Advertising mistakes businesses make

When it comes to advertising, many businesses make the same four mistakes. Small business owners are even more likely to make costly advertising mistakes than large corporations. Most small businesses don't have an advertising department with experts to help them navigate through the ins and outs of advertising. If you don’t have an advertising expert on staff, a small and local advertising agency may be for you.

The 4 most common advertising mistakes:

1. NOT PLACING THE FOCUS WHERE IT NEEDS TO BE! 

Your focus needs to be on your audience, their problems, and how you can help solve their problems. Ask yourself, if you were in their shoes, what would make you feel like you can’t do without your services.

2. HAVING A WEAK MESSAGE!

You need to know your audience and your objective. Make sure that you list your benefits along with your selling proposition. Don’t just let them know you offer a specific service. Tell them why you’re service is superior to the competition.

3. AVOIDING A CALL TO ACTION! 

If you don't give your audience something to do, they will most likely do nothing. It is important to always know what your objective is before placing an advertising campaign. Letting them know to stop by the store, call your phone number or visit your website are the basic call to actions necessary. Which brings us to our next mistake…

4. NOT USING AN EFFECTIVE LANDING PAGE OR WEBSITE! 

You can have a great looking ad and a wonderful product and get lots of click-thru's to your site. But if you do not give your potential customers what they want or need immediately, they will leave your site and move on to a competitor. This is called a “Bounce Rate”. A 100% bounce rate means they are visiting your home or landing page and leaving instead of interacting with your site. Make sure you have a great looking website that tells and sells. Give them a reason to interact while you are showing them exactly what they were looking for. You might even try placing different ads aimed at different pages on your website for different offers or services.


Hiring a professional can help you avoid all of these common mistakes, as well as many others. The Mullikin Agency is a great local expert to partner with to get the best results for your advertising dollars!

Call the Mullikin Advertising Agency Today at 479.750.0871

Randy Mullikin
Founder and President of
The Mullikin Advertising Agency

Engaging the 5 Senses with Advertising

These days, all of us as consumers are over-saturated with advertisements. We as marketers only have a few seconds to grab the attention of our audience and entice them enough to stay interested.

Yet 83% of current advertising only appeals to our eyes.

Typically, advertising messages are only engaging one or two of our senses which can keep us from standing out in the eyes of the consumer.

Promotional products are the ONLY form of advertising that can engage all five senses at once!

Taste, sight, touch, smell, and sound can all be engaged using custom business branded products a consumer can physically grasp and use.


Request a FREE quote for any of our 900,000 promotion item options!

Call the Mullikin Advertising Agency Today at 479.750.0871

Randy Mullikin
Founder and President of
The Mullikin Advertising Agency

The Video Experts

Have you been thinking about making a video for your business but don't know where to start? You need someone that knows what steps to take and what options are available. Well, we are the video experts you have been looking for!

Elevate your business with fully customized video content!

In today’s digital world, videos are a powerful tool for broadcasting your business message to your potential audience. Customized video content is one of the best ways to stand out from your competition and get your message across.

AN EXPLAINER VIDEO could be just what you need!

Explain your services, products, or processes with creative content. We research your business, develop your message, and create custom videos that speak to your targeted audience.

• Persuades people to take action
• It boosts conversions and sales
• It provides great Return on Investment (ROI)
• It builds trust by creating a bond with your clients and potential clients
• Social Media Favors Videos Content 12x more than both text and images combined
• Great for SEO and higher organic rankings on search engines
• Significantly optimizes your website’s click-through rate (CTR)

WHAT MAKES US STAND OUT?

• Fully customized video tailored for your business
• Simple 3-step process (Message, Storytelling, Production)
• 3 rounds of revisions
• Fast turn-around, only 2-3 weeks!
• Authentic, unique artwork & graphics
• Dedicated project manager
• Full ownership of finished product

100% Satisfaction Guarantee

VIEW SAMPLES OF OUR WORK

Request a FREE quote!

Call the Mullikin Advertising Agency Today at 479.750.0871

Randy Mullikin
Founder and President of
The Mullikin Advertising Agency

New Year Business Resolutions

With each new year we all look for ways to improve ourselves. Why not our business? Because of growing competition and the world constantly changing, we have to work harder and find new ways to improve our own businesses. Here are a few resolutions to help grow your business in the new year. If you don’t like the word resolutions, then substitute the word goals:

Create a business plan

Budget your finances for the entire year. Buying equipment and assets are unavoidable in running your business. Prioritize your needs first to take full advantage of your dollars. Be sure to give yourself an advertising budget. Once you know how much money you can spend you can create your marketing plan. Hiring a local advertising agency is key to getting the best return on investment. 

