Grow, Dammit, Grow

It's a tough time to be a business. It's a tougher time to be a small business. Aside from the looming shadow of what's happening in real estate, and now banking, you're watching the cities and towns around you grow, your competition gets closer and closer, and someone is always doing things better than you, or with greater success. On top of that, advertising... Oh, advertising.

I want to advertise my business on cable. Or do I want to advertise on broadcast? Are the papers still working? If not, then why do spots cost more than ever? And then there's the web. How can I possibly know how to use it to grow my business when even those companies driving the advertising business on the web are having to adapt faster than they are able? Then there's guerrilla advertising. Cheap, yes. But do I really want to risk going to jail over a little business (remember Aqua Teen Hunger Force)? And what about radio? Let's not forget radio. After all it's the only media form where I actually experience advertising in my busy day. Radio and billboards, I should say. They clutter my drive to work as I scan the stations looking for something without radio ads.

In the end, the only question remaining is the first question: will any of it work?

And there's an answer: yes. And maybe even YES! Our world is a tough place for small business simply because there is more to know about success in business than our brains have room for. Even a decade ago, we listened to people who tried to sell us stuff, and we decided whether or not we believed them. But today, courtesy of the very "thing" you're reading now (and the medium that gave us blogs), information is everywhere--fact, fiction, opinion. It's overwhelmingly helpful. Overwhelmingly.

But here's the simple little message that you can take to bed (and comfortably to sleep) with you: the core principle is the same. It's the same. Even with all of the clutter, it hasn't changed; Good ideas make effective advertising.

All the other stuff--the metrics and the data and the research and the internet--only matter once you have a good idea. And in local advertising, a good idea means as much as it does anywhere else.

As an ad creative, I get overwhelmed, too. I know a little more than most people. But I also know enough to know that I know very little. Nonetheless, I plug onward, because I have seen again and again that when we produce work at Bait & Tackle that's smart, or funny, or clever, or beautiful, then it just plain works. Sadly, one way that I know it's working is that the phone doesn't stop ringing with calls from those salespeople trying to sell me data and analysis and help.

One day we'll take those calls. But in the meantime, I'm going to make sure the office is clean, and that there's plenty of drinks in the fridge and flowers in the reception. I'm going to focus on making sure that my sales staff understands our vision, that employees know how to answer the phones and deal with customers, that we are producing meaningful work that serves our client's growth, and that we give ourselves jobs that we can love. Because these things will give our business more ROI than any CPM or CPC ever will.