When you go out for a meal, do you or do you not sit and stare at the menu for a while before choosing? What makes that final decision for you on what to order? We usually look at the price of it, we tend to have our meal budget in our mind. No one wants to pay £30 for a salad! We look at what might be filling and stave off hunger for a bit longer, particularly if we know it has to last us a while. We look at nutritional value (if we‘re being good!) – what vitamins is it going to give us, how is it going to help our body? Ultimately we‘re looking for taste; something yummy, delicious and meets our own personal taste buds, we‘re all different after all.
Once we‘ve eaten that meal, we sit there and reflect upon it, have conversations with friends/family about how it was. We often give feedback to the waiter/waitress about it, good and bad. We hope to leave the restaurant feeling happy and satisfied. We have made our choice, we‘ve paid our money and we‘ve enjoyed the reward. We do all of this without even thinking about it but when it comes to “advertising”, it‘s depicted into our brains as a crazy minefield, complex and long winded. What if we stopped and looked at it like a menu choice in a restaurant?
All the fundamentals are the same……..
1) Budget; what‘s your budget? Per month? Per year? Where are you placing your budget to work for you?
2) Filling; you want value for money, you want something that is going to do the job and provide you with what you‘re looking for long term.
3) Nutritional value; what are you trying to achieve from it? What are the vitamins and minerals you need for your business, what are you aiming to gain from it?
4) Taste; is it going to satisfy you? Your expectations will tell you how you think it will work, but will it work that way? Is it going to be like this? Will it achieve what I want it to?
5) Reflection & feedback; were you correct in your expectations? Did it do what you wanted it to do? If not, why? Were your expectations unrealistic, could you have done more to make it work better? Could it have ever worked at all for you? What do you need to do next time?
Before advertising with anyone or anywhere, sit down and read your business menu. Ask the questions, check it‘s what you want to order before you spend your money.
After all, no one wants to leave the dinner table feeling disappointed with their meal.