Pothole - Media Mix

Concentrate and Dominate

One of the most bone rattling pot holes on the road to the customers occurs when a strong strategy is developed and the advertiser is afraid of not reaching everyone with his/her message and puts a little money in a lot of places.

In reality, in most cases, one chosen media used correctly will have MORE than enough potential consumers to make an advertising campaign successful beyond your wildest dreams.

The largest companies in the world can afford a media mix. McDonalds, Verizon, Coca Cola or Budweiser. Most local direct advertisers need to account for every penny and insure the best possible return on investment.

Choose the medium that best fits your need and dominate it. Get a MINIUMUM average frequency of three times every week on the audience. Then commit LONG TERM. If you are looking for faster results, get a higher frequency, but do not expand the reach yet.

For example, if a small a.m. radio station reaches 10,000 people, how many of those listeners do you need to persuade to do business with you over the next year to grow your revenue 10%. The better news is that those 10,000 people know other people.....and they talk! (multiplied word of mouth)

It's not how many people that you reach, but what are you saying to them!

Detour - Reacting To Your Competition

A quick way to get lost.

Once you set on your road with a solid strategy, it is normal to question and second guess yourself. Especially when your competition reacts to you. Even if they are not reacting to you, they are doing their best to grow their market share.

It is very important that you do not react to your competition. The strategy that you set will work. (I am assuming it was a valid one) If it was good when you started, it is still good. If you change direction every time things change a little around you, you will never have your own identity. Your strategy will never have time to work.

Most of the time, your competition will not have the stamina to keep up a long term fight against you. Sometimes you need to weather the storm and stay on your road.

Don't misunderstand, it is important to know what the competition does. Ask a few questions. Why are they doing it? Is that what I want to be known for anyway?

Do the competition have the knowledge that I do to make it work? Just because they do it, does not make it a good strategy. Most of the time, a reactive strategy is very weak and short lived. STAY ON YOUR ROAD. Don't take the detour!

Poetry On The Road

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back,

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

It is extremely difficult to follow the road that is less travelled. Even though it is generally more rewarding. Below are three characteristics that you need to traverse this sometines scary road.

Courage : It is difficult to take the first step and to press on in uncharted territory. Dig deep, knowing you are doing the right thing, albeit not the easiest.

“Courage is being scared to death …..and saddling up anyway. John Wayne

Discipline : There are things all along your road that can cause you to take a detour or get off of the path that you know is right. Anything worth while takes discipline.

“The best discipline, maybe the only discipline that really works is self-discipline” Walter Kiechel III in Fortune Magazine

Perseverance : Push through every road block, pot hole and speed trap in your way, knowing that your goal awaits when you get over the next hill.

“Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. Newt Gingrich

Are you willing to take the road not taken?

Be A Leader

Anyone Can Do It

I read a great article by Roy H. Williams this week in his Monday Morning Memo. (If you do not subscribe, please do at http://www.mondaymorningmemo.com/ it's free and will be worth the read every week). The subject this week was Leaders vs. Managers. Being good at one does not make you good at the other. Read the memo.

It has inspired me to discuss the role of leaders and how anyone in an organization can be a leader. It can be at work, in the community with your friends or among family. A leader by definition is a person who influences a group of people towards the achievement of a goal.

Leaders do things and people choose to follow or make changes toward the goal based on the actions of the leader. I have been amazed at how many people have told me over the past several months that I have inspired them to get fit after they saw the results that I have gotten. I didn't even mean to effect anyone else, it just happened.

The great leaders in history were the ones out front putting themselves at risk. From the Monday Morning Memo this week:

Alexander the Great was always the first over the wall of an enemy city. Whether his men followed him was up to them. Alexander was a true leader. “I’m going in, boys!”

Geronimo, the famous Apache leader, was not a tribal chief but a spiritual advisor, a historian of the people and a protector of their beliefs. He said, "I have something I need to do." And when the other Apaches saw what he was doing, they decided to help him.

It doesn't need to be quite as dramatic as Alexander the Great or Geronimo, but what area of your life or career can you be a leader. What can you do to influence others to do it better? Is it physical fitness, better spending habits, quit smoking, making more follow up phone calls, hand writing notes to customers? Up to you.

One word of caution. Leaders are not always POSITIVE influences. Sometimes, a leader can take people in the opposite direction. The negative direction. This happens in any situation that has a void of positive leadership. In the definition, I say that a leader influences towards a goal. That goal is not always a good thing.

What can you do today on your first step towards being a positive leader in your life and or career? Drop me an email at rcovert@gpmnow.com and let me know!

Pothole - Be Realistic

Ads Need To Sound Real To Persuade.

When you write ads for radio or television (including cable), or even the on hold messaging, make sure that the ads are written like you would speak. Very seldom do we actually speak the way we write and that makes our ads seem phony. Don't worry if grammar check doesn't agree with your written phrasing. Write it the way you speak. If someone writes it for you, edit it and add your style to it before you record.

Stay away from recorded conversation ads. Use notes and rehearse. Just talk and then have it edited. We have all heard the ads that sound read and poorly acted. Have you seen the ads with women discussing their feminine hygiene products and thought, "No one would talk about that."? If it is not realistic, consumers see right through it. Consumers do not like ads that sound like ads. Don't insult their intelligence. http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=58zhTjGBhW8

Please be believable. Check out the link to this TV ad. (it is a TV ad about feminine products, so if that would offend you, please don't watch.) Would the conversation happen like this?