Think about the small business owners you know. In their regular business, do they do a lot of searching on google ? Spend much time reading flyers that came

Think about the small business owners you know. In their regular business, do they do a lot of searching on google ? Spend much time reading flyers that came in the mail ? The answer is probably not, and that's why it is hard to advertise to them. They do talk to their friends and employees if they have any. If you do something that saves money at one small business, word of mouth and the migration of small business employees can bring you new business, but on a long time scale. One reason why cold-calling and personal visits can work (presuming your target has money, and you have a useful product etc), is that it costs the advertiser to a substantial amount to go to each potential customer, therefore the advertisers must focus and do some research, and the buyers can believe there is a reason to spend a few minutes hearing the proposal. It's kind of like those proposals to end spam by charging a penny per email. I suspect that most advertising money is simply wasted. That vast sea of billboards, the commercials on TV, ads in magazines, etc, represent nothing more than a massive long term drain on society. It's possible that with new ways of tracking the effectiveness of adveritising, like linking your google adwords to google checkout transactions and "closing the loop", we will reduce spending on advertising overall. That would be a big shift in our economy and society.