Movin' On

Many of you.....well, some of you, actually one of you asked about my blog.

I realize I haven't been posting much lately. 

But I have been working. I have been putting together a new website / blog on wordpress. Check it out at www.strategicallysound.com, like it on facebook and save it to your favorites in your browser. You will be glad that you did!

I am also working on my Road To The Customer Marketing Videos. There is a page on the new site that is still under development. 

The new site has a long way to go, but I am going to go ahead and start blogging there now, so come see me. (I also imported all of the old posts to the new site!)

See ya' down the road!

I Hate To Copy And Paste.....

But, this is one that needs to be read by everyone!

I got this in the Monday Morning Memo by Roy H. Williams this morning. I have referenced the memo before and anyone that reads my writing knows that I consider Roy to be the best in the business when it comes to small business advertising and marketing. I strongly advise EVERYONE to subscribe at www.mondaymorningmemo.com

How Soon Will My Ads Start Working?

These are the 5 questions you must answer before you can know how soon your ads will start working:

Q. 1: What percentage of the noise made in your category – in all the different media combined - is being made by you? This is your Share of Voice.


Q. 2: What percentage of the population will actively be in the market for your product or service this week? This is your Product Purchase Cycle.

Food has a very short Product Purchase Cycle. The shorter the Product Purchase Cycle, the quicker your ad campaign will reach maximum ROI.

Cars have a medium-length Product Purchase Cycle. The average American trades cars every 180 weeks (42 months.) Consequently, 0.55 percent of us will buy or lease a car this week. (Does this mean that anyone who advertises cars is wasting 99.45 percent of his investment?)

That’s right; 180 weeks (42 months) is a medium-length product purchase cycle. What do you suppose is the Product Purchase Cycle for HVAC system replacement? Engagement rings? Furniture? Products with longer purchase cycles require more time for their ad campaigns to ramp up to their full potential.  These campaigns usually show poor results during the first 90 to 150 days then begin to deliver increasingly good results until the growth curve begins to flatten out about halfway through the Purchase Cycle. If the purchase cycle is 10 years, the campaign will start slow, then generate increasingly good results until it levels off in about 5 years. You will then have to continue advertising just to maintain the market share you’ve achieved. If relevant new information is not injected into the campaign at this time, the advertiser will become frustrated and disgruntled and begin to say things like, “Our ads aren’t as good as they used to be,” or “I don’t think we’re reaching the right people.”

Q. 3: How many people will ever be in the market for this product or service?  What percentage of the public will ever consider this product to be relevant? A high percentage of the public will someday need a refrigerator, furniture, HVAC system replacement and an engagement ring. The best strategy for advertisers such as these is for them to use relevance and repetition to become the provider the customer thinks of first and feels the best about.

But what about fine formal china, such as Royal Doulton at $100 per place setting and the solid silver tableware that accompanies it? What percentage of today’s public will ever be in the market for these?

Q. 4:  What degree of credible urgency does your ad contain? Is there any reason for the customer to take action now? You can shorten a Product Purchase Cycle by making a strong offer that is time-limited or quantity-limited. If you create a once-in-a-lifetime offer for a product with a long purchase cycle, you’ll likely move a number of people into the market who would otherwise have purchased at a later date. If your offer is powerful and credible, you’ll see great success. But don’t take a good thing too far; the more often you do this, the less well it will work. Sadly, the success of this “urgency” technique makes it highly addictive. Almost without exception, the advertiser who makes a once-in-a-lifetime offer will choose to make a similar, once-in-a-lifetime offer within a year. Soon his "sale" ads lose all credibility and his customers will begin to ask, “When does this go on sale?” God help us. We pushed a good thing too far and we’ve trained the customer NOT to buy unless we’re promoting a massive discount.

Marketing is tricky. It almost makes you want to hit yourself in the head with a hammer sometimes, doesn’t it?

Q. 5: What is your Competitive Environment? In other words, how well are your competitors known? How good are they at what you do? Your ads are not the only ads your customer will see and hear.  Is a competitor making a more powerful offer than you? 

Share of Voice can be purchased. 
Share of Mind must be earned.

Share of Voice is the percentage of noise in the marketplace that is yours. Share of Mind is the mental real estate you have purchased in consciousness of your customer.

Share of Voice times Relevance equals Share of Mind.

Frequent repetition of your ads will earn you a higher Share of Voice. But a big Share of Voice times zero Relevance equals zero Share of Mind and zero results.

Most advertisers talk in their ads about what the customer should care about, what they ought to care about, instead of what they actually care about.

