A lot of first time business owners think that if they drop a wad of money on a single ad (that means ONE ad run ONCE) that they have just done a great thing for their business. Whether it is $400 for a radio ad or $23,000 for a newspaper ad, they are going to send the check, wait for the ad to run and then think that people will be knocking down their doors.

I’m here to tell you that it does not work that way.

That is because of the concept known as a buying or “awareness” cycles. This is the cycle that people move through when deciding to make a purchase. In the buying cycle potential customers first become aware of your business and services (through, for example advertising), to becoming interested in your product, to thinking they might like to buy your product, to deciding they want to buy your product, to FINALLY buying your product.

Sometimes this cycle can take a few short moments (impulse buys). Sometimes this cycle can take months (buying a new car). And sometimes this cycle can take years (buying a new home or RV). It is not only a function of the product, but also the personality type of your clients and those can vary widely.

But once you understand this cycle you understand why the “one shot” ad idea doesn’t work. When you run that one ad you are going to get only those people who have decided they are going to buy what you are offering but are uncertain as to from whom. And if your competition is advertising on a regular basis they are going to be much more familiar with your competition than you, trust them more, and be much more willing to spend money with them. This is known as top of mind awareness. If your competition has it and you do not the best you are going to get is some of the low hanging fruit.

Everyone else you reach with that “one shot” ad is somewhere else in the awareness cycle and that means that if it takes any amount of time for them to progress to the point of actually buying then your message will be completely lost. Even worse is that if your competition is advertising to the same audience all you have done is given free “awareness” of the products and services you sell to what will become their future customers. It is basically like advertising for your competition. You might as well just flush the money down the toilet.

So before you spend money on an advertising campaign you first need to know how long it takes for people to make a decision. The bigger ticket items take longer to buy such as boats, cars and homes. Low priced items are generally more likely to be impulse buys like the gum & magazines at the checkout. See, there is a method to the madness of why there are racks and racks of candy bars as you are paying for your groceries!

But most of us sell things that fall somewhere in between. So when you advertise, to avoid losing sales to your competition make sure you cover the entire buying cycle for your product.

And the best part? If you have picked your target audience correctly what you will find most likely is that you have after a while a constant stream of new potential customers will be entering the cycle which means you continue advertising and continue to grow your business.

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J.J. Jackson is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. and Cafepress “Top Shopkeeper”. He has been selling t-shirts on-line since 2004 and is the owner of the T-Shirt Entrepreneur, a site dedicated to helping people get involved in the T-shirt Economy. He is also the owner of Funny When Wet T-shirts, American Infidel Tshirts as well as many other online t-shirt and gift stores.