A perennial theme woven throughout our conversations with potential clients and other people curious about the McHenry County advertising business is actually a misconception. With the dawn of Google adwords and pay-per-click advertising, businesses in smaller cities have completely foresworn advertising in traditional media, a move that now more than ever has come back to haunt them. With businesses more strapped for cash than ever, being locked in to contracts for click advertising makes it impossible for a business to accurately forecast cash flow. And worse, conversion rates from online advertising have fallen drastically for all but a few special types of businesses. The ‘net’ result is more money spent on fewer customer conversions.
Online advertising is a smart way for your business to market because it targets a customer who has demonstrated interest in the product or service you’re offering. But strong businesses are built on strong brands, and strong brands are not built with online advertising. Word of mouth and top of the mind awareness are by far the biggest components of strong brand building. If your company offers a unique product or service, then a strong brand will serve you in acquiring customers that didn’t even think to search for what you offer. For this reason, advertisers in McHenry County must consider diversifying their advertising efforts. For many local businesses, this entails creating a ‘street presence,’ by advertising on billboards.
Advertising online is a great idea for converting customers but offers local businesses no way to ‘get the word out’ that they are here in McHenry County and open for their potential customers’ business. Establishing a street presence through billboard advertising will build your small business’s brand and save you money on advertising that you can use to redouble your efforts when the market for goods and services improves. For more information about McHenry County Advertising please call Denny Orsinger at 847-462-8433.