If you remember nothing else from today’s memo, remember these two things and you’ll do well:

1. Clarity is more important than creativity.

2. Relevance is more important than repetition.

      NOTE:  I did NOT say that creativity and repetition don't count.
 

Sell on.

Roy H. Williams

The Lost Art Of Listening

I mean REALLY listening.

I see it every day.

In all types of transactions.

The potential buyer talks and the seller nods his/her head.

Nodding and biding time until they can offer to sell the potential buyer what they have already decided they need. Regardless of what the potential buyer just said.

Do I need to use the square peg, round hole reference here? Nah, you get it.

No matter what business you are in, your close ratio will go up dramatically if you listen intently to what the customer really wants and show them how you have the perfect product to help them attain it.

Your customers don't always know what they need to buy. What they do know is what they hope to accomplish by making a purchase. All that you have to do is tie the two together in a neat little bundle and .......VIOLA!

Sale made. Customer happy. Seller happy.

More money in the bank.

Sounds simple.

But it only works if you REALLY listen and then EXECUTE!

We All Have A Goal

Even if you don't realize it.

Make sure that everything that you do each day is helping you or your organization get there.

We are all in some form of sales. So, we should all have some sort of measurable goal. If you are not in direct sales. If you don't have a specific goal for you, I am sure that your organization does. That is also yours.

If you don't know the goal that you are responsible for helping with, find out.

Go ahead and do it. Right Now.......I'll wait.............

Welcome back. I hope you have it now.

Post it where you can see it. Everyday.

Now, what can you do TODAY to get closer to that goal?

What things do you do that get in the way? How can you eliminate them?

This next step applies if you are the owner, manager or part time employee. Ask yourself as you go thorough the day if what you are doing RIGHT NOW is the most productive that you can be towards the goal that you are responsible for.

If the answer is NO, then what has to happen to get back on track?

BTW, I like to think that the time you spend reading this counts as getting you towards goals :)

BTW2, Special thanks to Great Plains Media Colleague Hugh McPherson, GM in Cookeville, TN for helping remind me of the power of goal focus.

The Shopping Experience

Are you delivering what your customers expect?

Businesses spend endless dollars on advertising to attract customers.

Not enough time and effort are spent on delivering the best customer experience.

During a meeting today with the owner of several "Five Guys Burgers And Fries" restaurants, he shared with me a program that all Five Guys locations participate in. Each store is "secret shopped" twice a week. Once during the day and once in the evening. Each store is scored on the total customer experience. From greeting to food delivery time, cleanliness, quality of the product and more. Three pages of criteria. 100 points are available. The top store in each region gets a significant bonus if they win the week. It's shared exclusively between the crew members that worked during the evaluation.

A significant portion of the franchise's advertising and marketing budget is earmarked for this program. This makes perfect sense because all of the advertising in the world is useless if you do not deliver a wonderful customer experience. 

From how the phone gets answered to the follow up after the sale, how are your potential customers being treated? Are you missing opportunities to sell more to your customers that come in? 

Have your business evaluated objectively.

Make any needed changes.

Watch your advertising suddenly work better and your profits improve. 

Two Ways To Grow Your Revenue

That's it, just two.

They are consistent no matter your business type as long as you have a product or service for sale.

1. Develop new customers
2. Sell more to your existing customers.

I am not trying to oversimplify, just show how easy it is to set a revenue growth plan.

To develop new customers, you can advertise. Just make sure that you have a solid plan and remain consistent with your message and medium. To help with budgeting, determine a goal for new customers and quantiify what a new customer is worth over the next ten years.
Where will your new customers come from?
Will they change from their current provider for you? Why?
Ask for referrals from existing customers.

To sell more to existing customers (which is the easiest way to grow), ask for add on sales or services to grow your average ticket.
Educate customers on other products and services that you offer for later.
Have a plan to make sure you stay in touch with that customer during the product life cycle.
Offer a bounce back coupon or offer.
Give your happy customers a referral bonus if they bring you new customers.
A solid advertising plan will help to reinforce all of these things and will actually help you sell more to your existing customers.

Feel free to comment and share what you do in YOUR business.

The Mastermind Group

Do you have one? 

I was talking with another member of the Douglas County Connection (DCC) yesterday. DCC is a group of local business owners and managers that get together each week to share ideas. During our conversation, we got into a discussion about the book "Think And Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. I have written about the book previously, but this conversation was drawn to Chapter 10.

