How do you make you business grow and prosper? Through your advertising and marketing efforts? This includes every contact anyone in your company makes with any possible customer. Your firm's philosophy, image and actions create an impression from your first contact to your last. Molding these images in your clients' minds is not an easy task, and you are never finished. However with some basic building blocks your business will grow and prosper!

1. YOU MUST KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS! Without knowing what your customers want you cannot possibly be successful in your advertising and marketing efforts. You cannot try selling ice to an Eskimo! What are your customer's needs and what are their problems? Once you establish this you can start to develop services and products to meet their needs. People will buy what they want and need, always remember this with your efforts.
2. KNOW YOUR COMPETITION! What are they doing right? What are they missing? How are they pricing their goods and services? How are they promoting their products and services and is it working Where you know your own marketplace, you will know where your competitor's strengths and weaknesses are. The real successes are made when you counter your competition's strengths and exploit their weaknesses.
3. MAKE A PROFIT! Profit is not a dirty word. You are supposed to make money. The real trick is in combining #1 and #2 above. Solve your customers wants and needs with products and services your competitors do not offer. When you do this you can get more profit because the client cannot find these goods or services that they want or need elsewhere! If you were the only business in your area that had snowplows, would you park them in a snowstorm or go out and plow at a premium rate? I know that's a tough one to answer but sit down and map our these strategies for your own business and you'll soon be setting yourself apart.
4. BE SERVICE AND QUALITY ORIENTED! Quality and service are proven to be more important than price. When you have a client it's important to maintain his loyalty. You do this by concentration on maintaining and even exceeding (when possible) their perceived expectations of your products and services. Satisfy your clients needs and give them more than they expect and they will never leave you.

When you think you have pretty well mastered the points mentioned above it's time to start projecting your image outwards for expanded sales. You do this be using any or all of the advertising media listed here.

• WORD-OF-MOUTH ADVERTISING: The best, absolute cheapest, slowest and hardest to obtain medium.
• NEWSPAPER AND PUBLICATIONS: The quickest medium. The could be the cheapest if you can get a special interest story printed about your company, and the values of these are immeasurable...if you can get them to happen.
• RADIO AND TELEVISION: Expensive, but very effective if you can target and sell your market. Much better for retail than service work.
• BILLBOARD ADVERTISING: Expensive and reaches more people than any other medium. BUT are all of the billboard readers your target market?
• DIRECT MAIL: Time consuming, reasonably priced, and if you target your market well, very successful. Remember it's all numbers here, dollars and cents versus your own offerings response rate. See the sections on "Printed materials".
• YELLOW PAGES: Expensive, but you have to have the ads. Unless you are a retail operation the first contact you normally have with client is the telephone. Yes the phone book people are right, bigger colored ads work better, and if this is the only medium you are going to use, buy the whole page. But if your are going to use other media, watch your budget here.
• TRADE SHOWS: Expense varies from reasonable to expensive. Done right they can be very successful if you position your product and services to meet the show attendees wants and needs. If you don't so this tradeshows are a waste of time.
• MEETINGS AND SEMINARS: Expense is relative to your amount of effort and preparation. Your success is also measured by these factors. Target you market and strike hard. Give away some of your expertise for free. Every spring and fall a large local swimming pool dealer has classes that show owners how to open and close their pools. Guess where they buy their supplies and chemicals to do this?
• YOUR BUSINESS LOOK: Expense here is relatively inexpensive. The best place to start because of the cost effectiveness. At your workplaces and job sites remember that the clients are looking at you.. Do the best you can to project a friendly, warm and consistently professional image. Keep your premises, vehicles, equipment and work areas neat and clean as possible. Try some uniformity in your look by having all your equipment the same color. Put your name and/or logo on everything consistently; trucks, equipment, stationary, envelopes, business cards, invoices, buildings, even your workers with shirts, hats and jackets. Try putting a sign on the site and while you are there telling anyone passing by who is there and what they are doing.
• PRINTED MATERIALS: Expenses are directly related to your effort. Due to recent advanced in computer technology you should be taking advantage of this medium. Before today's computers, you had to go to a printer for everything. Technology now puts most of those skills on your desktop by war of computer desktop publishing programs and color printers. Once your initial investment is made all it takes is your time designing your literature. Make up a company brochure. Develop an introduction piece that you would drop off at prospective clients that are around your existing clients. Develop a direct mail piece introducing your company to people you've never done business with. Printed material can be your cheapest and most effective means of growing your business if you do it all.
• ADVERTISING SPECIALTIES: Expenses run from cheap to expensive. You really must match the item with your market. You can use this market very effectively if done right, but if you don't match the items with your objective they wont work. All businesses should have some small stock ad specialties around. You never know when you'll need them. Try a business card magnet, at the least.

These are just some of the advertising media you can use in growing your business. When using any of these media it is important every time to try to follow as many of the following five points as possible:

1. ORGANIZATION: Arrangement to communicate to a prospective client an idea, problems, wants or needs that they should respond to.
2. BENEFIT: Yes, you must show the benefit of solving their problems, wants and needs.
3. POSITION: Show the client that you are a person that can and will do the job for them.
4. IDENTIFICATION: Make your image strong and unmistakable, always.
5. RESPONSE VEHICLE: This is where you tell the client how to respond. "Call us at (302) 994-4433" or "see us at the tradeshow, booth #12" or, "Stop by our office and even "Send e-mail to graphics@graphicsunltd.com".

Have you got it all? Do you do all of this, every business day? Advertising and Marketing covers a lot of ground. Try to stay focused on it all of the time and your business with grow and prosper. There is an old saying in the business that says, "A business with no sign is a sign of no business." Advertising and Marketing should be viewed the same way: promote your business and prosper, don't promote it and lose.