How to Reach Prospects with Advertising Media & Become A Marketing Success Story

Advertising is one of the most misunderstood and expensive parts of the marketing process. Time again I speak to business owners who:

• Have no idea if their marketing actually works
• Use one media to reach their target audience
• Manually handle nurturing their prospects

Does this sound like you? I'm not saying you're doing everything wrong. I just think you can head in a better direction if you know what good advertising is and how to leverage the right media strategies.

So, I’m going to break down common misconceptions about advertising media, and share powerful tips on how you can get the most from your spend.

What is advertising?

Advertising is simply paying for attention. It’s the shortcut to getting in front of your ideal customer, fast. But here’s the catch: if your message sucks, all you’re doing is burning money.

Great advertising isn’t just about throwing cash at Facebook, Google, or billboards. It’s about crafting a message that grabs the right people, makes them feel something, and gets them to take action. Do it right, and it’s an investment that prints money. Do it wrong, and you might as well set your wallet on fire.

Are advertising and marketing the same thing?

Nope! Advertising and marketing are not the same thing. 

• Marketing is the big picture. It’s everything you do to attract, convert, and keep customers.
• Advertising is just one piece of your marketing puzzle.

Think of marketing as a chess game where you’re strategically positioning your brand, crafting your message, and building relationships. Advertising, on the other hand, is like putting a loudspeaker on one of your best moves to get attention fast. You can have marketing without advertising, but you can’t have effective advertising without a solid marketing strategy behind it.

What Makes Advertising Effective?

I don't know about you, but most businesses want to get as much exposure from the media as possible. It feels good to be seen on billboards, TV commercials, in publications, online, whatever.

Dmitry Dragilev likens this to lights over Broadway. But the thing is, your target audience is at home watching Netflix. So wasting your money on media which your prospect never consumes is bad for business and your bank account.

It feels good to be able to say, “I’ve been featured in Forbes or The New York Times.” But that’s just feeding your ego.

You really want to be making money in the shadows, and you do this through targeted advertising. This has worked for me.

I'm pretty sure 99.99% of people on Earth have no idea who Allan Dib is, and that's fine with me. I don't mind it, as long as the remaining 0.01% are my target audience—who know me, connect with me, and do business with me.

So what makes advertising effective?

It's not about getting your name out to a wider audience. It's about connecting to the right audience and getting them to opt for your product or service. This means having a very clear picture of whom you audience is and what makes them tick. This blog shows you how to infiltrate your market.

4 Tips for Reaching Prospects with Advertising Media

1. Track your numbers. Everything that gets measured in marketing, gets managed.

From a marketing perspective, you should adapt the "money at a discount" mindset.

Let's think about it this way...

You're actually buying customers. And you should buy them at a lower cost, so once they buy from you, you can earn a profit.

How much would you pay for a $10,000 or $100,000 prospect?

It’s hard to come up with a figure until you start tracking your metrics.

No matter what advertising media you use, here are the key metrics that you should track:

• Leads: How many leads do you have?
• Conversion Rate: Based on the number of leads you have, how many decided to buy from you?
• Cost of Customer Acquisition: How much did you spend for acquiring a customer or client? Average
• Transaction Value (front-end): This is calculated by dividing the total value of all sales by the total number of sales.
• Lifetime Value (back-end): This is the average amount of money your customers will spend on your business over the entire span of your relationship.

The first two key metrics are easy to understand. But do you know what front-end and back-end mean?

• Front-end: This could be a customer's first purchase from your ad.
• Back-end: This is the amount of money you gain from subsequent purchases. You either have a subscription or an ongoing type of service.

The goal is to make money on both the front- and back-end. It’s not unusual to lose money on the front-end, and earn from the back-end, but ideally you want a return on investment upfront.

Over time, your numbers will fluctuate. They’ll go up or down. A slight increase in each number makes a huge difference to your performance. That's why it’s crucial you know your numbers. Don't rely on estimates because they're purely guesswork.

As long as you track your key metrics regularly, you'll know how much you're gaining and losing. And most importantly, this will help you figure out the  platforms that work best for your business right media platforms that work best for your business.

