Some months ago, we were asked to advertise in a charity booklet with a target audience of 400 people who would be attending the charity ball. Most of the ball attendees were potential clients for our firm. The quarter-page ad allowed us to publish our black and white logo along with a two-line message of our choice for $1,250. We eventually chose to do this, not necessarily for the audience we would attract, but rather as a show of support for one of our leading clients who is on the board of this charity. Four months later, we have not received a single inquiry from this ad, nor even acknowledgment from our client who asked for said support. Was it wasted money?

Recently, we chose to advertise in the buyers’ guide for a leading publication geared towards practice managers in an effort to attract new clients. This one-line ad along with our small logo and link to our website will be included with other ads in a buyers’ guide booklet of 40 or more pages for a cost to us of $420. Was this a good investment?

In both cases we were able to continue to build our “brand” with targeted prospects who were able to purchase our services. There is value in this branding over the long-term as it builds name recognition, which is invaluable for any product, firm, or practice. Brand building, however, is an expensive, sometimes time-consuming process, but it’s necessary for any legitimate business.

In the first case involving the charity, we were targeting less than 400 decision makers in a venue that they probably would not access when making a decision to purchase. There may have been value in supporting a worthwhile charity or supporting a colleague, but at $1,250, we believe our ROI on reaching or influencing less than 400 decision makers proved to be non-existent.

In the second example, we have the potential to reach more than 2,000 decision makers in a forum where they make purchasing or referral decisions at a cost of $420 for 12 months. We only need to garner one new client from this ad to more than make up for the cost.

In hindsight, we probably would have been better off to use the $1,250 to fund a full year of email marketing, directly targeting decision makers for our services. Email marketing builds our brand while educating our potential clients on our services and capabilities. Repetition is key in advertising. Email marketing costs us about $1/month per prospect and lets us communicate with potential clients about our experience, capabilities, and resources.

So you see, advertising can be tricky. Always think in terms of targeted marketing (am I reaching my target audience where they make purchasing decisions?) as well as measurement (how do I measure the number of people who are actually influenced by the ad?), which leads to return on investment, (how many new referrals do I need to gain in return for this cost?).

Have questions or comments about your own advertising experiences? Leave us a comment!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 8:42 am and is filed under All Posts, Marketing Ideas, Tips for Practice Administrators. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.