Many business owners will tell you that they experience a lot of sales fluctuation throughout the year.

Some months will have higher profits than others, and there will be an increase in demand for a particular type of product or service from one month to the next.

This business phenomenon holds true for a businesses source of customers as well. Some months, a business may receive a surge in word of mouth referrals, whereas other months you may receive orders from people who came across an ad that the business had placed.

For this reason it is important for a business to diversify its marketing and prospecting methods. This will ensure that leads are coming in from many different sources and that if one source is having a particularly slow month, the other sources should still be delivering plenty of leads.

On the other hand, you need to caution against having a marketing message sprung out over too many places, as it can be difficult to keep track of ads and know which ads are hitting the right target market.

Testing ads and keeping track of the results can help you decide which areas are the best places to advertise, and knowing this information can also help you stretch your advertising budget.

The marketing mix that works for one business might require running ads both online and offline, while another business may find that participating for a few hours each week in social networking is what works best for them.

It may be somewhat tedious, but testing ads and tracking the results is the best way to find the right marketing mix for your business. Over time, it will become clear which methods work best for your advertising needs.