🎯 One of the easiest ways to stop wasting money on ads is to fix your targeting.
Most business owners choose a radius around their business: 5 miles, 10 miles, 15 miles. But here’s the problem:
Remember geometry class in high school? The area of a circle is PI × r².
So:
5-mile radius = ~78 square miles
15-mile radius = ~706 square miles
That’s 9X the area for the same budget.
So if you’re spending an ad budget of $300 to reach 5 miles and suddenly jump to 15, that same $300 is now diluted across 9 times the geography.
That means no one sees enough of your message for it to matter, and you wonder why no one calls.
Even worse, people farther away are less likely to do business with you. More distance means more friction, less trust, and more options closer to home.
So not only are you spreading your budget thin, you’re doing it to reach people who probably aren’t coming anyway.
Here’s the fix:
Use the 80/20 rule.
Pull your past customer list.
Sort it by ZIP code.
You’ll see that 80% of your business comes from just a few ZIPs.
Target those ZIPs only. That’s your core.
Later, once things are humming, you can test new areas. But don’t mix them with your home turf.
Take care of the ZIP codes that are already taking care of you.
Visit TheCustomerFactory.com/socialpublicity—to learn more about how we help businesses like yours grow without gimmicks or fluff.
