why give anybody your money

I wouldn't give the racist hotdog guy outside my window money and think he's going to talk to his customers about our newspaper and bring us advertisers so why do so many companies trust just anybody with their brand, message, cause, or product?

It's irresponsible.

Here's why: If you give somebody money you, 99.9% of the time, you expect something back (and rightly so.)

You want:

• Gratitude
• reputation
• awareness
• support
• opinion
• agreement
• customers
• distributors
• sales
• something...

If you give somebody money, here's what I recommend. Think of it like we're drinking red wine and we're in a seedy bar in South Jersey. No real deals of consequence ever get made there but everybody thinks so... so do this. Please. For me.

If you give somebody money:
Know them
Trust them
and know how to find them.

They should be somebody whom you trust will do their best to provide you a return on your investment and be willing to stand by and be there if there are any problems or to provide any support you might need.

Too many people throw money to advertisers without asking who the advertising medium's audience is. Ask us who we reach if we don't tell you and know this - if we don't offer it up excitably at first, you might want to really check and make sure you know who we reach and you might not even want to take our word for it.

Ask other people who have advertised with the company how their experience was. Did they get good advice, would they run there again, how was the customer service, was the price set (can it negotiate?)

And finally, know that the company has either been around for a long time or has some strong footing. Too many fly-by-night decisions get made in advertising. In traditional media it happens with some "community" paper that is up and running for a few months or a group of investors who love a common subject (Orlando just released "Pure Cash" that is all about - from the cover - gold chains and big bottomed beauties and it is as thin as a menu.)

Not too say if that's your niche market you shouldn't consider it. Your advertising doesn't have to reach everybody; it has to reach the most people that you believe are your target market.

Just don't waste your money. Pure Cash homie.