Business Building - Otherwise known as Marketing.

So why didn't I just come out and say "marketing?" Because the term marketing has become so diffuse as to be virtually meaningless. Ask ten people for a definition of "marketing" and you'll get ten widely divergent answers. By comparison, the term "Business Building" is simple, straightforward and - most importantly - universally desired by people in business.

Also, most "marketing" firms are really biased towards a specific medium or marketing tool: direct mail, research, sandwich boards…whatever…because that's how they make their money. It's not unlike getting investment advice from an insurance salesman. Gee, do you think he's going to advise you to buy an insurance policy?

Rustad Marketing is interested in building your business by whatever ethical means we can. After 30+ years working in almost every aspect of marketing, advertising, sales promotion, training and education, etcetera and etcetera, we have no bias for any particular media or marketing tool. All are effective in the right context. The key to building your business is use the marketing tool and/or medium that will capture new customers and remind old ones as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.

Sales Support - Also known as Sales Promotion.

In almost every business, Sales is the tip of the spear. Arguably, Sales is the most important job in commerce because without "sales" there are no transactions. In other words, no business is done.

Given that sales is such a critical function in business you might think that next to hiring the best sales personnel possible, businesses would equip these "front line troops" with the best sales tools they can produce. Unfortunately for all too many businesses sales materials - some call it "collateral" - tell a different story: cheaply produced, out-of-date, home-made. In truth, they're most like "collateral damage."

Ask a typical business owner to describe his or her company and they'll use words like "quality," "superior," "leading edge," "best in the business," and "state of the art." Yet many of these same folks will blanch as spending a small fraction of their profits (let alone net sales) on sales materials that communicate the values they espouse.

If you want sales materials that communicate your value, and values, to the world, we write, design and produce brochures, direct mail, flyers, point-of-sale, trade show traffic-building programs and promotional premiums that will do just that.

Customer Acquisition - Most commonly called Advertising.

Again, before anyone accuses me of bowdlerizing the language, "customer acquisition" is a much better term for what most folks call advertising.

One reason is that when many business people think of advertising they think only of the major media: TV, Radio, Print and Outdoor…and for very good reason. These media have helped build all of the famous brands we all know and use. The very success of the major media also makes them very expensive to effectively use.

While media reps delight in preparing "special packages" tailored to fit any size budget, the truth is that there is a threshold or minimum budget that you have to reach in order for media such as TV, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines, etc. to be effective.

Sure you can run smaller ads, but you'll need to run them with a much greater frequency, which functionally increases their cost. For example, a 1/6 ad run 6 times is as expensive as a full page ad but still lacks the impact (and hence value) of the larger ad.

And one more reason - by definition all mass media are not "targeted," that is to say they're a poor choice if your potential customer is - say - female, aged 13-17, Hispanic and living in the Sun Belt. While the details differ, the same point can be made for TV, Radio and other mass media.

The good news is, customers can be acquired without mass media advertising through a variety of affordable and - most importantly - highly targeted means such as the US Mail, UPS, the Internet, movie ads, and even more creative efforts generally dubbed "guerilla marketing."