It’s easy to blame anything but yourself when things go wrong. The ‘recession’ is a good example. While some businesses falter, others excel. With marketing, it’s the media: Couldn’t possibly be that my idea is actually shit, could it?

I’m looking at local press advertising at the moment. While part of me thinks it may not work, and I am going in with a healthy dose of scepticism, a quick look at the adverts in the paper shows me that 90% of them are actually very, very forgettable with no call-to-actions. No wonder they don’t work.

I heard a similar story last night about a free local marketing scheme in Basingstoke - Perk – from someone who had tried it for their business but “it’s rubbish” because it doesn’t work for them. A quick look at their offer and surprise, surprise, it’s lame.

Another local shop keeper (of a great shop) bemoaned his lack of custom to me the other day, as he stood their waiting for people to walk through his door.

Business has changed, especially retail, and the need to find new ways to engage with customers is required. Unless you can afford prime shop rent, or huge advertising budgets, you can’t rely on foot fall alone.

The challenge for many small businesses is the actual idea behind the engagement. It’s not that hard to get right, but it may need flexibility of thought – something different that suits your business rather than trying to emulate large successful brands which have huge marketing budgets.

Nowhere is the this lack of imagination more apparent than on Facebook Pages. Plenty popping up, but very few are being very ‘social’ with the media. Hundreds of “Fans” perhaps but not much engagement and how many paying customers I wonder?

Of course, none of these platforms work if the idea is lame. In a world of marketing and message bombardment, bland branding does not work. And that’s not the fault of the changing face of the media, it’s down to the lack of evolving marketing ideas from the marketers.