Friday, October 8, 2010

A unique selling proposition successfully exploited

One of my agency’s clients owns a chain of furniture stores. These stores aren’t your everyday, garden-variety furniture stores featuring living room, bedroom, and family room items. Oh no, they are some of the only stores in the entire San Francisco Bay Area that carry a huge inventory of hard-to-find dinette sets and bar stools. Although most furniture stores carry some of these items (usually hidden way back in the corner of the showroom), this guy has hundreds of styles of dinettes and a huge inventory of hard-to-find bar stools and home bars. His showrooms are cavernous, and when he has a floor sample clearance sale (which he runs twice yearly), customers beat down his doors. His repeat business percentage is astounding, thanks to his complete dedication to customer service. 

His advertising hits hard at what he calls casual dining furniture, which he has available in more styles than a customer could possibly find at any other store, and in price ranges to suit any budget. In fact, casual dining furniture is all he does. And he originally opened his stores with this limited, but unique inventory in mind. So he uses this unique selling proposition in his advertising with great success. This guy truly does have something unique to sell, which makes writing his ads all the easier.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

You can't be all things to all people

As you define and position your advertising message, be careful not to over-promise. Promising a level of service you can’t deliver, or a convenient location that isn’t, or low prices when yours aren’t really all that low, can be a deadly mistake. Be honest with yourself about what is really unique and desirable about your store or business, and then be honest when you start making claims about it. 

On the other hand, don’t panic because you can’t deliver the very best of everything. Maybe your prices really aren’t any cheaper than those of your competition, but your business is located so conveniently, or has such a great ambience and personality, or carries such a unique inventory, that you’re confident people only have to try you once in order to become loyal, happy regulars. If that’s the case, then when you’re designing your ads, don’t make up false benefits based on price — position your message to exploit your strengths, namely that perfect location with all that free parking and all the friendly, cheerful faces waiting inside. 

Remember: One good promise on which you can truly deliver is better than trying to be all things to all people.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Researching and Assessing Your Competition: What Sets Your Product Apart?

Creating an ad campaign is a big step that can cost you some serious money, so it deserves some very careful planning. Before you get into the actual process of designing your advertising campaign, however, you need to identify and promote the specifics that make your product or service unique, known in the ad world as your unique selling proposition (USP). 

Your advertising should never speak in generalities. Including just your business’s name, location, and all the wonderful things you’re selling isn’t enough. You need to give the consumer a very good reason — or better yet, several good reasons — to visit you. You do this by first identifying your distinctive strengths and then calling attention to those strengths in your ads. This process is called positioning your message. 

Determining the key reasons why consumers drive (or surf, if you’re online) right on past other stores, that may sell the same merchandise as you do, in order to seek out your store is the first step in identifying your USP and positioning your message. You need to convince consumers that your store or business is the smartest, best, most-logical place that they can ever hope to buy that merchandise or service. After you identify these keys, focus in on them as the basis for your creative advertising message — in other words, promote and publicize your strengths. 

A good way to start the process of advertising your strengths is to let your mind wander backward to recapture all the reasons you were convinced that your business would succeed in first place. Ask yourself the following questions:
  • What makes your company special?
  • What is unique about your inventory (if your business is a store or you’re selling products)?
  • What service do you provide that clients can’t find elsewhere?
  • Are your business hours more expanded than the competition’s?
  • Is your location easier to find? More convenient? With better parking? Or, do you pick up and deliver directly to your customers?
If you can remember what it was that originally motivated you to start your business, you’re halfway home in identifying what motivates customers to seek you out. The same reasons you were enthusiastic enough about your business plan to take the entrepreneurial plunge translate nicely into a creative concept and motivational copy that drives customers to your business (turn to Creating Great Ads for Every Medium for more information on how to do this in each ad medium).

Don’t confuse your potential customers with too much information — inform them with a well-conceived, creatively executed, and carefully positioned message. Don’t try to sell everything you have in the store (or every service you offer) in a single ad. Doing so only causes sensory overload. Zero in on one or two important, relevant items so your customers have a prayer of understanding your message. 