Meet with new prospects regularly

You can’t grow your customer base without meeting new potential clients. This can feel very time consuming, but it is an important step to expanding or even staying afloat. Find a way to network and ask for leads and referrals on a weekly basis. Keeping up with your schedule and having a positive attitude will make this step pay off greatly.

Rid your business of harmful clients

If you’ve been in business for a while, you have had a client that has been a drain on your time and resources. Those customers are usually the same ones who pay late and expect extras or discounts to keep them happy. If you are not seeing any clear profit from a specific client and feel stressed every time they call, it is probably time to part ways.

Be willing to outsource

The larger your business grows, the more help you will need. Focus on what you do best and trust others to be in charge of other tasks. If you can stay on top of what brings money in, you will have the budget to outsource those that can help support your business. Let an expert like the Mullikin Agency assist you with all your advertising, marketing, public relations and promotional items.

Take care of yourself

A business owner is faced with an overwhelming amount of duties. And saving time usually starts with cutting out exercise, family activities, consuming many fast food meals, and cutting your sleep short. These have a direct negative impact to your productivity and mental health.

A productive and positive 2018 is in your grasp! 

Our owner, Randy Mullikin says, “Hiring an advertising expert will not only save you time and money, it will improve your ROI.” 

If you need any assistance with your advertising, marketing, public relations and/or promotional products, the Mullikin Agency is your full service advertising agency here to help!

Are You Being Talked About?

You already know that The Mullikin Agency offers the most advanced, targeted and measureable display and video advertising online, but what if we could be there for you during all your on-line moments? What if we could target your customers, potential customers and competitor’s behaviors, demographics and interests? We can!


Your campaigns can be optimized programmatically and by a certified Digital Analyst every day to ensure the highest level of post-click engagement and maximum ROI using our Core Solutions.



OUR CORE SOLUTIONS:

1. Digital Targeting

We can drive traffic to your website and business by reaching and influencing audiences based on their interests and browsing behavior. Digital Targeting is about reaching customers during the micro-moments that occur during the entire customer journey. Consideration, Research, Purchase and Loyalty

How we will do it:

INTEREST TARGETING
Your ads will appear to those who have shown an interest or desire in your (or your competitors) product or service, based on their browsing history.

CONTEXTUAL TARGETING
Your ads will appear on sites that match your campaign’s target keywords and topics. Your message will reach customers who are actively researching your (and your competitor’s) product online.

LOOK-A-LIKE TARGETING
A profile of your ‘best visitor’ is automatically created and updated daily. Your ad then serves to potential customers who match this profile. Even customers who have never been to your site before.

IN-MARKET TARGETING
Your ads serve to people who are ready to purchase your (or your competitor’s) product within a couple of weeks. Visits to certain sites (i.e. recent visits to a lending website) suggest that a purchase decision is imminent.

RE-TARGETING MARKETING
Your ads follow people online after they visit your website. Re-targeting occurs throughout the entire customer journey.

FACEBOOK TARGETING
More than 1.4 billion use Facebook and more than 900 million visit every day. When you run a Facebook Ad, you choose the audiences that see it by location, age, interests and more. With Facebook Ads, you can choose the type of people you want to reach and we deliver your ads to them. Your ads will be more relevant for the people who see them, and in return bring you results. Facebook advertising is great for giving directions to your store, downloading your app, viewing your videos, adding items to shopping carts and directing consumers to your website.



2. Geo-Fencing

We can help you reach on the go consumers as they enter or leave your single or multi-location ‘geo-fence’.

How we will do it:


• We will create a geo-fence around a physical address. Your message will be served to customers via mobile apps.
• Our proprietary multi-layer geo-fencing program serves ads on both mobile apps and browsers for maximum reach. An ideal solution for small businesses to national chains interested in hyper-local marketing around their locations-or their competitors.



3. IP Address Targeting

We can rooftop target homes or businesses by converting a physical address to an IP address.

How we will do it:

• 
We will use your customer list or create a new custom list based on:

            ➡  Home value, income
            ➡  Gender and age
            ➡  Special interests, etc.

• Ads are served to all devices using the Wi-Fi device in that home or business.

• Our IP converter outputs a file letting us know which physical addresses were successfully converted to IP addresses. So, at the end of a campaign, we can do a direct analysis of new sales resulting from customers who viewed your ads.




4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Paid per Click (PPC)

We use this form of marketing that offers advertisers a strong method of gathering qualified business leads. This form of marketing will reach users when they are searching for your product or service.



How we do it:

• We will advertise within the sponsored listings of a search engine or a partner site.
• We will use our existing relationship with Google, plus our relationships with committed Bing reps to make sure we are using the most up-to-date features the industry has to offer.
• We will use professional SEM Analysts that use the latest technology and are Google Ad Words certified and Bing Ads accredited.
• We will determine your goals and create a plan to accomplish them. Whether the goals are quality traffic, ROI conversion-based goals or other metrics, we will make sure that your specific goals are met.
• We will use our proprietary insights reporting platform to provide detailed performance analytics on a real time basis for you.

