Marketing Is a Road, Advertising Is a Car. A 20 Year Marketer's Guide for Small Business Owners, with Abbey Hoskins
For the kickoff of our new marketing series, Lebanon Now's Ryan Sherrer sits down with Abbey Hoskins to answer the questions every small business owner has actually wanted to ask. Without the jargon, without the LinkedIn lunatic energy, and without selling you a class at the end.
Ryan has spent 20 years in marketing, from MySpace era graphic design to leading creative for an Inc. 5000 agency working with Bass Pro and True Value, before coming home to build Lebanon Now. In this conversation, he and Abbey walk through what actually works for small businesses in 2026.
You will hear:
Why marketing and advertising are not the same thing, and why that mix up burns small business cash faster than anything else.A 5,000 year history of advertising, from Egyptian fliers to Roman product placement to modern Facebook ads.How to identify your audience by elimination, not by guesswork.The 5 to 10 percent rule, what your marketing budget should look like every month.Why 90 days is the real timeline before you should expect to see movement.Ad blindness: the average person sees 8,000 to 10,000 ads a day, and how to cut through.Why AI generated content is starting to hurt brands instead of helping them.The give, give, give, ask rule for social media.Lifetime customer value math that makes a $500 a month ad spend look cheap.
Whether you are running a coffee shop, a boutique, a real estate practice, or thinking about opening your first business, this is the marketing primer we wish every owner heard before they spent their first dollar.
New episodes of the Lebanon Now marketing series drop on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
Lebanon Now is independent local media for Laclede County, Missouri. Learn more at lebanonnow.com.
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