This past weekend I went to the Techno Marketing Conference held by the American Marketing Association. While there, we discussed a lot of the new tools used in marketing as well as the strategies to build them into your business. The companies in attendance ranged from Fortune 500 companies, midsized business, non-profits, and consultants such as myself who were there learning things to help further the companies that they work with.

Here are some startling stats that were given to us in the first 5 minutes of the event:
• 18%- The proportion of TV advertising campaigns generating a positive ROI
• 84%- Proportion of B2B marketing campaigns resulting in fallen sales
• 90%- The proportion of people who can skip TV ads who do skip TV ads
• 56%- Proportion of people who avoid buying products from companies who they think advertise too much

What happened to the way that we market to our customers? The majority of people and businesses feel that they are marketed to too much. For that reason, many of them just choose to avoid marketing altogether by way of skipping commercials or just choose to look the opposite way. What are you putting in to your marketing campaigns? Are you advertising too much? Is your marketing effective, or just there? Are you tracking your marketing and advertising dollars?

If you are not, maybe you should start to ask some of these questions and evaluate your marketing and advertising. In these times, it is good to review all of your expenditures to make sure that you are receiving the return you need. I am not saying to stop advertising, just evaluate it, to see its effectiveness. While reviewing it, make sure that it is targeted towards the correct market and the niches that you are trying to focus on. Those who are succeeding are focusing on small but profitable niches.

It is also a good idea to ask others for help or assistance when you need it. Make sure to keep marketing and putting your business out there so that you can continue to do what you need to do to succeed.

Kyle Hensel is the Area Director of the Clayton State University SBDC in the Georgia SBDC Network. For more information, please go to www.georgiasbdc.org. The Georgia SBDC blog can also be found here. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it