Throughout our years of experience working with hundreds of businesses in a variety of different of industries, we’ve found that some practices or businesses have a harder time attracting new customers or patients than others. As we’re worked with different clients, we’ve seen a trend in some key factors that can hurt advertising results. But unfortunately, these factors are often overlooked. Being aware of these factors can help you better plan for and gauge your marketing success:

1. Competition: While competition can be good in many ways, it can also have a negative effect on your advertising if competition is high for you industry in certain areas or mediums. Even if your ads are professionally crafted with a great message, they may not get as much of a response if your competitor’s ads are run in the same place (newspaper, TV, etc) on the same day.

2. Reputation: Sometimes a great ad can’t always fix a bad reputation. Reputation management and repair isn’t easy to do, but the fact is that until it is repaired, your ads will produce far less results compared to a business with an established and credible reputation. If a negative reputation is detracting from the success of your ads, it’s worthwhile to look into making efforts to repair it over time.

3. Geographic Differences: Cities, counties and states across the country can have widely different population densities and demographics. It’s not surprising to note that business or practices that have a higher density of potential customers or patients within a 60-mile radius of the location generally see better ROI with their advertisements. It’s important that businesses don’t follow a “one size fits all” approach for geographic targeting, as it can vary greatly depending on the population density around your location.

4. Economy: A more unpredictable factor, the state of the economy can have a big impact on the success of your advertising results. Unfortunately, consumer confidence in the economy can shift even on a weekly basis. Consumers are constantly prioritizing their spending habits, wants, and needs, and that can affect how responsive they are to your advertisements. This, of course, varies by industry as well. Businesses—such as medical practices—that offer more of a “need” than a want typically seem to see less of an effect with economic shifts.

5. Seasonality: Each calendar year brings with it a variety of holidays and special events that can also vary with geographic regions. It’s important to be aware of how seasons and holidays affect your advertising so you can get the most return on your marketing dollars. For example, some businesses or industries based on the nature of their product or service should advertise heavily over holidays. Others, however, should go light on marketing efforts over holidays like Christmas and summer vacation because the response is not as successful.

6. Acts of God: While it may seem a little unconventional, extreme weather and natural disasters can have a huge impact on any sort of advertising that runs on the same day. Extreme snowstorms, floods, earthquakes, tornado warnings, or really anything that heavily disrupts the day-to-day flow of your local area can hurt your advertising results. While you can’t necessarily prevent these things from happening, recognizing that they were likely the cause of a somewhat unsuccessful ad will make your future marketing efforts a lot better off.

Running a business or practice of your own can be difficult as you’re expected to wear several different hats to get the job done—this includes marketing and advertising. It’s something that our clients who are business owners keep a very close eye on because it’s expensive, and as such, they have a lot riding on that investment every month. Poor marketing decisions—particularly ignoring these six factors above—can result in wasted money that could eventually cost you your business.

Epic Marketing works with businesses and practices across the country to help them see a greater return on their marketing and advertising dollars. If your marketing could use some improvement, contact us today to speak with one of our experienced account executives and find out how we can take your business to the next level.