Again, referencing Jay Levinson, you should consider your marketing and advertising as a conservative investment that you expect to yield big payoff over time. Marketing and advertising is not a speculative investment, in which you win or lose big.

As you develop your marketing plan, build in patience and consistency. Consumers like stability in a business and one way to build stability is a consistent marketing message that they are able to get used to seeing and processing. This type of campaign is comforting to consumer who is used to in your face advertising being blasted at them over multiple media channels. You may not see numbers change immediately but they will come with patience.

************************ Darrin F. Coe, MA holds a master’s degree in psychology and is operator of “The Center For Understanding Consumer Thinking” at www.consumer-thinking.com. His most recent special report, “The Internet Consumer Exposed” is available at www.consumer-thinking.com/exposed1. Contact him for consulting at coe@ris.net or 1-719-275-5907 after 5:00 PM mountain standard time. *************************

Advertising entails publicizing your business, product, or services you are offering. It involves process of developing strategies such as ad placement, frequency, etc. Advertising includes placement of an ad in such mediums as newspapers, yellow pages, television, radio, and of course Internet. Advertising is single largest expenditure of most marketing campaigns.

The best way to distinguish between advertising and marketing is pie chart. Mentally visualize breaking pie chart down into several slices that include advertising, product pricing, distribution, customer service, sales strategy, etc.

Using this method, you can see, advertising only equals one slice of pie in marketing strategy. All of these components must not only work independently, but they also must work in unison towards ultimate goal of publicizing your business and obtaining customers.

Marketing, on other hand, is simply a process that an organization goes through to facilitate an exchange between buyer and seller.