Power Of The Mastermind – Lessons From Chapter 10: THE DRIVING FORCE – The ninth step towards riches

Napoleon Hill states:”POWER is essential for success in the accumulation of money. PLANS are inert and useless, without sufficient POWER to translate them into ACTION.”

He goes on:”POWER may be defined as ‘organized and intelligently directed KNOWLEDGE.’”
And:”POWER IS REQUIRED FOR THE ACCUMULATION OF MONEY! POWER IS NECESSARY FOR THE RETENTION OF MONEY AFTER IT HAS BEEN ACCUMULATED!”
This power is created through the coordinated effort of a mastermind group, working toward a definite end, in a spirit of harmony.

An alike designed mastermind group allows its members to tap into the power of Infinite Intelligence.

There is power in associating and sharing with a group of like minded individuals. The DCC group is a perfect example of a Mastermind Group.

Who are you surrounding yourself with? Are they adding to your group? Mastermind groups must have active participants to be effective.

You don't have to have a single group of people and it doesn't have to be a formal organization. It is the people that you trust and surround yourself with.

With a solid Mastermind group, 1 plus 1 equals 3.

If you don't have your own group, get one and see how much more powerful you get!

Make Your Points

One at a time.

I edit ads for customers just about every day. The biggest flaw that I find is that most ads could and SHOULD be broken down into multiple commercials.

When creating an ad or campaign, make sure that each ad has a point. A single point. If you have multiple things to communicate, make them separate ads.

If you have a grocery store that has a pharmacy, florist and a great meat department that you want people to know about, then tell the story of each. Separately. They deserve that attention. Don't try to cram all three into one ad. You can't tell any of the stories effectively.

Look closely at your ads. Do they make one point well? If not, change it and prepare to be amazed at your return on investment. If the ads are persuasive. But that, my friends is for another day.

Are You Insane?

In this context, the definition of insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results.

Even successful organizations must take a step back when things aren't going as good as you would like. The business world is changing more rapidly than ever before. The needs of businesses and their consumers are changing. Are you keeping up?

You need to know what your customers want. It is probably not what you think they want. It is almost never what you want them to want! For that matter, what they need long term is very hard to see in the heat of the moment short term.

Begin with the end in mind and craft a strategy to get from where you are to where you are going. It is not always a straight line there.

No matter where you are today though, question everything and assess if it will move you toward your end goal.

Do something different today and stop the insanity!  

Radio Rising

93.1% of Americans 12+ listen to the radio.*


UP 1.9 million listeners from last year.*


Many thought that radio would never make it past the launch of that new invention. The television. Records, 8 Track tapes, cassettes came next. All had their place. Radio still thrived. Have you listened to an 8 track tape lately? Have you ever even SEEN one?



I remember when CDs were going to make radio obsolete. Does anyone buy CDs now? How about music channels on cable in the early 90s? That would surely be the end of radio. Satellite Radio, Ipods, Internet radio, Pandora. In the face of all of this, radio fell to reaching a mere 92% of 12+ Americans.


Now, it is growing again.


• The largest gains came in the 18-34 adult demo. The total number of 18-34s estimated to listen to radio on a weekly basis is 66.5 million, up 350,000 from a year ago. Percentage-wise, 93.6% of 18-34s listen to radio. The teen reach is also up, gaining about 158,000 to 22.8 million, for a reach of 92%.*


• In terms of basic qualitative, radio attracts nearly 96% of adults 18+ with a college education and a household income of $75,000-plus. It also reaches 96% of adults 25-54 with a household income of $50,000-plus.*

As long as radio continues to deliver local and relevent content to its' market, radio will continue to be an unstoppable force. (Insert Joplin example here)

Radio is the last free provider of local news, sports, weather, information and entertainment.

I haven't even gotten to the part about the ability of radio to drive the local economy by educating consumers on what there options are to spend their dollars on goods and services. But that is for another day.


I would say welcome back radio, but you never left.

*RADAR 109 Survey

Go Ahead And Brag

 Be the expert in what you do AND be known for it.

You have been in  your business for years and are really good at it. There are no questions that you can't answer. No problem you can't solve. Anyone that has ever done business with you knows this.

But, what about everyone else? People that are potential customers but have never met you or heard of you. Are you telling your story and demonstrating your expertise to these people?

Use your advertising to communicate your story. Give potential customers a taste of what you are all about and why they should choose to do business with you.

Don't assume that everyone already knows. Do you have a story that EVERYONE should know?

Tell it. Don't be shy.

"It ain't braggin if you say it and you back it up. " Kid Rock - Cocky (Clean Version)

Dear Webster's,

I have a new word that I would like to submit for consideration. I will get to that in a minute.