You want to position your message keeping in mind not only your business’s strengths, but also your primary market (in other words, the people who are most likely to buy your product). When you take both of these important factors into consideration, you not only position the resulting message, but you also target it — like a bull’s-eye, so you can then take your best shot.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

The price is right

In some (but not all) cases, advertising the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (that’s the MSRP you hear about on car commercials all the time) is helpful. In the automobile example, where a dealer typically sells cars for less than the MSRP, the dealer looks very good. But in the case of a candy bar, for example, where the MSRP is 50 cents, but the big chain stores sell it for 40 cents, and the airport gift shop sells it for a dollar, you find customers scratching their heads and wondering what the heck the real price is on this candy. 

Be very careful when using price or terms as reasons for customers to visit your store. When you advertise price, you run the risk of getting caught in what I call the price trap. If you’re only selling price, you have to continue to lower that price — or come up with even better terms — on an ongoing basis in order to continue to attract new customers. 

For example, the cell phone business has fallen into the price trap. When you look in the newspaper, you may have a tough time choosing a wireless phone company or deciphering the best available bargain because you have to sift through the various stores’ offers of free minutes, free phones, free longdistance, free mobile-to-mobile calling, and any number of price and terms offers. And all of these stores have to continually create new and better offers in order to compete.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Let ’em know your uniqueness

A certain way to attract customers (more certain than anything else I know) is to offer something they can’t get anywhere else. If you’ve stocked your store with creative, hard-to-find items that other stores simply don’t carry, then you are way ahead of the game. If your doughnut store can state for certain that your doughnut holes are smaller (and, therefore, your doughnuts are more substantial) than a doughnut junkie can hope to find elsewhere, then that is your message. If you carry truly unique greeting cards in your stationery store, cards that aren’t available anywhere except at your location, then people looking for such an item are sure to respond. 

Of course, if you’re selling the idea that your business is unique, you need to work overtime to assure that it remains so. Do you remember when Starbucks was the only place where you could get gourmet coffees? It didn’t take long for hundreds of imitators to come along and make the same claim. If you’re successful in positioning yourself as totally unique, you can be sure that others will copy you — and you’ll have to continually reinvent yourself to stay ahead of the competition.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Don't sacrifice service!

Service, in my estimation, is the most overused and under-delivered promise made in advertising today. Just about every business claims to deliver the very best in “service,” or “customer service,” or “customer care,” but in reality, hardly any business actually does provide great service. Most market research shows that what customers want most from their bank, supermarket, dry cleaner, car dealer, shoe repair shop, accountant, or whatever, is good, old-fashioned service. All businesses know this, but most businesses seem totally incapable of delivering it. 

My agency handles a local Audi dealer that lives and dies by the results of factory-sponsored telephone surveys it does following every new car sale and every service appointment. The results of these customer satisfaction surveys go a long way in determining this car dealer’s relationship with the factory and with how many cars it allots him each month. He ranks very highly in his survey results, and we advertise the fact that his dealership is top-rated in customer service. And this advertising focus on service (as well as fair pricing and a wide choice of inventory) is obviously working — this dealer, located in San Jose, California, sells so many new Audi cars that he’s now number two in the nation. 

If you use service as a reason for customers to try you out, then you’d better deliver the goods. If you can’t service your customers in an efficient, courteous, timely manner, or deliver, replace, or repair what you promised when you promised it, then don’t tell customers you can. Don’t make any promises you can’t keep, because people will soon see through you and your promises like a piece of cellophane.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Convenience: More than location

The top three factors in getting rich on real estate are: location, location, location. The same may be true of your store or business. Convenience can be a huge incentive to customers. But when I say convenience, I’m not just talking about location. Convenience may be ample free parking within a few feet of your door, or easy freeway access, or a well-thought-out store design so your customers can get in and out quickly, or a store policy of always helping customers load merchandise into their cars, or a service policy of always delivering on time. 

If you do have a convenient, available location with great parking and a bright and cheerful ambience, easy access, an easy store layout, or any number of conveniences that customers find attractive, include this information in your advertising message. Convenience is also a very simple and effective way to differentiate your store from other, less-convenient, less-attractive stores. 

For example, when I need hardware items, I patronize a small local store, instead of one of those big discount warehouses, because of the convenience factor. The store is small (it would fit into one corner of one of the large chain stores, and you’d never even know it was there) so I can quickly find what I need and be on my way. It also has a large parking lot right outside its back door. I know I could save a lot of money if I went to the chain stores, but I’m willing to pay for the convenience of the mom-and-pop. 

