Do you cringe at the thought of spending more and more money to
advertise your home business, product or service each month? If
you can change the way you look at advertising costs and change
the way you advertise, your home business will grow beyond your
wildest dreams.

As a small business owner, you should always be looking for ways
to cut expenses and increase revenue. Expenses are anything that
is required for your business to function. This can include web
site hosting, copywriting or ghost writer fees, office rent and
utilities, payment processing fees and even payroll for your
office staff.

Anything that is designed to bring in sales or leads (and is
measurable) is not an expense. Measurable, trackable advertising
costs and sales force commissions and salaries are not expenses.
These costs are an investment in your business and your future.

Measurable advertising that is designed to produce a certain
measurable action is referred to as "direct response marketing".
Advertising dollars spent on directing a targeted audience to
respond via a web site, email address or a special phone number
is always an investment, not an expense.

For a home business or small business, it is not always practical
to try and "get your name out" to your target audience (known as
"branding") by spending thousands and thousands of dollars. A
more effective way to advertise would be to run ads that attract
the attention of your target audience and entice them to perform
"your most desired action".

The desired action may be to visit a product web site, which
could result in an immediate sale. A business owner that
considers advertising an investment would make sure that the
desired action at their web site is to collect lead information
above all else. That web site could make some sales, but a
mechanism to capture personal contact information of interested
visitors will generate many more qualified leads. Through follow
up contact, these leads could produce many more sales over time
than the initial visit to the web site would.

Another desired action in your ad could be for the prospect to
call a phone number for more information. They would give the
phone person their mailing address (to receive a promotional
package) and their phone number (that a sales person would use to
contact them).

In either case, the follow up closes the deal, not the ad or the
first visit to a web site. And if you can't close them with
repeated follow ups, you can offer them other products and
services related to the original offer that they may be
interested in. Your product may be too expensive for them, but a
cheaper similar product may be just what they were looking for!

Tracking and measuring your direct response advertising is as
easy as tracking web site visits vs. how many prospects ask for
more information (by giving their contact information) for each
ad. Measuring how well an ad with a phone number pulls is as easy
as using a different extension (Ext.321 for example) or contact
name (Ask for Vicky) in each ad for the caller to ask for.

The list of contacts that grows from your investment of
advertising dollars will give your home business real tangible
value. You will be building a long term asset every time you
advertise, instead of just doing another one time promotion (and
hoping that you will at least break even). An email list is a
very valuable asset for a small business, as is a house list of
mailing addresses to use with direct mail campaigns.

So the next time you are buying advertising and think you are
adding to your monthly expenses, think again. When you are
looking to cut expenses, don't look at your ad budget. As long as
you are using direct response advertising methods and your
primary activity is collecting qualified leads, the cost will
always be an investment in the future of your home business.

If you are not willing to invest in your own business, you have
bigger problems than trying to cut expenses. 

Ken Leonard Jr. publishes New Marketer Ezine,
the Home Business Coaching newsletter.
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