What did you spend on marketing last month?

If you could spend half the money on twice the results would you do it? If you’re in the business of growing your business, then the answer is yes.

Then why are small and midsize businesses still spending $2k-$20k or more a month on billboards, TV and local radio when people’s attention isn’t there? Seriously, what’s the last TV commercial you remember, did you buy something because of it? How about the last radio commercial you remember? Billboard?

Unless it was your ad, my guess is you either don’t remember one, or you’re like me and millions of other Americans: you haven’t seen or heard a commercial in the last 2 years because you don’t watch live TV or listen to live radio unless it’s a sporting event.

Flat out, if you are trying to sell to 13-45 year olds on these platforms in the tradional why, they simply aren’t there.

I don’t need data to show you that. You already know that. If you’re being real with yourself, you know that.

Do you know the one place that people are paying attention? Their phones. Young, old, suburban, inner city, women and my 71 year old dad are all spending their down time on their phones. In between commercials they are on their phones. In the car, their phones are connected to Bluetooth and they are listening to podcasts or streaming music.

I’m not saying that traditional media doesn’t work at all. I’m just saying it’s like paying $100,000 for a Honda Fit instead of paying $30,000 for a Ferrari.

Seriously, in 2017 that’s what it’s like.

I’m not kidding! At Good Monster we regularly run ad campaigns on Facebook that literally get lawyers cases, drive retail sales for landscaping companies, help trucking companies get employees. How do we know? Because we can track the data. It’s black and white right there on the paper.

Do you know why they came to us in the first place? Because I asked them how much they were spending on marketing and how much ROI they were generating. Guess what their answer was?

Think about it.

What is someone going to do with a billboard as they are driving by? They certainly aren’t going to “Turn at the next exit”. We all have shit to do.

Nobody watches TV anymore. We’re all watching Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Video. If we are watching live TV– unless it’s the Super Bowl– we are on our phones during commercials.

You might be able to give me an argument with radio, that people are listing only to the radio while driving with no other audio distractions (unless you have kids). The problem is that many of us are not listening to local radio, we are listening to podcasts, Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora or Sirius. If you’re hell bent on radio I would encourage you to look there versus local radio, but even a spot on Pandora is expensive, and nobody who is listening will care. They just get pissed off when their music is interrupted by an ad.

So if you read this far, then you probably aren’t in the TV, radio or billboard ad space. By now you would have probably gone back to Linkedin or wherever you found this to start cursing me out. Or if you are, you know I’m right and you might be here because you are looking to switch industries, in which case you should probably go here. If you are in charge of marketing and care about your organization’s cash, then I implore you to go to the place that has the most attention and the lowest cost: Facebook.