If I were the owner of this small hardware store, I’d advertise with messages such as, “Park within 20 feet of our door. You may pay a few pennies more for nails, but think of the money you’ll save on shoe leather!” Or, “Is saving a nickel on nails worth getting hammered in a parking lot?” Or, “Drive for miles, search three acres for a parking place, get lost in a huge labyrinth, save 50 cents. Can we talk?” 

Similarly, if I owned a service business, such as a car and limo service, I’d advertise with a message such as, “Don’t stress about getting to the airport on time — call us instead! We’ll pick you up on time and get you to where you’re going, in the comfort of one of our luxury cars, driven by our safe and professional drivers.”

Friday, October 1, 2010

You've got personality!

Customers often choose one business over another based on the personality of the business. And that, of course, begins with you and the people who work for you. For example, I’ve become a regular at a very good Italian restaurant in my hometown for the simple reason that the personality of the place (and of the people who work there) suits me to a T. It has just the right combination of location, ambience, menu choices, and friendly, caring management and staff to have won my undying loyalty. 

A half-dozen outstanding Italian restaurants are all within a six-block walk of the one I frequent, and my wife and I have tried them all. But we visit the same one quite often because, from the moment we walk through the door until we waddle out a few hours later, each employee treats us like visiting royalty, whose continued satisfaction and patronage is a very high priority. Everyone, from the bartender to the waiter to the busboy, makes us feel not only welcome, but at home. 

So if you own a restaurant and want to advertise your establishment’s unique personality, you can use a headline such as, “Like having dinner at Mama’s, but without all the kids.” If you’re a car dealer and want to tell your customers that they can find something unusual during their service appointment, you can say, “Put your feet up, have a cup of gourmet coffee, catch up on the soaps, and relax in our customer lounge.” In other words, if you truly believe that your business has a sparkling personality and offers certain benefits that customers can’t find elsewhere, then find a creative way to use these strengths in your advertising. Then be sure you deliver on the promise after the customers arrive. Don’t call attention to something that isn’t really there, something that you don’t — or can’t — really offer.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Image is everything

People drive or walk long distances past one fast-food restaurant, service station, doughnut store, or hair salon in order to patronize another because the image of the store they seek out is more in tune with their own tastes and desires. Image, as they say, is everything. 

When it comes to image, peer pressure (or what you think the rest of the world is doing) also comes into play. People want to project the right image, and often, they do that by choosing the product, service, or store that they think helps them do so. For example, if dozens of people are working out at one particular gym in town, their friends may also try that gym because “everyone else is doing it.” Price, quality, convenience, and many other factors come into play, but if that gym’s image is the one that the customers can best identify with, then it most certainly gets the most business. 

Your business’s good reputation for customer service, fair value, good prices, and after-sale concern and care also goes a long way toward ensuring your success. If you can honestly say that you provide the very best of any of these virtues, broadcast it widely.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Understanding Why People Choose One Product or Service over Another

As you devise your positioning strategy and, ultimately, your advertising message, you need to keep in mind why people choose one product or service over another. That way, you can help to ensure that they choose your product or service over your competition’s. In the following Understanding Why People Choose One Product or Service over Another sections, I cover some of the main reasons people choose one product (or service or company or store) over another.

Defining and Positioning Your Message

  • Knowing what customers want in your business, product, or service — and providing it
  • Pinpointing what you want to say
  • Devising a campaign that knocks their socks off
With a limited advertising budget, your product, service, or company name isn’t on the tip of the national tongue, nor are people from New York to Los Angeles whistling your jingle. But you can define your strengths and position your advertising message in such a way that you give yourself the best possible chance for success. And with 50 percent of all new businesses going under within the first two years, you want to do everything you can to improve these rather daunting odds for your business. 

