It’s now time to let media start working for you.

The next step for you is to start budgeting all of your resources. Up until now you’ve been using time, one resource which cannot be created or renewed. Once it’s been used, it’s gone forever.

How about starting to use another resource…..money!

Do you have an advertising budget? Have you ever even thought about it? Invariably an advertising budget is one thing which new business owners don’t allocate for, don’t consider, and just can’t bring themselves to spend. And I ask, Why Not??!!??!!

One of reasons is that you’ve been indoctrinated to believe that successful marketing is a function of mindset, positive, pro-active, enthusiastic, etc. All true. And all marketing. Your results to date have been less than explosive. Coming in dribbles rather than a downpour, and, as previously mentioned, your conclusion is to work harder.

What happened to paid for advertising?

How about working wiser for a change? Start to allocate a percent of each sale that you make to your advertising budget. Just like you have a household budget, you need to have a business budget.

And what will an advertising budget do for you? It will enable you to reach thousands of people with your business message, instead of just dozens. Can you imagine??? Thousands of people being aware of your company, thousands of people considering your products or services, thousands of people that you can market your message to. Wow. What a concept.

There is however, promotion. Promotion is different from marketing and advertising in that it represents a short lived event or special attraction. Marketing and advertising represent long term relationships with marketplace. A promotion, as opposed to a gimmick, can be very effective in attracting attention from both potential new business and media.

An example of a good promotion might be for your company to form an affiliation with a local charity. Then on designated days or weeks, you could donate a percentage of all sales to this charity. Let’s say you own a restaurant. Then on last Wednesday of each month you would donate $2.00 from each meal purchased to local food bank.

Will new customers come running from all corners of earth just to eat at your restaurant on this day? No. But a promotion like this, done on a regular basis, will generate good word of mouth for your company and eventually lead to an increase in clientele who have heard “great things” about your restaurant.

So always remember to separate out cheesy gimmick from quality business building promotion.

Michele Borowsky http:motherofallmarketing.com