Businesses around the world invest, or to be more precise, they spend, untold numbers of dollars to advertise, market and promote their products and services to make sales and gain new clients. In an economic downturn these expenditures may be reduced due to cost constraints and consumer reluctance to buy.
As an example it costs around $1,000usd for a small classified advertisement in the weekend editions of major USA newspapers, $2-3,000usd for a similar placement in monthly travel magazines. Radio spots, from ‘cheap and nasty’ during the hours when nobody is really awake to prime time messages to thousands, the majority of whom may not be interested and many of the rest may just go to a competitor. In effect, business advertisers may often pay for ‘lack of performance’. Either the advertising copy was ineffective or the reach of the medium and quality of the audience was ineffective.
In other fields of endeavour we work, perform, produce and then get paid. Why not in advertising?
It may be the time to rethink the effectiveness of our advertising spend and to rethink who we spend it with, what we spend it on, when we should spend it, where we should spend it, why we are spending it, how we should spend it? Or even, ‘if’ we should spend it.
In other words, how can we get more value from our advertising spend? Is there a better way?
The internet affords us all exceptional opportunities to showcase our wares but the same problem arises: how do small businesses let the world know about their own websites when contending with the major players who are always able to buy more ‘googling’ stuff than they can?
As well as being approached by media reps from app store ads local to national newspapers and magazines, small businesses now get inundated with internet offers such as: ‘top 10 search engine rankings for your website; 50,000 hits guaranteed; increased visits assured with our email programs to our double opt-in email clients.’ And so on and so forth. The emails arrive daily to inboxes everywhere.
Businesses do not want looky-loos clogging up their websites. They want committed buyers to review and compare their products to others. They do not want to give their hard-earned money to advertisers who simply want to sell advertising space. They want advertising partners.
Businesses should be given the opportunity to work with a ‘pay for performance’ option for their own advertising spend. In other words, “work with me, perform with me, produce with me, get results with me and then bill me.” The P4P partnership could generate more advertising revenue than the old system of “just pay, shut up, wait and be thankful for what you get.” Let’s consider a P4P arrangement where a percentage of sales is given to advertisers who produce sales. Many businesses might welcome such an opportunity to partner with forward-thinking advertisers. Just consider how much more advertising copy could be placed.
An example:
A business that operates websites that offer travel in over 70 countries and with products available to travellers in all countries. This company needs to advertise in every country, in all traditional media and in all e-commerce media such as e-newsletters, ezines and websites plus tv, radio and of course the electronic social media. To do this would take an enormous budget, which is not available, but to do this on a P4P arrangement could lead to sales growth that could never be realized with the traditional methods. There could be many similar businesses around the world that could also grow more quickly. Advertisers who are willing to accept a radical change in their business practices by operating a P4P option could also benefit from the business growth of the thousands of global businesses that would embrace this innovative new concept. Sharing the risk of both success and failure. End of example.
The way we now advertise, market and promote business must change. Advertisers should consider P4P and share the risk and the greater rewards for performance. The advertising industry could experience more business, more profits and lead global economic recovery.