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Studies show that five out of ten startup businesses fail
in the first year and nine out ten never survive to the fifth
year of business. Are you starting a business or are you in
one that is struggling to survive? How long can you operate
a business that is unknown? How long can you keep on draining
your profit with a huge marketing budget?
Allow me to make a profound statement. Most businesses fail
because they lack—a creative marketing plan, knowledge of the
available resources that allow them to market their products/or
services with a zero/shoestring budget, courage to position the
benefits of what they do to improve life or the way people do
things, and the tenacity required to stay focused on an established
vision as obstacles unfold themselves one after another.
It’s astonishing to hear people who own small to medium business
say they don’t subscribe or even read the local newspapers or
business publications. Would you dare to do a business in a market
that you have no clue who is there, what they are doing, what they
want, why, when and how?
Newspapers and business publications provide information on what’s
going on in communities, challenges, resources and opportunities.
Some have sections entirely designated for listing new businesses,
the business owner’s background and the value the business adds to
consumers way of life. The only investment a business owner makes
to take advantage of these free advertisements is few minutes to
write 75-100 words about their business.
What about press releases? Does your business ever have a day set
for public participation either in learning new ways of bettering
their lives, raising funds for charity or for any cause worth knowing
about? That event, if you know how to prepare a press release that
the community events editor would love the publication’s readers
to know about, can be covered several times—your time is the only
investment in this.
Another effective advertisement is your involvement in activities
that you care about and that are necessary for the growth of your
community and its people. Though you will not likely gain directs
tangible returns, news publications cover community events, those
involved and what they do. That level of coverage is worth
thousands of advertisement dollars.
Become a resource for the newspapers and business publications.
No, you don’t have to just write about your business. You can
write on issues you believe in, what’s happening, who is affected,
how and why and maybe offer solutions.
There are a myriad of reasons why people don’t subscribe to
newspapers including the dislike of editors who are biased
in their moral and political writing. However, in the newspaper
business, the turnover of writers is high. Further, there are
hundreds of items that come from various sources thus not
biased. Business realities, local sports teams’ scores,
consumer tastes, community challenges and successes are
rarely reported with biasness, at least not all the time.
Think of the investment you make with an annual subscription.
To get weekly issues of the Idaho Business Review, your
investment is about $75/yr or rather $1.44 a week. If your
event is included in the Business Calendar, your gain is in
hundreds for the space you could have paid for. Your investment
for most daily newspapers is about $0.50/day—the paper is
brought to your office.
If you are enthusiastic about your product or services, have
the courage to call or write and invite an editor to see what
you have. There are tremendous benefits when people write
about what you do. Your business gains from the publicity
and the paper gains by providing its readers newsworthy
information.
For the sake of your children, get the paper and let them
see you reading. When you tell them to read books, they
won’t think you are telling them to do what you never do.
You teach by example. There are also parts of the paper
that enrich children’s understanding of the world around them.
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