This month’s article is inspired by conversations I’ve been having with other small business owners about marketing vs advertising.
So what is the difference between marketing and advertising? In our talks advertising is paid for space in publications etc while marketing is more about public relations and is free space in publications.
Paid for advertising for small business can be very difficult and costly, bringing back poor results and not really benefitting the business. Personally I think paid for advertising should be very carefully considered and research.
I know I’ve done paid for advertising in targetted publications which has not worked. I think I wasn’t ready for it and I used the wrong publication (even though it was targetted). So it was my lack of experience that cost me. I have learnt from it and it wasn’t too expensive but it isn’t how I want to learn my lessons on a regular basis (then it would be a costly process!).
What has worked best for me has been the free publicity, special marketing tools such as my website, key words, listings in directories, newsletter, business articles, reward card, competition, wholesale brochure, jewellery party brochure and flyer and mentions in newspapers and magazines.
All of these marketing tools do cost me in terms of development, production and maintenance but paid for advertising must be created and that costs too. At least with marketing there is only one cost rather than two.
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