While it is true, many consumers spend less on services such as contractors and repair services due to saving for the holidays and holiday shopping in general, many consumers still contract services. November and December are the slowest months in Real Estate, however, consumers still list homes and buy homes in these slower months. What causes your peers and colleagues to capture these sales and revenue while you do not?Marketing Firm Melbourne FL

During slower time periods it can be common for some business owners to take spiral of death approach to managing the business. When sales are slower, maybe you pull back your advertising spend, if you have marketing budget at all. This is the time where you should double down on your efforts. Ensure you have the most refined business plan developed and in place, which in large part includes a well-executed marketing program. The service providers that realize success in the 4th Quarter of the year or the realtors that capitalize on the buyers and sellers in this market are those successful businesses that execute their business plans effectively, focus on their efforts and market in this season. The businesses that do not change their behaviors to meet the changing climate or seasonality of their businesses are those that fail during these times. Don’t take my word for it. Gary Keller, the famous founder of Keller Williams Real Estate Group discusses this problem at length in his New York Times Best Seller “Shift” where he calls out why 98% of the real estate community left the industry after failing miserably during the 2008 recession and why just 2% of the top performing realtors realized tremendous success during those terrible economic times.

Whether you’re a retailer or wholesaler that stands to partake in a significant revenue increase during the 4th Quarter of the year or a service provider that typically sees a tremendous revenue slow down, navigating your 4th Quarter successful requires a strategic marketing program.

People have asked us; Are you too small that we cannot pitch you to our investors? Are you too big for my company that I cannot afford you? How many employees do you have? Do you conduct your own marketing? Do you practice what you preach? Do you rank within organic search for your own keywords? Those questions are really great questions. Allow us to provide a bit of insight and give you a glimpse of who we are.

The AD Leaf ® is intrigued to collaborate in excellence with company’s at all sizes, in multiple business modalities, and industries. Our core focus is to foster positive relationships where our client’s culture centers around executing a business plan which in large part includes a well-strategized marketing plan in order to improve their company.Shareholders, employees, and investors like these sorts of new-fangled ideas, right? We collaborate and work with clients that possess a home based office up to and including one Fortune 50 and two Fortune 100 companies. Our marketing and advertising firm’s capabilities provide a boutique & mid-size agency level size with the flexibility to scale up or down to meet our client’s needs. Per the project, The AD Leaf ® can mold and mesh to the Main Street marketing firm size without the exorbitant cost structures often associated with these relationships.

Our capabilities allow us to develop strategies born out of the idea of ensuring our client’s success is at the center of our professional work product. We are not the agency that attempts to fit a square peg into a round hole. Please do not assume or ask if we are an SEO company because you may slightly insult us. We understand that digital marketing is not the best fit for every company, and conversely that when you tell us your only marketing program has been word of mouth that you absolutely need tremendous amounts of marketing help. We develop strategies and marketing programs that are tailored to your company’s needs, business trends, industry standards, and best practices. What success looks like to you, is what success looks like to us.

Our team is comprised of degreed, innovative, well refined, and exciting professionals from diverse realms within the marketing vertical. Our leadership team has supported the growth and successful operations, and development of several Fortune 50 and 100 companies in the fields of senior level operations leadership and marketing. We also love coffee, environmental causes, human rights, and we are die hard gator fans. Once, we worked with a Noles fan and student on our team but we sent her back to college!

E: info@theadleaf.com | P: 321.255.0900 | Skype: Chris.Delarue

Summer time brings lots of fun at the beach, pool parties, barbeques, and fun gatherings.  It also can be a time for sales slowdowns for many businesses.  Depending on your business model, industry, product and or service, your sales can lower drastically during the summer months.  This drastic reduction in sales can lower profitability, cause you to lay off staff, and be enough of a downturn to instill worry about your business potentially affecting your quality of life.

This thought our idea does not have to be the reality for your business.  While these trends are cyclical in many business models, there are tactics and processes you can employ to mitigate or lessen the effects of the summer sale slow down.

Because most millennials are enjoying summer break, parents are taking vacations while their children are off from school, and many people in general tend to enjoy more time off during the summer months.  This is a great opportunity for your company to redesign and execute a well-developed Social Media Marketing strategy for your company.

With more users (your customers) reviewing social media during the summer months at a more frequent pace, a well-developed Social Media Marketing program will ensure your brand, your products, and your services are or remain at the forefront of your intended audience.  You will have more opportunities to present your business to your customers in the summer months.

Consumers still purchase in the summer months, however, consumers will purchase from those brands that resonate with them and appeal to their needs and desires.  If you are nowhere to be found, if you are not interacting with your potential customers, and if you are not at the forefront of their attention when they are using the public and digital mediums, your sales will drop alongside of the rest of the businesses who realize a drastic sales slowdown during the summer months.