If you search Demographic Targeting, you get page after page of definitions like this one from the Barron's Marketing Dictionary :

Population or consumer statistics regarding socioeconomic factors such as age, income, sex, occupation, education, family size, and the like. Advertisers often define their target market in terms of demographics; thus, demographics are a very important aspect of media planning in matching the media with the market. Each demographic category is broken down (by the various research companies) according to its characteristics.

This kind of targeting is all well and good and has it's place, but all of the scientific targeting in the world means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING if you don't communicate with a persuasive message that helps you accomplish your goals as a business.

I mean in reality, decisions are not made in a vacuum and if someone outside this target demographic wants your product or service, would you take their money? Of course you would.

But if your message is weak, you won't have to worry. No one in any demographic will try to buy from you.

So, to help, I am leading the fight for making Wordographic Targeting the new standard for advertising and marketing planning. Here is my initial definition for the next edition of the dictionary :

Wordographic Targeting is insuring that messages are salient and/or persuasive to potential consumers that may cross many socioeconomic factors such as age, income, sex, occupation, education, family size, etc. Wordographics insure that consumers are responding to a message that will help the advertiser accomplish their goal(s). Advertisers are often misled by traditional media planning to define their target market in terms of demographics. While much harder to measure and execute, wordographics are the most important aspect of any media planning because it matches the marketing / advertising message with the advertiser's needs and allows for real measurability in the success or failure of advertising / marketing plans. 

How is YOUR wordographic targeting?






 

Target Your Advertising

Three words most would never expect to see me write.

Why?

Because in the traditional sense of the targeting concept, it means to figure out WHO you are trying to REACH with your advertising(demographic targeting)and buy that media. Whew, this advertising stuff is hard work.

Pardon me for being blunt, but that is stupid.

As Roy H Williams, The Wizard of Ads writes, "I've never seen a business fail because they were "reaching the wrong people." But I've seen thousands fail because they were saying the wrong thing. Please hear me correctly. These catastrophic failures weren't saying the right thing badly, they were saying the wrong thing well. It's amazing how many people become "the right people" when you're saying the right thing. Believe it or not it's advertising third, customer delight second, strategy always first.

In my twenty plus years in dealing with advertising customers, I have heard so many time, "Just put something together, you are the expert." This was regarding the commercial itself. The advertiser was satisfied that they had spent all of their time helping me figure out who that message was going to reach. It never crossed their minds WHY THESE PEOPLE WOULD CARE TO HEAR THEIR COMMERCIAL.

I had the pleasure this week of hearing from a customer that has actually taken to heart the advice I had given him a few years ago. He really works on his message and leaves the scheduling up to me. This particular customer had recently hired a mechanic that is an expert in repairing Honda cars.

He wanted to make him more busy.

He came in and did a very solid commercial. Some might say well targeted. Targeted at people that needed their Honda repaired. Just days after the ad began to air, he started to get calls from "the right people".

I am pretty sure that this guy didn't ask them how old they were or how much money they made or what station they heard the ad on. Why would he care?

They had a Honda that needed repaired. He has a guy to fix it. That is the type of targeting that really count.

Stop trying to reach the right people. Target your message to talk to people that need what you have and people that know people that need what you have. I have word for this type of targeting.....stay tuned to the next blog!

Attached is the commercial that this customer used to target the customers that really count. The ones that need what he has!

Advertising......Extended

It always amazes me that when someone begins an advertising campaign, they are not sure whether it is working or not. But, regularly they report that people finding them online has increased.

Very seldom does the traditional advertising get credit. "That online stuff works great!"

It is not a coincidence.

Even poor advertising increases top of mind awareness. Potential consumers recognize your name while searching your category and decide to give you a shot since they have at least heard of you before. This is especially true in most service businesses.

If you have a good campaign and consumers actively search for you, they often use online directories. (Does anyone use yellow pages any more?)

So, when you have increases from your website and other online or social media outlets, make sure that you consider that other advertising that may be responsible for increasing your top of mind awareness!

Happy Anniversary

It has been just over one year since my last blog post.


Time really does fly.


Where did the year go?


It was there. In many ways, it was a long one! I just lost my desire to write. I didn't feel that it made a difference. But it did. It made a difference to me. It kept me grounded in my beliefs and fueled my passion for what I do. Hopefully I can make a difference to the reader as well. I hope you come back and check in . I will make it worth your effort.


So, where did the year go?


It doesn't really matter. All that matters is where we go from here.


Get on and buckle up, it may be a wild ride at times.