When you first opened your business, you probably felt confident in doing so because you were convinced you could provide better service, a more unique line of products, and more creative solutions to consumers’ problems than they could find anywhere else. You found an attractive, convenient location; stocked up on really cool merchandise or offered a really distinctive service; expanded your business hours for better customer convenience; and have been enjoying at least the first blush of the success that usually follows a well-thought-out business plan. To paraphrase mass-production genius Henry Kaiser (whose ship-building division, during World War II, built one new Liberty Ship every day), “You found a need and filled it.” But now you need to take it one step further with an advertising campaign that brings in more customers, adds more dollars to your bottom line, and validates all the reasons you went into business in the first place. 

In this part, I fill you in on a few of the key factors that customers use when they choose one business over another — factors you want to keep in mind when you come up with ways to advertise your business’s strengths. Then I walk you through the process of positioning your message, where you let your customers know exactly why they should buy from you. Finally, I end the chapter by outlining the basics of coming up with an effective ad campaign, using a real-life example from my own business as a guide.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Advertising cooperatives: Not the same as co-op funds

Advertising cooperatives are a different beast altogether. Unlike co-op funds, advertising cooperatives cost you money. But it may be the best money you ever spend, because you enjoy high-quality production and your fair share of the clout of a substantial combined media budget.
Advertising cooperatives (also known as dealer ad groups) are common in the franchising business and the automotive business. The franchise business discovered a long time ago that it can do a much better job at advertising if it asked each of its franchisees to pony up a percentage of gross sales, which then goes into a “war chest” where it accumulates until enough cash is available to do a large-scale media buy for all the franchises together. An individual store can’t hope to do advertising on a scale to match the combined budgets of many stores. Strength in numbers is the name of the game.
The advertising cooperative also uses its money to employ the services of an ad agency that produces top-quality TV, radio, and print advertising, as well as in-store, point-of-purchase display materials, and, in the case of food franchises, menus, banners, bags, and so on. If you’re in a business that can take advantage of the media buying power and quality production provided by an advertising cooperative, be sure to get involved. Your business will most likely benefit.

Submitting your co-op claims package

After your ads have run and your campaign is attracting customers in droves, all you need to do is submit your co-op claims package. Your package includes your preapproval form, your proofs of performance, and a written request for reimbursement of the promised percentage of the campaign.
Continuing with the paint store example from the beginning of this section, imagine that you’ve made the requested changes, the ads run, the campaign is a success, and hundreds of people with questionable color sense fight their way through your doors. The Putrid Peach paint is history. Now you just submit the entire package — the signed preapproval form, the notarized media invoices, the notarized radio scripts, the CD or MP3 file of the finished radio spots, and the newspaper tear sheets — to your supplier along with your written request for reimbursement.
There. Wasn’t that simple? Now all you need to do is wait for the co-op check to arrive in the mail. And, what’s the bonus to all of this hoopla? You got rid of that disgusting paint color!

Obtaining proof of performance

After you’ve made the manufacturer’s requested changes to your ads (if there were any), you need to make sure to get what’s called proof of performance from the media, which is really just verification that you ran the ads as you said you would. 

To return to the paint store example from the preceding section, when you buy your ads from the radio station, advise them that you’re using co-op funds (they usually know precisely what information you need). Make sure you receive the following verifications and co-op information with the station’s invoices:
  • A notarized copy of your finished script listing the number of spots run and the total dollar amount those spots represented in your total media buy. If you’re using more than one script, each script needs to be notarized with the above information.
  • A notarized or certified invoice listing the run times of each spot, the title of the script for each spot, and the total dollar amount of the buy. Advise the newspaper how many tear sheets you need to provide for the manufacturer (tear sheets are copies of the actual printed page on which your ad appeared — the manufacturer lets you know how many you need to provide as proof of performance). The newspaper provides those tear sheets along with its notarized total invoice. (For more on newspaper ads, check out Using Print Ads.)
The media you’re working with should know what your manufacturer needs as proof, but if not, be sure to ask the manufacturer. The proof of performance looks different for every medium.