E: info@theadleaf.com | P: 321.255.0900 | Skype: Chris.Delarue

I Don’t Have the Money to Market my Business

If we had a nickel for every time we have heard the statement “I Don’t have money to market my business”, “It’s not in the budget”, or “We’ve spent so much money in marketing we are not going to do it anymore”, we would be billionaires!

Here’s the skinny. In the 1980’s my grandparents spent $2500.00 per month for a full page phone book advertisement for their business that may or may not have procured customers with their local audience of 25,000 citizens. Why? Because we had to market? Said Grandma. It wasn’t something we could afford to gamble with if we wanted to stay in business. Sure, we had referral customers, but people move away, retire, and their life situations changed.”

In business, like in life, we make time and money for what we ultimately feel is important. If you truly started a business without capital funding to run your business and execute your business plan, then you do not really have a business. What you do have is a whim and a prayer. That is not only dangerous for you, that is dangerous for your customers, employees, vendors, and will open you up to potential legal action should you default with one of many of the folks I just listed. In most situations, when we hear those statements around the availability of money written in the first paragraph, the sad reality is, is that the business owner or decision maker really doesn’t understand executing a business plan and budgeting critical expenses like compliance education, legal counseling, training, and marketing. Understanding the fundamental problem that we really do make time and money for what we “think” is important in business, the expense categories I just listed are treated as a luxury expense. The 2016 business playing field screams to us that these expenses are anything but luxury items.

In September 2013, Forbes Magazine and Bloomberg Weekly reported that 8 out of 10 business fail within the first 18 months. In addition, another sad reality is, is that many of the small business clients that approach our marketing firm to engage in marketing services have waited to the absolute last conceivable minute to do anything about marketing, they(you) are in jeopardy of losing the business and closing the doors. Many believe that $500.00 and one month of marketing is going to somehow function as the magic bullet that saves your business from failure. That is not the case. If you have waited to execute your business plan until you are in trouble, I’m afraid to tell you it may be too late.

Now that we have called out what the typical small business owner trajectory is, here is how you can prevent you and your business from becoming just another statistic and failed concept. First, educate yourself in writing a business plan. Put together funding to run your startup company. You are not the first person that has thought up a great idea, or invented a game-changing widget, or developed the best possible concept. You cannot start a business without funding and a business plan, it will not work. Interview and be sure you have vetted the right vendors to support what your needs are. Understand that you are not the subject matter expert in all areas and don’t treat critical expenses such as legal compliance, Human Resources training, corporate compliance, and Marketing as luxury expenses because they are not. Think about this conceptually like a baseball or football team. There is a reason why the pitcher is not playing all positions on the team. It’s simply because he or she is not great at right field or shortstop. He’s the pitcher! Finally, just like you would expect for the services(or goods) you sell, hire and pay your business contacts an appropriate and fair market value fee for their services. If you think you can get away with going the cheap route for any needed expense, you are going to make a devastating and costly mistake in 2016. Your competitors are educated, they possess business the professional business acumen that you don’t have, and they have been seated at the table long before you came around. If you think that you can take short cuts and create a pathway to business success you are going to become another Forbes and Bloomberg statistic in 2016.

E: info@theadleaf.com | P: 321.255.0900 | Skype: Chris.Delarue

In 2015 social media marketing and social commerce drove 30% of all website traffic to websites-did you know that? With Millennials (Customers born around 2000), social media is their number one used search method to find goods and services. Gen X(1960-1980) and Gen Y(1980-2000) use social media as their 2nd preferred search option for goods and services behind Google, which is number one. Everyone says social media is the next big thing but I haven’t had a single sale from Social Media!

There are many reasons that you might not have success with Social Media Marketing. I, would not allow a Dr’s receptionist to operate on a broken bone should that emergency arise. I cannot figure out for the life of me why so many of you think you are the best person to manage marketing and social media for your business? As the florist, plumber, electrician, counselor, dentist or doctor wouldn’t your time be better spent utilizing your skills as the subject matter expert in your field?

In order to realize success with social media marketing, you must first understand social media(based on your age demographics really define that knowledge level), the concepts surrounding success with each social media channel and the how best those principles will support your company. You must ensure that you have picked the right social media channels for your business, and you must communicate with your customers or potential customers in a way that supports them, not necessarily yourself if you’re not even your own target customer. Additionally, understand what realistic expectations should be surrounding social media success. If you’re constantly plugging your product or service three times per day, seven days per week, you’re drowning your audience, turning people off, and irritating people. Did you know that social media serves as a branding tool for your business first? Did you know that social media also serves as a customer facing or customer service segment of your business? Be meaningful and purposeful with your social media strategy and posting. Are you consistently branding your social media messages? We have seen many small business owners using the same social media accounts for business and their personal lives. That decision is disastrous for the business for many reasons.

