According to Yankelovich, a market research firm, the average city-dwelling American sees up to 5,000 advertisements a day. Over the last 30 years, advertising has grown from billboards and commercials, to include any surface that advertisers think consumers will look at. Even online consumers are constantly be being bombarded with advertising that is meant to target them based on demographics, search terms and their browsing habits. 

With the abundance of advertising, consumers are overloaded with these messages and in defense have begun ignoring traditional advertising. TV commercials and print ads are less effective, less that 15% of the population remembers seeing an ad much less the brand one week after seeing it. In addition, previously successful online advertising campaigns are becoming less successful as internet users become more savvy. Many internet users can tell the difference between advertising and organic links online. Because of spam and identity theft fears, users are now more likely to not fill out forms with information like email address and phone number. 

As traditional advertising becomes less effective people are turning to their friends for product and service recommendations. The internet, through Social Media, has connected people in a way that allows individual to get nearly instantaneous feedback. If a person asks on Facebook, “Hey, anyone know a good A/C guy? It’s getting hot in here!” A recommendation from a friend would have far more impact than an ad on the side of the screen. The voices with the most authority are those that have a strong relationship with the consumer. The best way for companies to connect with consumers is to earn these recommendations. 

The Direct Selling Industry understands this relationship of trust between the consumers and respected friends and how this relationship can gain happy, satisfied and enduring customers. Now that so much of our communication has gone online business people need to apply the same principles of relationship building that is successful for direct sellers and lessen the amount of traditional advertising they do. In order to build strong and positive relationships with customers, word of mouth is the best advertising. 

By: Alyssa Chowdhury