Your customer has the problem. Why are you talking about yourself?

OCALA, FL (352today.com) – A storm rolls through overnight. The next morning, you notice a water spot on the ceiling that wasn’t there yesterday.

So, you grab your phone and search for a roofer.

One company tells you it’s been family-owned for 30 years. Another tells you what to do if you suspect storm damage and how to get someone out to take a look.

Which one are you calling?

Thirty years in business absolutely matters. So do reviews, experience and reputation. But none of those things address the first question on your mind when you’re staring at a new stain on the ceiling:

Can you help me with this?

Businesses often build advertising around what they want people to know about them. Customers enter the same advertising with an entirely different perspective. They have somewhere to go, something to fix, something to buy or a problem to solve.

Good advertising meets them there.

That doesn’t mean every message needs to create urgency. It means the message should make sense for the moment.

Someone who just discovered a leak is thinking differently from someone considering a roof replacement next year. Someone looking for a restaurant at 6 p.m. tonight isn’t making the same decision as someone choosing a venue for an event six months from now.

The business hasn’t changed. The person and the decision have.

That’s why advertising strategy can’t begin and end with, “What do we want people to know about us?”

Ask yourself what happened before they saw your ad. What might they be looking for? What matters at this point in their decision? What would give them a reason to take the next step?

Then make sure you’re there when that next step happens.

Because even the perfect message can’t work if you’re absent from the decision. People can only consider the businesses they remember, encounter or find. Being visible before the need can help build familiarity. Being present when someone starts looking gives your business an opportunity to turn that attention into a search, click, call or visit.

You can’t be chosen if you don’t present yourself as a solution to the problem.

Advertising can’t make the final choice for someone. Your service, reputation, pricing, availability and what happens after that first contact still matter.

Advertising has a different job: Get your business into the running and give someone a relevant reason to take the next step.

So, the next time you’re deciding what your advertising should say, don’t start with your business. Start with the person you’re asking to choose it.

Not sure your advertising is doing that? North Central Florida Media can help you look at where your business is showing up, what you’re saying when it does and whether your strategy is built to generate more searches, clicks, calls and visits.

Let’s take a look at your strategy.

North Central Florida Media Group – Click, Visit, Call, and Search Advertising Company