advertising

You have to do it. Advertise, that is. Even though it may seem sometimes like you are throwing money down a great big bottomless hole, if you want people to know about your store you still gotta do it. We spent enough money on advertising last year on our stores and website to buy a really nice car and I still have folks come in to the store and say 'oh, I am so glad there is finally a bead store in Raleigh.'

So here is our Ornamentea.com ad for Bust for December...nice, eh? Well, it is supposed to be less blue, but otherwise that is what the ad looks like. I like advertising in Bust, mostly because I like reading it and so it makes me happy to see my ad there, kind of a vanity ad I guess. But we also get folks that want to order stuff from that ad and they seem to spend larger amounts and buy my favorite weird stuff not just jump rings. Not that there is anything wrong with jump rings but they don't exactly get me up in the morning, if you know what I mean.
I just wish I knew what advertising to do, when and how often. The ad reps all want to tell me that secret, but somehow it usually involves spending more money with them. It really is a crap shoot, you just rolls and see what you get. Them's the breaks, kid.