Give us a call and we would be delighted to audit your social media marketing performance as well as develop a comprehensive pathway to success in your branding and long term marketing performance.

E: info@theadleaf.com | P: 321.255.0900 | Skype: Chris.Delarue

The typical progression with marketing and the life of a small business owner takes a few twists and turns. Typically, a North American based small business owner will start their business without the appropriate level of business acumen to effectively start and run a business. Forbes Magazine and Bloomberg reported that 8 out of 10 small business owners will fail in business within 18 months. (Published September 2013)

Due to this lack of knowledge, many small business owners in order to save costs (in their minds) will attempt to conduct and manage the marketing themselves. In most instances, this action quite honestly has lasting negative sales impact, profitability impact, customer service impact, and overall business branding impact. In some cases, that negative impact is difficult to realize (at least in the beginning) short term. Once you have realized that the marketing side of the business is taking significant amount of time away from you actually doing what you love(the very thing you decided to do when you opened your business), you realize that you need to hire some type of marketing support.

The next step in business owner life progression brings many of you to a crossroads. Should I hire an in house marketing person( I have read the Craigslist Ads that you have written looking for a marketing coordinator, customer service representative, sales person, personal assistant, and support person *all in one* for the bargain price of $10.00 per hour  ), or should I entertain those “spam” emails and phone calls I receive about marketing?

Once you have realized at this point in your business life progression either: Hire the $1600.00 minimum, per month cost to employ a $10.00 per hour Jack or Jane of all trades to manage Marketing, or hire one of the agencies that have been emailing you (multiple times per day) and calling you regularly. No matter which direction you have chosen, what you should establish are reasonable expectations with respects to how you manage those relationships and how much you should be involved.

Keep in mind that a marketing staffer “might be” but the marketing agency “will be” the subject matter experts in marketing and advertising. You as the business owner are the subject matter expert around your business model or widget(s) that you create and sell. If you truly wish to realize sales and profitability success with the marketing you are paying for, you must be involved in the process. It is critical that you help your employee or agency create content, images, videos, sound bites, and specials or promotions. You must provide feedback and approvals. If you are paying an employee or paying for a service why would you not show direct involvement in something you are paying for? How much time do you need to be involved? That is a great question. The answer is really contingent upon how “bad” your marketing, sales, and profitability performance historically has been. If your sales are down or flat, if your profitability is down or flat, or if your marketing program is dismal-you should plan to invest the time necessary to ensure that your employee or agency is steered in the right direction in support of success for your business. If you hire an employee or an agency and then drop off your mess in their laps, your ultimate success could be improved but most likely would only show limited improvement.

You must be collaborative: If you approach your employee or agency with a jaded eye and an “ah ha I gotcha” mentality, your employee and agency are not going to be able to function in a creative, forward looking, and proactive manner in support of your marketing success. If you spend all of your interaction time looking for items that the employee didn’t complete or the agency didn’t complete instead of looking for creative ways to execute each segment of your campaigns, you are wasting valuable time and resources. It is human nature for “people” to work hard in support of doing a great job. Work to solve the root cause of problems and then focus on moving forward. If your employee or agency missed the mark with marketing did you fail to send in content? Did you fail to create content? Did you fail to direct them with specials, promotions, giveaways? Did you take weeks to provide feedback or an approval on a priority they were waiting for? Did you NOT take the work they sent you over for approval seriously? Did you not even review it? At the end of the day, as a business owner, the only person you are accountable to is the person you see in the mirror. Be sure to be purposeful, honest, and involved with what you are paying for in business. The CEO’s of major U.S. Fortune 50 organizations do not run their day to day operations on vacation 365 days per year, why do you think that you do not have to be: Supportive, hands on, helpful, proactive, and respectful with vendor and employee relationships, while still expecting great success?

How Much Money Should My Business Spend On Marketing & Advertising-How Much Should I Budget For Marketing

If you’re a small or medium-sized business owner, you’ve probably wondered:

“How much should I actually spend on marketing and advertising?”

It’s a smart and necessary question. Spend too little, and you risk fading into the background. Spend too much without a strategy, and you might drain precious resources. Getting the right balance is vital. And when that answer exists, you won’t guess—you’ll know.

At The AD Leaf, we take the mystery out of marketing budgets. Our team will help you determine precisely where and how to invest your marketing dollars for the biggest return. From crafting a clear strategy to executing campaigns that convert, we’re your partner in smarter, more profitable growth.

Create a marketing plan that works as hard as you do with The AD Leaf!

