel, and how much fun it’s been to blog here, I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think that it might help my business on some level. Advertisers say that companies who spend more money on advertising in leaner markets are the ones that survive, but what’s the research to back that up? Actually, nevermind. Don’t answer that. We all know that statistics and research only says what those who are paying for it want it to say… I guess I’m just looking for some real world answers. What do you do? Are you like most small business owners who cut ad dollars when money is tight, or do you buck the trends? Do you sink more money into ads to get the sales you need to survive tough times?
We hear so much about “smart” advertising as well. That it’s not how much you sink into advertising, but how those ad dollars are spent. So, how do you spend your ad dollars? I used to have a radio show, but as you can see from the pie chart above the radio slice of the pie has decreased in size significantly… as has my involvement in it. And correspondingly, my dollars invested in internet marketing have increased. But what about those other slices? Television is so expensive that it doesn’t even register a blip for me, and direct mail has never been very effective for my line of work. And press? Well, that’s hit or miss. Most of the press in the finance industry these days is not the kind of press I want. Whoever said that any press is good press, never met a wealth manager I can tell you that.
So what’s the general consensus out there? How do you spend your advertising dollars?
Your Money and Your Life 