Where do you find you invest the most in advertising?

[Bronze_Palms]

We spend about 3% of our revenue in advertising. What would you say is your percentage in business? Should mine be higher?

I'd also love to know where you spend your advertising dollars. I spend on Instagram and Yelp and a little Facebook, but outside of that nothing. I am testing radio ads and ads with schools this month. Curious to hear where you put your money.

Thanks in advance!

[DinaLRosenberg]

We spend very little on advertising... VERRYYY little. Every once in a while we'll take an ad out in a journal for a local high school event (school plays, etc).

The most money we spend on marketing is on postcards that we include with our orders.

We also have cards for different items- like how to burn sage, or how to work a pendulum, etc.

[CareyJo]

I'm with Dina... @DinaLRosenberg, we spend VERRRRY little as well.  I would be highly cautious of doing the radio thing, but that's just me.  Radio is great when you're new but not for ROI, unless you have a huge budget to waste.  You get your name out there and become familiar in the minds of people.  We spent over 20k per year on radio AND NEVER GOT A SINGLE DIME in ROI.  I had people repeatedly tell me that they heard our commercials but they weren't calling and I know that because I ask every new caller, to this day, how they heard of us.

We're also not only in a niche market but we're in a rural state and community too.  You have store fronts.  We don't.  You have people going in and out all day long and two locations.  We don't.  So we can't really compare to what you do but I would still really recommend looking at the radio very closely and see how it is translating to dollars.

I don't pay for anything on FB.  I only use it to interact with people and give them interesting content because we get more callers from FB than any other format.  We pay monthly for teeny ads in our two local papers and we get a fair amount of calls from those as well.  We don't/can't use IG because the content doesn't lend to our line of work and TikTok is banned in MT and I don't like it anyway.

[DinaLRosenberg]

Also... not to be a Debbie Downer, but who listens to radio anymore? For our market  it's older people that aren't exactly our demo. Most of our target market listens to Spotify or satellite radio so terrestrial radio is a non starter.. 

[CareyJo]

Yes!  We still have a lot of local stations and stores play them because they're free instead of streaming a service.  So a lot of places around town still hear advertisements and not everyone can afford a streaming service for their cars, most of the folks I know don't pay for one and still listen to some local.  So it hasn't died off yet but streaming is definitely the preferred source here.

[Lovewell · Accepted solution]

So we have yet to spend in the four years of being in business (some of you have been in business way longer) over maybe $200 total on marketing? 

We see so many results from our organic usage of instagram that other than our occasional insanity is free. We've participated in school fundraisers and got our name on a rival football game t-shirt (How cool is that?!) haha and tried a coupon book situation for a year. 

We spent more money than the amount of business we got from it. Our BEST marketing tool has been making sure our instagram is fun and an accurate depiction of our values and shop because it is always weird going to a place you saw on instagram thinking it was going to be one thing and it was not at all what you expected! Secondly- being consistent in the quality of beverages (we try but sometimes slip up) and our extreme high priority of above and beyond hospitality. 

That translates to the real people coming in and choosing to spend their hard earned dollars at our shop. That encourages people to post on their instagram stories and then they tag us! Which creates this ripple effect of "my friend posted this" etc. 

Maybe this is idealistic but at the end of the day marketing will only get you so far and cost you money. It is a great tool but we're not sure that it has to be something you dump a ton of money into. Your staff is your marketing, you are your marketing, and your happy customers are your marketing. That is the truest display of who you are and WILL get peoples' attention whether good or bad. 

You rock. 

ps- checked out your website! It is gorgeous. 

[CareyJo]

We have a local drink shop that specializes in different daily drinks.  They post a special on FB/IG every morning and if you share it, you get $1 off your drink that day.  They have gotten TONS of business from that!  Sounds like you guys are doing phenom with your socials! 👏👏👏

[Lovewell]

um LOVE THIS?! We are introducing drinks of the week to bridge the gap between summer and fall and this is such a great idea. 

Can you send over their IG or name? 

[CareyJo]

I don't use IG but you can look them up on FB under Evolve Nutrition in Helena, MT!

[Bronze_Palms]

Genius idea!! People are so creative!!