Entrepreneurs! You Can’t Advertise Your Way to Success!

Advertising has been part of our daily lives for millennia. The Romans used to print the origin of wine in amphoras to inform the buyer, guarantee the quality, and prevent forgery. In the middle ages, the arts played a significant role in advertising, and, in some instances, there are recorded uses of a primitive form of billboards.

Everything changed dramatically in 1450 when Gutenberg created the printing press and, by consequence, mass advertising. The Boston News-Letter published the first newspaper advertisement on May 1st, 1704; posters became so prevalent that, in 1839, the city of London banned this form of advertising on private property.

Over the years, other technologies emerged, creating new opportunities for marketers to reach the consumer, from the first radio advertisement in 1922, to the first TV ad in 1941, to telemarketing as a common tactic in 1970.

But, no other technology has impacted advertising the way the internet has done. It has revolutionized how we deliver ads, who can create the ads, and how consumers interact with them.

From 2000 to 2021, the growth of digital ad spend has reached an astounding 2,030% growth or a 15.7% Annual Growth Rate.

The growth of digital can be explained in part by the fact that even a tiny budget can play in the segment.

Unfortunately, the same access that makes digital so appealing is also a reason for concern. There is so much out there that it is hard for any brand to stand out. Entrepreneurs can’t advertise their way to success. There are too many messages, too much information, too many channels for our brains to process. Also, consumers are taking action against the assault on their brains.

It’s Never Been So Easy to Start a Business:

There are an estimated 500 million entrepreneurs in the world. Between 2010 and 2020, new businesses in the US grew by 43%. And each of them using digital marketing to deliver their message.

There is Too Much Noise Out There:

The image on the right represents the amount of information delivered in each of the channels, every 60 seconds.

The average reader of the New York times would take 27 hours to read the paper’s Sunday edition. Assuming she would read 8 hours a day, it would already be Wednesday morning by the time she learned about Sunday news.

It would take approximately fifty hours to watch all twenty-three of the Marvel Cinematic Movies, up to Avengers: Endgame.

In 2020, Americans received approximately 46 billion robocalls.

In 2019, US companies spent $238.8 billion in advertising. In other words, each of the 128 million households in America saw approximately $1,865.78 worth of ads. An entrepreneur entering the market with a $10 million marketing budget would impact that household amount by less than 8 cents — literally, a drop in the ocean.

Consumers are Fighting Back:

In an attempt to push back against the onslaught on their minds, consumers are taking steps. Do not call lists, spam blockers, ad blockers, and streaming services are just a few examples of the consumer’s tools to reduce the amount of information she receives daily.

Although in decline, approximately 25% of all devices have some ad blocker. Also, companies like Apple are taking the fight against other technology companies such as Facebook to protect consumer information and reduce ads served.

Most Ads are Not Delivered and Not Acknowledged:

Studies show that most digital ads don’t reach a human being. In 2014, Google estimated that a human never saw about 56% of all ads. In other words, for every 100 ads your analytics claims were delivered, 56 of them were viewed by a bot or displayed where no eyes could ever see them.

Even when a human sees the ads, they only recall the company’s name 8% of the time. Imagine watering the lawn knowing that 92% of the water would never touch the grass.

Even a Big Budget Does Not Guarantee Success:

On January 2nd, 2021, Forbes Magazine published an article where Dr. Augustine Fou described that:

“When P&G turned off $200 million of their digital ad spending, they saw NO CHANGE in business outcomes. When Chase reduced their programmatic reach from 400,000 sites showing its ads to 5,000 sites (a 99% decrease), they saw NO CHANGE in business outcomes. When Uber turned off $120 million of their digital ad spending meant to drive more app installs, they saw NO CHANGE in the rate of app installs.”

The article seems to indicate that even large budgets cannot cut through the clutter any longer. The traditional strategy of using ads to ride your way to success seems to be flawed.

An over-communicated consumer is pushing back and rebelling against the non-stop assault that marketing has become.

But if the current strategy does not work any longer, what does?

Here are four strategies to help you increase sales in the long run.

Remember that people can copy what you do, never who you are:

Spend time understanding why your business exists and the change you want to create in the world. In other words, find clarity. Without clarity, your business is just another one. All the information needed to create a viable business is readily available to anyone in the US. In other words, whatever you find to help your business succeed, all your competitors can too.

When Apple entered the computer industry, it suffered while it competed on features. Every competitor had access to, more or less, the same technology. Only when Apple inserted the idea of ease of use and beautiful design that the company took off.

Find an open field to plant your tree:

Among one of the reasons Sequoias grow so big is because they don’t have much competition. Trees that grow in crowded fields have to spend so much energy fighting off the competition that they don’t have enough left to grow.

The same applies to your business. Look at the market and find a segment that has either been ignored or underserved. Understand the consumers’ needs and wants in that segment and serve them as no one else would.

There were already too many eCommerce sites selling shoes when Zappo’s started in 1999. Most of them focused on the operational side of the business. However, there was not one of them paying attention to satisfying consumer needs to a different level. The field was wide open, and the only thing Zappo’s had to do was to deliver better than anyone else would.

Be consistent in your approach and communication:

I read somewhere that a brand is like a chair. The more you sit on it, the more confidence you acquire it will support your weight. However, if said chair breaks once, you will never sit on it with confidence again.

To create a strong brand that addresses a specific group’s needs uniquely, your brand needs to deliver each touchpoint for an extended period consistently. Hopefully, you may have built enough goodwill with your audience at some point, and they will forgive you if you commit a misstep.

But here is the trick, everyone who touches your brand is representing it. Employees, suppliers, partners, website, point of sale, product, …., everything and everyone needs to convey a very consistent message about your brand.

Ritz-Carlton Hotel is an experience in comfort in itself, but the lengths all those working in their properties will go to make sure clients are cared for is outstanding. From top to bottom, employees consistently convey that it is all about the guest at every single touchpoint. No detail is too small. No request is either unimportant or too much work.

Use Marketing to engage with your audience:

Now that you have created an authentic and differentiated brand and have communicated those attributes consistently to a group of people who became reliant on your brand, you can start to use marketing to your advantage again.

The difference is that you will utilize marketing as a tool to engage and activate with your audience. Most importantly, you will use it as a way to communicate that you are interested in what they need and what they have to say. In a nutshell, you will be shifting from “interesting” marketing to “interested” marketing.

Glossier is an excellent example of how to use marketing to engage with consumers. Described as a “people-powered beauty ecosystem,” Glossier focuses on five elements to drive their marketing: Consumers, Content, Conversations, Co-Creation, Community.

It’s all about engaging a community of consumers in conversations to share content and co-create solutions that address their needs.

In summary, it’s not how loud you speak, but rather how relevant your message is.