2. Don't be single-source dependent. You need several types of media to build brand awareness and reach more people.

So, being single-source dependent is a very dangerous approach in marketing.

Don't be that person who's getting all their leads from one place, whether it be Google, Facebook, or Amazon. All you need is for one person to complain and you can lose your Facebook account over night. Every one of your followers—gone. You’ll have no way of contacting them.

While a single platform can be very good for you, it’s still important to diversify your media.

I personally recommend you use at least five different media platforms to build connections, advertise in, get leads from, and gain revenue from. For example, media pitching is a great way to gain free press for your business and generate leads.

For marketing newbies, you want to have a mix of digital media and offline media. They’re really not that complicated. Here, I’ll unpack them for you...

Digital Media

You can build your opt-in list and grow your customer base through digital media. The main reason why my website exists is to have people opt-in to my mailing list. It's one of my key digital assets that drives my business growth.

There are a bunch of different places where someone can opt-in, whether it’s on the home page, product page, and even on the blog site.

Aside from your website, you can also use:

• Social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn
• Media sharing platforms: TikTok, YouTube, and Spotify
• Shopping and e-commerce platforms: Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, Etsy
• Public relations: Contributing content to publishers through press releases or pitching.
• Sponsored posts and blog articles

Offline Media

Also known as traditional channels, it’s how businesses advertised in the good old days. And your business can still benefit from:

• Radio
• TV
• Billboards
• Direct mail (snail mail)

Like I said, I don't think that offline media is dead. I personally get hundreds of emails a day, but I might get one or two packages delivered to my home. So if you're sending me a package through physical mail, it's going to get more of my attention because I rarely get one.

Now, if both digital and offline media works, I want you to take a multimedia approach. I'm not saying that you should be on every platform you come across, but choose media where you can connect with people on an ongoing basis.

3. Hire experts, especially when it comes to ads. Don't use a generalist.

Your advertising media is the most expensive part of your marketing. Why? Because it's the bridge between you and your target market.  

A common mistake people make is getting paid for herding cats.

If they want something done right, they're pretty much hands-on to do everything on their own. They pull together all the right tools and resources to make sure everything's working properly.

If you're doing the same thing, think twice. Don't overburden yourself, trying to make everything work. If you're not an expert in a certain area, hire someone else to do the job for you.

Business is a team sport. So if you don't know how Facebook Ads work, hire a Facebook ads expert. If you're new to email marketing and you're struggling to craft the perfect email, bring in an email marketing specialist, and so on.

Like any team sport, you need different skills within the team. So here's what you should do:

• List all the media platforms you'd like to use for your marketing. But first make sure that your target market is active on these platforms.
• Contract specialists to bring your team up to speed.
• Bring your specialists in-house.

4. Use different marketing tools.

There is no all-in-one tool. Well, there are some, but they’re nowhere near as sophisticated as specialist tools.

It might sound funny, but I really wish that there was one tool that would make our lives easier. I've seen some that attempt to do this, but the problem is they tend to be mediocre at everything.

It's similar when hiring a carpenter to build a cupboard or shelving for my room. I expect him to bring a toolbox with different kinds of tools inside. Now, if he comes with an all-in-one tool, I would definitely question whether he's a professional or not.

Same thing applies to the tools you're using for your media strategy. You need a variety of tools for team communication, taking payments, CRM, and so on.

Here are 5 tools I’d recommend:

1. Team Communication

• G-Suite
• Slack
• Zoom

If you’re building a virtual business, these tools are a must. My team uses G-Suite mainly for sending and receiving emails, organizing documents, and so on. We communicate daily through Slack. Whether you're working with a big or small team, it's a good communication platform. You’ll also need a separate tool for team meetings like Zoom.

2. Calendar and Scheduling

• Google Calendar
• Calendly

Google Calendar gives your team an overview of how your schedule looks.

And for Calendly, you can plot dates when you're available and allow people to book themselves. And it works across time zones as well. Say you have a client in a different time zone, it automatically converts the time based on where you live, making scheduling calls super simple—and it’s really saved me and my team so many headaches.

