Corresponding to intent as well as stage of business are multiple levels of advertising promotion. Helping small businesses tailor their promotions and ads to the proper purpose thus making more money is trying to understand these levels. Let’s look a little closer.

Stage 1. All about awareness There are times when a little child would cry out ‘mom look at me’ just to get a little attention. The fact that there may be thousands of people out there who need what they offer but don’t know they exist is one of the biggest threats to small businesses.

It is possible for this stage to work on the “if you build it they will come” principle. If you do not have much competition, then that is a good thing or if you are an established brand opening a new location.

This is the most basic form of advertising and it has its uses. The bad news is that most small businesses don’t really move past this level.

Second stage. Gain Market Share A very important stage of promotion in advertising is this stage. What happens in this particular stage is that you would put your unique selling proposition out there so that people will choose you over a competitor. Make sure that you are compelling in a way that your competitors are not.

Most advertising doesn’t go this far, even from a lot of the big guys. Compelling action from the customer is your job here.

Third stage. Increasing Consumption Gaining new customers is very important, but what are you doing to bring your old customers back? Any ideas on the kind of advertising or promotional tactics that will help increase the frequency and the size of your average purchase?

It is not a waste of money when you advertise to your current customers. There is also the chance that your ROI is likely to be far higher than advertising to get new customers.

Try thinking about ways in which you can get customers to come back more frequently and spend more with you when they do. If you get these two components down, then you can realize an exponential growth in sales.

Stage 4. Capitalize on Opportunity Using opportunities to increase sales is what you would do at this stage. Any ideas what these opportunities are? How about holiday sales, long weekends, current events?

You need to be careful when using very bad news for promotion. When you are seen as too mercenary, then it can come back to haunt you.

When you do offer deals to offset rising gas prices or beat the heat of summer deals, then it can be great when promoting all kinds of things.

Mastering these basics will give you a head start for a more profitable future even though you can boil these four stages down into finer points of distinction.

Searching for press releases examples that sends your press release to the right people, at the right price?