A Misplaced Marketing Budget Can Stagnate Growth

Many business owners face these common challenges:

• Unclear budgeting benchmarks – Without data-driven guidance, you may underinvest or overspend on initiatives that don’t move the needle.
• Fragmented strategy – Random posts, uncoordinated ads, or scattered SEO efforts often deliver a lackluster ROI.
• Scope creep without accountability – Spending across multiple channels without tracking performance means you can’t tie dollars to results.

Essentially, a poorly allocated marketing budget is like trying to row a boat with a broken oar. You put in effort, but can’t steer toward growth.

Smart Marketing Investment = Predictable Business Growth

With a clear, strategic marketing plan, you’ll gain:

• Consistent and sustainable lead generation – A steady stream of prospects without the feast-or-famine cycle.
• Better efficiency with ad spend – Every dollar works harder: Google Ads, Facebook Ads, SEO, and more are aligned to your goals.
• Scalable marketing engine – Know what works, refine it, and confidently scale as your revenue grows.

Most small to mid-sized businesses find success when they dedicate roughly 7–12% of annual revenue to marketing, coupled with strategic planning tailored to their industry and audience.

Partner with The AD Leaf for a Data‑Driven Marketing Plan

At The AD Leaf, we help business owners stop guessing and start growing. Here’s how our full suite of services supports your investment:

Audit & Strategic Planning

We begin by analyzing your current marketing—what’s working, what’s not—and recommend industry-appropriate benchmarks. Through deep discovery, we craft a customized marketing roadmap aligned with your unique goals.

Digital Marketing Execution

Our executed services include:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to lift your site in search results using researched keywords and an ongoing content strategy.
• Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns via Google Ads and Bing Ads to target high-intent leads. Efficient bidding and continuous optimization ensure strong ROI.
• Social Media Advertising & Management, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. We combine creative content with audience targeting to build brand visibility and engagement.
• Email & SMS Marketing, including AI-driven automation to deliver timely, personalized messages that boost open rates and engagement.
• Content Marketing & Brand Development, from blog writing and campaign copy to strategic storytelling—everything crafted to engage and convert.

Traditional & Experiential Media

We also offer time-tested traditional channels when they fit your audience:

• Direct Mail, Radio, Television, Public Relations, and Media Buying—all deployed strategically in a multi-channel campaign that delivers broader reach when needed.

Creative Services & Web Development

• Website design and development, including e-commerce shops (Shopify, Zen Cart) and custom React, PHP, Angular, or Node applications. We also provide React JavaScript, site hosting, and general networking support.
• Graphic design, branding, corporate literature, and video production, including scriptwriting and corporate video packages tailored to your message.

Reputation & Geo‑Targeted Campaigns

• Reputation management for review monitoring and improvement.
• Geofencing & marketplace marketing, local-targeted campaigns that connect directly with customers in your area.

Why Choose The AD Leaf?

With over a decade of proven experience, The AD Leaf brings the power of Fortune 500-level marketing expertise to businesses of all sizes. Since 2012, our team, boasting over 100 years of combined leadership, has helped companies transform their marketing into measurable growth. Headquartered in Central Florida, we combine national reach with local care, serving more than 200 active clients across the U.S., from ambitious small businesses to enterprise brands like AMC Theatres, Polaroid, and BK Technologies.

When you partner with us, you gain complete visibility into your investment. Our transparent monthly reporting and ongoing optimization ensure every dollar is working to grow your business.

Putting It All Together: Budget + Results with The AD Leaf

• Set your budget within the typical 7–12% revenue range.
• Engage with The AD Leaf for a full audit and custom marketing strategy.
• We recommend a balanced mix: Digital channels like SEO, PPC, email, and social + traditional channels only when needed.
• Track performance continuously: We analyze ROI, adjust campaigns, and report real results.

Ready to Make Your Marketing Budget Work Harder?

If you’re tired of marketing dollars disappearing with no clear impact, fix the problem once and for all.

Let The AD Leaf be your strategic partner. With our full-service expertise, from SEO and PPC to social media, content, web development, and traditional media, you’ll get a cohesive, high-performing marketing plan tailored to your goals and budget.

Secure your complimentary marketing audit and custom strategy from The AD Leaf. Spend smarter, grow stronger.

If you make it a habit to “solve the wrong problem” in business and cut expenses within the wrong line items of your businesses P & L you could very well negatively affect your top line revenue, customer experience, profitability and you could start the downward spiral of death for your business.   Lastly you might be saying to me “We’ll I don’t have the money that McDonald’s, Starbucks, Walmart, and Walgreen’s does” you’re probably right.  The key differences though between them and YOU is, is that when they were a small business like you are today, they executed their business plan correctly.  They budgeted marketing at 4-6% when times were good and when times were lean.  In large part, those decisions when they were small, allowed those companies to be who they are today.  Please send us a message if you’d like to discuss this topic: E: info@theadleaf.com | P: 321.255.0900