            ➡  Google certified agency-best practices
            ➡  Every ad has site link extensions and a call extension
            ➡  Call report is included with each campaign

Search Engines process over 175 billion searches every month. Why not do what 85% of retail businesses are already doing and use the most effective customer acquisition tactic? Search Engine Marketing can help your business. Our company president Randy Mullikin says:

“For most of our clients, SEM campaigns generate the most immediate response as any of the on-line approaches.”

So are you ready to be talked about?

We can help your on-line advertising be the talk of the town! 

The Mullikin Agency is here to help you stand out. 

Call or e-mail Randy today and let’s get started. 

479-750-0871Randy@MullikinAd.com

What has your attention??

How many times have you been watching your favorite show on TV only to come across a commercial that peaks your interest? You then decide to google the product/service to find out more details. According to GfK Mentor Survey 2016 of persons 18 years of age & older, 62% of those new car prospects said yes to having been motivated by an advertisement on television to go to the Internet to find out more information. 66% of those planning to purchase a home/condo said yes to this question, as well as 61% planning to remodel their house & 58% that visited Urgent Care. It would seem you aren’t alone in this!

Whether you realize it or not, that commercial led you further into the Consumer Purchase Decision Funnel Process.

Consumer Purchase Decision Funnel Process

Television is the #1 influencer across all 5 steps of the consumer purchasing decision process. It would be easy to say Social Media would beat television as far as time spent, business details, etc since we are in the age of technology, but as you can see in the graphs, television is #1 in Time Spent across all age groups.

Time Spent on Ad Supported Platforms

(GfK Mentor Survey 2016 M-S 6a-12m. Persons 18+)

 A Week in the Life – US Population

(Neilsen The Total Audience Report Q1 2017 - released July ’17)

 In light of these details, your business should be spending money where consumers spend the most time & are the most influenced. Broadcast TV is the most cost-efficient medium your business can buy. To put this into further perspective, it takes:

• 36¢ to reach one person via Direct Mail
• 35¢ via Yellow Pages
• 10¢ via Newspaper
• 7¢ via Cable
• 3¢ via Radio

With Broadcast TV…it takes a whopping 1¢! Can you believe it?! J In our local area (Ft Smith, Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers areas), local TV stations are preferred with 95 of top 100 shows from May ’17 Neilsen Book being on broadcast. With the Consumer Purchasing Decision Funnel Process steps, here is a picture of  how each step is influenced via different channels of media outlets…of course television being #1. ;)

What Influences Consumers Most

(GfK Purchase Funnel 2017 A18+)

Randy Mullikin, President of The Mullikin Agency, says, “Television is still one of the most powerful advertising mediums because it is the perfect combination of sight, sound, emotion, imagination and creativity. Whether it be a :15, :30, or :60 second commercial, it impacts people like no other medium can do.”

The Mullikin Agency offers nearly 25 years of experience as your television/media ad placement experts. We can help you put a plan together that includes script writing, talent, & creating the perfect original sound track or jingle. We can produce a professional TV spot and negotiate the best price for your commercials on the right stations at the right times. We will save you time and money and generate new customers for your business. Contact us today to help your business in this powerful & results-driven avenue of advertising.

Does your business need a Sales Boost?

If you’re breathing & reading this right now, then you’re more than likely answering that question with, “Of course!”  Your next question is likely, “Then how do we do it?” It’s as simple as two words…a website! Did you know that 46% of businesses do not have a website! That’s almost half the businesses today! In the technological age we’re in, having a website is a necessity.

More times than not, consumers will start their purchasing process for a wanted item(s) via using a search engine like Google. As much as 52% of consumers will get product information directly from a company’s website. How much of that business are you missing with not having a website for them to find your business/products?

David Halpin, President of Halpin Digital, gives four tips for website design & turning visitors into prospects. A couple of his tips are:

• Hire a Developer
• If you don’t know how to build a site or are using a website builder to build the site yourself, chances are the site could be not-so-great. Your website is the face of your business! Hire the Mullikin Agency to give you a leg-up on your competition. We can bring creative ideas & modern technology to the table so to create a top-notch website for your business!
• Get Creative with SEO

• Consumers are more interested in local search engine optimization (SEO) rather than those Google results that show “Ad” by them. At the Mullikin Agency, we can work up a professional comparison so you know where your competition stands as far as SEO.

Online presence can be a daunting task for some, but when you partner with us at the Mullikin Agency that task scales back down to a size you can handle. Our team of professionals is here to help your business grow! Creating a website that is mobile-responsive, modern, & creative is one area of our expertise! We look forward to working with you. Once we create or re-design your website, promoting it would be the next step & we can also help you with that.