3. CRM Systems

• Ontraport's
• ActiveCampaign
• ConvertKit

Ontraport's my personal favorite. It works best for mailing lists with more than 10,000 subscribers. ActiveCampaign and ConvertKit are also really popular CRM systems. They’re ideal for smaller lists.

If you're looking for a system, think about how it can help you take opt-ins from your website. Look for a CRM that can segment, has automation capabilities, and allows you to free up your time to work on other important matters.

4. Online Training

• Zoom Webinars
• GoToWebinar
• Vimeo

I run a webinar at least once a week, and I currently use Zoom Webinars. It records in HD and has all these fancy features like Q&A and polling.

You can also keep an eye on GoToWebinar and Vimeo. They're both excellent. Online training and webinars are such a powerful medium for converting leads in the middle of the funnel.

5. Payment Channels

• ThriveCart
• SamCart
• Shopify
• Magento
• WooCommerce

I personally use ThriveCart. There are other competing systems like SamCart. If you're an e-commerce business, try Shopify, Magento or WooCommerce.

Whatever system you choose, make sure it integrates with your CRM system. For example, when someone buys from you, you should be able to tag them as a buyer, so you're no longer sending prospect-style emails. There's no point in sending marketing emails if someone has already bought from you.

And of course, you need a simple and clean interface. Some checkout pages just make things complicated. Don't add irrelevant fields, direct someone to create an account, and all of this sort of stuff. Make the payment process smooth and seamless for everyone.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are advertisements?

Advertisements are paid messages designed to grab attention, create interest, and drive action—whether that’s making a purchase, signing up for something, or simply remembering a brand. They can appear on TV, social media, Google search results, billboards, magazines, buses, and even the coffee cup in your hand.

What is print media?

Print media refers to any form of media that is printed on paper and distributed to an audience. It includes newspapers, magazines, brochures, flyers, posters, billboards, direct mail, and more.

Print media advertising is paying for a spot in a publication. It can be a traditional ad or you can purchase an advertorial. An advertorial is a hybrid between an advertisement and an editorial. It’s a long-form ad written in an article-style format to provide value (education, insights, storytelling) while also promoting a brand or product.

Who are some of the best advertisers in the world?

Some of the top advertisers include David Ogilvy, BBDO, Saatchi and Saatchi, TBWA, and Wieden+Kennedy. The brands who always nail their advertising are Coca-Cola, Apple, Amazon, Nike, and Red Bull.

How much of your marketing budget should you invest in advertising?

Most businesses should allocate 5% to 10% of their revenue to marketing, with a good chunk—anywhere from 20% to 50%—going directly into advertising. If you're a new business looking to gain traction fast, lean towards the higher end (even up to 20% of revenue). If you're an established brand with strong organic reach, you can afford to spend less on ads and focus on retention.

Industry matters too. B2B companies tend to be more conservative, spending around 2%-5% of revenue on ads, while B2C brands, especially in retail and e-commerce, often push 5%-15% or more. Tech and SaaS? They’re in a league of their own—spending 20%+ on aggressive growth.

But here’s the kicker: it’s not about how much you spend—it’s about ROI. The best advertising budget is one that delivers more sales than it costs you. If an ad campaign is turning $1 into $5, keep feeding the machine. If it’s burning cash with no return, adjust fast. Marketing isn’t an expense—it’s an investment. Spend wisely. Track religiously. Scale what works.

Building Your Media Strategy

And that's how to reach your ideal prospect and build your brand using advertising. Building your media strategy starts with:

• Knowing your numbers
• Diversifying your media
• Hiring experts
• Using different tools

There are a lot of ways to reach prospects through the media. Don't rely on paying for advertisements in one particular media. It takes time to try new things and see if they work for your marketing, but your numbers will give you the answers. Use it to your advantage and come up with a great strategy that converts prospects to customers.

Media is a vital stage in your marketing plan, so you really want to get it right. To learn more about how to build out your marketing plan, check out this post.