Corresponding to intent as well as stage of business are multiple levels of advertising promotion. Helping small businesses tailor their promotions and ads to the proper purpose thus making more money is trying to understand these levels. Let’s look a little closer.

Stage 1. All about awareness There are times when a little child would cry out ‘mom look at me’ just to get a little attention. The fact that there may be thousands of people out there who need what they offer but don’t know they exist is one of the biggest threats to small businesses.

When it comes to the “if you build it they will come” principle, then this stage will work. It’s good if you don’t have much competition, or if you are an established brand opening a new location.

This is the most basic form of advertising and it has its uses. The bad news is that most small businesses don’t really move past this level.

Stage 2. Gaining Market Share In advertising, this is a very important stage of promotion. This is where you put your unique selling proposition out there so that people will choose you over a competitor. You have to be compelling in a way your competitors aren’t.

Most advertising doesn’t go this far, even from a lot of the big guys. Compelling action from the customer is your job here.

Stage 3. Increase Consumption What exactly are you doing to bring your old customers back even though it is very important to gain new customers. What kind of advertising or promotional tactics will increase the frequency and the size of your average purchase.

It is not a waste of money when you advertise to your current customers. There is also the chance that your ROI is likely to be far higher than advertising to get new customers.

Think about ways to get customers to come back more frequently and spend more with you when they do. You can realize an exponential growth in sales if you get these two components down.

Fourth stage. How to Capitalize Your Opportunity In this stage, what you would do is use opportunities to increase sales. What kind of opportunities? There are holiday sales as well long weekends and current events.

You need to be careful when using very bad news for promotion. When you are seen as too mercenary, then it can come back to haunt you.

However, offering deals to offset rising gas prices or beat the heat of summer deals can be great was to promote all kinds of things.

Mastering these basics will give you a head start for a more profitable future even though you can boil these four stages down into finer points of distinction.

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Posted in marketing by Alison Heath No Comments Yet