It is now crunch time. You did all your research, developed a viable business plan and opened the front door for business. If no one is clamoring to get in, you might start to get the picture that there is more to opening a business than unlocking the front door. The idea that if you build it they will come was a great line for a movie, but that is all it was, a great line in a fictional story. In real life it just does not work.
If this is a real scenario for you obviously someone missed an important omission from your business plan. One of the first questions you should have asked yourself was who or what will be your first customer, followed by the obvious second and third customer and so on. If that was not in your business plan, fire the person who helped you write it, close the front door and go back to work on the plan. Especially the part about where the customers are going to found.
You have three basic choices in advertising, print, internet and broadcast. Any one of the three can help drive customers to your business but the message has to convince them it is worth the trip. Just opening the door is not going to be a good enough reason for people to make a visit to your store. Whether the business is in a brick and mortar building or based on the internet, your potential customers have to have a reason to want to make the first trip and then decide they might want to come back later.
You have to consider what you are offering and develop a message aimed at the demographic that will have the most use for your product or service. If your business is strictly business to business, advertising in general circulation media is going to be a waste of money. Yes, advertising in business journal will be considerably more expensive, but the return on the advertising investment will be much higher as well. In broadcast media, consider the time of day as well as the programs on which your message will be played.
For instance, there are some national media groups that offer some inviting prices on their advertising package, but you have to figure out how many people that might use your product is going to be watching television at three in the morning. Maybe if you are pushing sleep aids it will help, but very few things are going to arouse the interest of people who simply can not sleep. The program itself should also invite viewers with the same interests as the product. If you sell products or services for the older generation, money spent to advertise on Saturday morning cartoons is going to be lost.
Once you have determined the best way to get your message out to the right people, and set the plan in motion, it may be time to reopen the door and wait for your customers. If done correctly, they will be jostling to get in and give you their money.
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