Getting your ads preapproved

Manufacturers don’t just hand out co-op money as if it were candy. You can contact a manufacturer about a potential co-op ad campaign, or a manufacturer may contact you and suggest one. But before you can begin to spend any co-op money (no matter whose idea it was), you must get your ads preapproved by the manufacturer you’re working with.
Suppose you own a paint store. One of your major manufacturers has told you that it will co-op an advertising campaign to sell 1,000 gallons of Putrid Peach paint it has lying around. Your supplier tells you that, if you contribute some of your ad bucks ( you pick the amount you think you’ll need to dispose of this paint within a reasonable amount of time), it’ll match you 100 percent up to $5,000. Your total ad budget could, therefore, be $10,000 — more than enough to buy some local radio time and a couple of big ads in the newspaper.
Your next step is to get your ads preapproved by the manufacturer. In most cases, your supplier requires you to have all your advertising preapproved by the factory to make sure it adheres to the manufacturer’s co-op guidelines. Your supplier may have an approval form for you to fill out. Along with this completed form, you must submit copies of radio scripts, a CD or MP3 file of the final produced commercial(s), and at least a rough layout (plus a copy of the final, finished copy) for your newspaper ads. ( Be sure to ask what your manufacturer requires for various mediums.) Then the manufacturer’s advertising or marketing department either sends you a stamped approval as is or advises you to make certain changes. The department may also simply advise you of the required changes and stamp and sign the approval “Approved with changes.” Be sure to follow the manufacturer’s co-op rules and guidelines carefully, making whatever changes they request.
Never run co-op advertising without first obtaining signed preapproval from the supplier.

Understanding the Rules, Regulations, and Restrictions

Each of your suppliers has a unique set of rules to which you must adhere in order to collect even a dime of co-op funds from them. The rules and restrictions set up within co-op programs can be so complicated that you may wonder whether these suppliers want anyone to even try to collect. But even though the restrictions can be a bit off-putting, if you follow the rules to the letter, your suppliers will reward you with either some extra cash to invest in advertising or some additional merchandise with which you can make a big, fat profit. All in all, the pain is worth the gain.
If you work with an ad agency, it may be able to help you navigate the rules and regulations. For example, my agency deals with several clients who count on co-op advertising funds to either augment or completely provide their advertising budgets. Because these accounts have hired my agency, we do all the work of collecting the funds for them. It’s one of the services we provide, and we do it month after month for multiple accounts (each with different rules of collection). Collecting co-op funds can be time-consuming, but if you know the rules and follow them, you can do it without much trouble.
When you’re working on your own, without an agency, you need to do the legwork yourself. In the following sections, I walk you through the process of using co-op funds — and collecting your money.
Co-op funds may be earned (and accrued) over a specific period of time and carry with them a deadline for use. This deadline is known as “Use it or lose it.” Make sure you find out about any deadlines imposed by manufacturers on the use of their available co-op advertising funds, and be sure to spend the money before it disappears.

You’ve found your funds, now how do you get the dough?

After you’ve located the funds you need, you must run an obstacle course on your way to collecting them, providing all the proof the vendor requires that you actually ran the ads (see the section “Understanding the Rules, Regulations, and Restrictions” in this part). Then, and only then, will you receive your co-op funds in some form or another.
Suppliers can pay co-op funds in strange and unusual ways, including, but not limited to:
  • Cash reimbursement
  • Additional merchandise
  • Discounts off future merchandise purchases
No matter what form of co-op payment you receive from any given supplier, always keep one thing in mind: It’s found money — money you wouldn’t otherwise have if you hadn’t gone to the trouble to ask for and earn it.

Knowing who to talk to

Each of the vendors who sell to your store has assigned a sales representative to work with you. These people visit you on a regular basis — of course they do, they want to sell you stuff! These sales reps are a great place to start the process of finding co-op funds. Even though they may not be inclined to offer you information on co-op funds on their own (because of some bonus arrangement they may have with their employers), they can definitely tell you about them if you ask.
If you get a positive response from one or more of these sales reps, get the lowdown on how you can go about collecting some of this money. Ask what you need to do to qualify for funds, and what, if you do qualify, they require you to do in order to receive a check. If the manufacturer’s rep tells you that no co-op funds are available to you, press the issue and ask whether vendor dollars are an option (which have no strings attached other than a few initial qualifiers).
You may also want to talk to the marketing and/or advertising managers of these suppliers. These people control the advertising funds (including co-op money), which means you can get your answer straight from the horse’s mouth. If the marketing or advertising manager says that the company doesn’t offer co-op funds, show how smart you are by asking for vendor dollars. This question definitely gets a marketing or advertising manager’s attention because, chances are, he’s never mentioned these available dollars to anyone.
If you’re working with an ad agency, ask your agent what her experience is with businesses similar to yours, and where these other businesses may have found co-op money. Agency people know where the bodies are buried, as they say in the ad biz. I even know of one group of radio stations in my area that has a co-op department for the express purpose of helping its direct advertisers find money they may not otherwise have known was available to them. (Of course, the radio stations benefit from this found money, too, because the companies spend that money advertising on their radio stations.)
One way or another, ask as many people as you can think of within the various companies you deal with about co-op funds. Unless you’re selling something obscure like arts and crafts made by individuals, you’re likely to find some hidden money somewhere.

