Maximize Your Word Of Mouth

Good Advertising Can Help

There is no doubt that word of mouth is the best form of advertising. Positive word of mouth that is.

What are people are saying about you? Ask around. Ask people that are your customers as well as those that are not. Ask them what they think of when they hear the name of your business. Good or bad, it is what people are saying about you.

What would you like them to say? f you don't have a clear picture of what you want your message to be, you are going to have a very tough time making sure others are saying!

What are you doing to control it? Good advertising is multiplied word of mouth. Make sure that your advertising message accurately depicts your vision of your business!

Not a lot of answers. Just Questions to ask. Email me if you have some for me!

Point Your Marketing Conversations

In The Direction Of The Business

I was flattered to be invited to be a panelist at a Retail Recovery Marketing Summit for small business this week. I was invited as a radio and marketing expert. Also on the panel were a billboard salesman, cable sales manager, retail manager at Cracker Barrel and a newspaper publisher.

The format was for us to introduce ourselves and what we do. Following that were questions from a moderator and the audience for about 90 minutes. The introductions were very telling. This room was full of businesses that needed help with their marketing. Most of the introductions were features and benefits of the individual media and why businesses should buy them.

This is the problem with advertising. The sales reps want to talk about what they have and not what the businesses need! I handed out my piece on "The Road To The Customer" and have gotten unbelievable feedback from the session because I barely mentioned the radio stations. I talked only about what the businesses cared about, THEMSELVES and how to market better. If YOU do that, the revenue will come.

So, if you are a business or sales rep for advertising, make sure that your conversations are directed to the business and it's needs, NOT THE FEATURES AND BENEFITS OF THE MEDIA!

Help other people get what they want and you will get what you want.

How Much Is The Economy?

And How Much Is Attitude?

Sure, we all know that the econmy has not been robust lately, but have we conditioned ourselves to believe it is worse than it really is?

Last wee, we hosted a series of marketing seminars with a very attractive offer for customers to buy our radio stations at a nice discount by committing to an annual agreement and certain other terms and conditions. It was called The Advantage Plan. We did it last year with some pretty good success. This year was different. As of this writing, we have closed 30% more in revenue and eighteen new customers. Local small business. The economy was not even brought up by the folks that attended.

Why is that? The advertisers that were attending were looking for better ways to attract customers that they knew were doing business even during a down economy. The businesses that get out and attend these seminars are the ones that learn to fight through the tough times and do what it takes to become successful. No matter what everyone else tells them.

I feel for the businesses that don't attend or try to learn to do things differently, they are stuck in a cycle that will be hard to get out of when the economy rebounds. These other businesses that choose not to hear how bad things are today will reap the benefits ten fold when the economy breaks open again. And it will.