alt Hacker NewsThe secret that most people in business don’t want to admit is that the vast majority of internet/media advertising is not worth the cost.
They are throwing many different strategies out there through many different avenues and banking one the one that just happens to pull in a new chunk of buyers. It’s like lower-stakes gambling.
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What do you even consider advertising?
If I make let's say a children's toy, how am I supposed to let people know that this new type of toy even exists? That WHOLE process is advertising, no? Whether I give these toys away for free at a Santa Clause parade, pay department stores to put my toy in prominent shelves, or buy space on Cartoon Network.
How do you get even a single buyer without advertising?
This isn't true in the general sense, for new products with no distribution or customer awareness it's very important to advertise how else will anyone know about it.
Absolutely untrue by any metrics or semblance of study. People overestimate how unsusceptible they are to marketing. Marketing doesn't only work if you see an ad and click on it. It's after seeing hundreds of ads, that you start internally building a perception of a brand as whatever they market as (expensive, value oriented, fun, serious, luxurious, splurge material, etc.) Then the next time, maybe months after you've seen any such ad, you need to buy an expensive, splurge type gift for someone. If you remember the brand then, the marketing has worked.
That kind of stuff is absolutely worth the cost of ad spend online
It's partly true, but only if no-one advertises. If I don't advertise but a competitor does, then I start to lose market share. So although the cost may not justify itself independently, in the face of my competitors' marketing budget, it does.