Finding Out Which of Your Suppliers Have Co-Op Funds Available

The suppliers of many of the products that you sell most likely have available advertising funds that they’re happy to provide you — if you follow their sometimes convoluted rules and go to the trouble to ask for it. 

For example, I have one client who told me that, in his first ten years in business, he never applied for co-op advertising funds because he didn’t know they existed. Not a single manufacturer from whom he was buying merchandise had bothered to tell him they had co-op funds available to augment his very limited ad budget. So what’s the moral to this story? If you want co-op funds, you have to ask! 

Look at all the brands you’re selling, read every factory invoice, calculate what you’re spending with each of your suppliers, and go after them for ad bucks. Chances are, at least some of the companies who supply you with inventory have co-op or vendor dollars available. This Finding Out Which of Your Suppliers Have Co-Op Funds Available section helps you get the co-op ball rolling.

Knowing Who Uses Co-Op Funds

Each week, you probably receive one or more multi-page, color brochures from your local supermarkets. These brochures are filled with this week’s bombastic specials on everything from soft drinks to bathroom tissue, dog food to deodorant — and they usually contain coupons you can use when you shop at their stores. These newsprint brochures are almost entirely paid for with co-op funds provided to your local grocer by the companies that produce the dozens of items listed inside. Each of the manufacturers, suppliers, or distributors pays for the percentage of advertising space it receives in each brochure.
For instance, if the toilet paper company is getting one full page of a 20-page flyer, it tosses 5 percent of the total cost of the brochure into the pot. By advertising only those products that provide co-op funds, your grocer can, in theory, produce and distribute these weekly brochures without spending a dime of his own money.
Virtually any small business you can think of sells products for which co-op ad funds are available. If you’re a store owner, look around your store, and you may be able to identify products from big-name manufacturers who, in all likelihood, have co-op or vendor dollars set aside to aid you in selling these items.
Many small businesses either don’t know co-op money is available, or they find the thought of collecting the funds too daunting. For this reason, a lot of available cash is left on the table because small businesses often think they have better things to do than fill out forms and adhere to certain rules in order to collect a few extra bucks to throw at advertising. You can work this situation to your favor, however, by taking advantage of the money your competitors aren’t seizing for themselves. Yes, it’s work. But when you receive a nice check from one of your manufacturers, or some free goods, or a big discount off your next purchase, the extra work is well worth your time and trouble.
Supply and demand are very important things to remember when you’re considering co-op funds. Here’s an example for you to mull over: The manufacturers and distributors that supply the grocer provide a certain amount of co-op money based on the total amount of their products the grocer purchases. If the grocer buys 1,000 cases of creamed corn for a special price and then advertises “dramatic savings” on that merchandise in his weekly mailer, he may get $1,000 in extra co-op funds as part of his deal with the creamed corn supplier. And you can bet that the grocer won’t buy 1,000 cases of any particular brand of creamed corn unless he also gets a boost of co-op money from the supplier to help him peddle it.
When you add up all the items advertised in these flyers, you can be sure that someone in the grocer’s advertising department spent a heck of a lot of time finding and figuring out what money was available from which suppliers, and how to collect and spend it. A local chain of supermarkets for which I have done advertising work has a full-time employee who does nothing but handle co-op funds.
The grocery business is just one example of who takes advantage of co-op funds and what they must do to collect them. Many other businesses offer co-op funds. For example, when you walk into a bookstore and see certain books displayed prominently at the front of the store or on end-caps (the face-out display of books at the end of an aisle), you probably know those store owners or managers didn’t feature those particular books simply because they enjoyed reading them. Instead, the publishers of the books on display cooperated with the store owners by spending money to advertise those books. And those promotions typically tie in to some theme or holiday, such as books by African-American authors during Black History Month (February), coffee-table books at the December holidays, or golf and other stereotypically “manly” pastimes around Father’s Day.
And, of course, it’s not just bookstores that do this: Hardware and homeimprovement stores partner with the manufacturers of the tools and raw materials they sell, and even service businesses may be able to find companies that offer co-op funds available to them, if the service includes products available from other vendors. In other words, co-op opportunities are as diverse as the companies that offer it. But you can always find a catch — there’s no such thing as a free lunch (free creamed corn, perhaps, but no free lunch). The retailer or small business (that’s you) must adhere to certain rules and make certain purchases in order to qualify for and collect co-op money.
But don’t be dismayed — it’s worth it! (For more on these qualifiers, check out the section “Understanding the Rules, Regulations, and Restrictions.”) Another form of cooperative funding is called vendor money. Vendor money is in addition to any of the manufacturer’s co-op funds you may be entitled to. It’s usually passed along to the squeakiest wheel — the clever retailer who knows it exists and has the cheek to go after it. Vendor money has no strings attached; you receive it either in the form of cash or as a discount on future purchases.

