If you are a wedding vendor, or any other business for that matter, you know that the economy is in a rocky state. Everywhere you turn, you see and hear, the economy is getting worse and worse and you see it as well… Or do you really? Or is it just that since everyone is saying it, you start to believe it yourself?

When all these news reports started, you probably thought to yourself, “oh my God, the economy is getting worse and worse, I need to pull back my money and start saving more of it.” Or something along those lines. I know I did.

You probably got emails stating, now is not the time to stop advertising… and you probably received those emails from the people you advertise with. So that really has no real value in your decision, after all, they are pretty much telling you not to stop giving them your money… And they know that the first thing people will pull back on is their advertising budget.

So what are you to do? Believe the people telling you not to stop advertising or believe your own gut feeling?

That’s a hard decision to make, and I personally, can’t tell you what to do. However, I can tell you what I see and hope you can make your decision accordingly.

Now for most of you who follow these post on a regular basis know that I am a Wedding DJ and that I have my own DJ Website at www.fhpentertainment.com. Most of my marketing is done through bloggin’ and a couple of other methods.

Bloggin’ of course had the highest ROI since all I invest is… time. The main reason I started this blog, to try to get wedding vendors to understand that bloggin is the Single Best Method to get their website found listed and found by Google.com. After all, what you invest is time, not money. Quite the opposite, if you wish, you may chose to make some extra money as a result of your hard work and dedication that you invest into your blog.

In 2008, the blog at my DJ website brought in over $1,000.00 usd! Now that may not sound like a lot, but consider that every year this figure goes up and that is extra money that could be used to… well, invest in advertising!

Remember, my website draws over 100 visitors, A DAY! right now, well this year it has erupted to over 150 visitors a day! The fact is that this economy scare has driven people to use the web more for research.

Does that necesarily mean that they are going to spend less? Well, you know that the answer to that question is.. it depends… on the same exact things that it depended last year… How well prepared you are as a vendor, how good of a salesman you are… etc. In fact, I am seeing brides spend More money on my services than they did last year…

So again the question is, do you listen to the adverting agencies or do you listen to your gut feeling?

Here is one fact that I can give you about what the industry is actually doing.

As I mentioned above, I make money by having a website, how do I make money? Well through ads. If you go to my Wedding Blog, located at http://www.fhpentertainment.com/blog/ you can see a few Google Ads at the top and at the bottom. Those are business advertising through the Google Network and since Google tries to match your website with their advertisers, you get ads from, omniballrooms.com, photographyshoppe.net, WeddingWire.com, etc…

So those are businesses advertising through the Google Network. So why does that matter? Well this year the amount I make per month is higher by 50% of what it was last year.  What that means in plain English is that more people are advertising this year and they are spending A LOT more than they were last year.

Last year in the month of March, my website made $25 just through the Google Ads Network, this year, in March (as I type this post, it is March 18th, 2009) I have already accumulated $42.53 through the Google Ad Network.

I also use another ad network called Text Link Ads,  http://www.text-link-ads.com/, They are not as big as Google, but I still make about $6-$7 a month per advertiser and this month I picked up an extra one, giving me a total of 5 Advertisers… These advertisers can bee seen at the bottom of my main website… Elegante Entertainment. Last The income was $33.45, so this month it will go up by either 6 or $7 more.. Giving my website a total of approximately $90 for the month… Not bad for not doing anything at all but be recognized by Google as an important website in the Houston Wedding Industry.

So businesses, are indeed spending a lot more in advertising than before, at least from what I can tell.

If you feel the need to advertise, you should give Bloggin a try. It only takes about an hour a day and you have so many benefits, if done correctly, that you will be ahead of the game… well let me take it back, you will be caught up with the game. Blogs have been out for a while and just like when when websites first came out, blogs are now a standard for any busienss.

Wal-Mart has a Blog, CNN Has blogs, The Houston Chronicle has many blogs, even Google the biggest player in the internet has a Blog.

Why don’t you, and if you do, why aren’t you getting the most money for your blog? In a time where the economy is struggling, why don’t you do both… Advertise (free through Google) and keep more of  your money?

–
|o| Simply Frank |o|
Bloggin Wedding DJ