I recently met with the owner of a $10+ million software business who doesn’t advertise.
Unbelievable.
His company only recently hired its first salesman.
I naively took the meeting because I thought the owner had become convinced his company needed to have a more effective presence on Google.
Particularly after his stats revealed 80% of his search engine referrals were for his company’s name with the balance of his traffic coming in under nonsensical terms.
Nope.
While he thought having his message more widely distributed on Google was important, he didn’t think his business was adversely affected by his not extending and expanding his company and brand’s message further via search.
Yet all the while this particular software company owner’s business doesn’t have a majority market share in his industry.
By definition any business with a minority market share means its brand’s message and distribution isn’t strong enough to attract and capture all the new buyers into a market.
So while this software company may enjoy a solid reputation, reputation alone obviously are not strong enough to win the business of new buyers who entered the market who hadn’t heard about his company or its message and who instead fell into the arms of his competition – those with the remaining majority percentage of market share.
This market share analogy alone ought to be enough to convince even the least sophisticated business owner – who has a desire to maintain and even grow their business – about the need for advertising.
Not this guy though.
Maybe one day he will come to understand that no one brand voice drowns out all others in a competitive market.
Until then, this particular software company owner’s business may continue to enjoy its present minority market share but until he advertises – he will continue to lose new business to his competition.
Search Marketing Communications 