Boosting Your Budget with Co-Op Programs

  • Clearing up what co-op advertising funds are
  • Finding suppliers who have funds you can use
  • Being aware of the supplier’s restrictions
  • Applying for, and receiving, co-op money
Many suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors of various major products and goods have advertising money set aside for use by their retailers. These funds are called cooperative advertising (co-op for short). The term cooperative means just what it says: If you spend some money, the manufacturer will also spend some money — the two of you cooperate to get the advertising job done. 

Although co-op advertising is sometimes very complicated, frustrating, confusing, and time-consuming, it’s well worth the effort. Co-op funds are wonderful when you can add these extra dollars to your own advertising budget and use them to make a much bigger splash in your market. In this Boosting Your Budget with Co-Op Programs, I give you the information you need to put co-op funds to work for you, demystifying this often-confusing part of the advertising arena.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Using media you can afford

I get into the meaty parts of media negotiation, planning, and buying in Buying the Different Media. But for now, I help you consider a few of your options as you formulate your budget strategy. This section may give you some pleasant surprises, or at least dispel some of your beliefs about media affordability.

Online
One way to advertise your business is, of course, on the Internet. You can build your own Web site, or you can hire someone to do it for you — and the Internet itself provides guidelines. Just type “creating a Web site” into a search engine and you can find loads of resources to either walk you through the process or to find people who can create a Web site for you.

Most companies — even small businesses — have found this format is an inexpensive way to make their presence known to potential customers. A well-designed Web site increases your credibility, makes it easier for potential customers to discover the products and services you offer, and allows you to sell directly on the Internet.

You can also advertise your business on other companies’ Web sites in a variety of ways that match your needs and budget — for example:
  • Banner ads: The rectangular ads that appear on a Web page inviting viewers to click on the banner, which then takes them to your Web site.
  • E-mail lists and newsletters: Send a quick e-mail to customers who have expressed interest in receiving information from your business. Be careful not to send an e-mail to just anyone: You don’t want your business to be viewed as spam or junk e-mail!
  • Links to your Web site: When consumers are searching the Web for information on a particular topic, they find links to other Web sites promoting products or services related to that topic — such as books, magazines, and other publications, as well as associations and organizations of users of that product, service, and so on. These links are called sponsored links.
  • Interstitial ads: This fancy name is for something you now see all the time on the Web — the pages or pop-up boxes that appear mysteriously after you click on a link but before you get to the place you clicked to get to. An interstitial page may open and close automatically, and they can be highly effective if done well. If these ads are interesting, consumers may allow them to remain on screen for far longer than the usual banner ad, so the CPM (cost per thousand) should be quite high.
  • Pop-up ads have a drawback. As you probably know from your own experiences surfing the Web, pop-up ads can also be quite annoying, so if yours isn’t interesting or relevant to what the consumer was originally looking for, many consumers will shut it down immediately.
  • Rich-media ads: These ads include drop-down boxes, moving images, sound, or music that starts when consumers move their mouses over the ads, small games, and other forms of multimedia advertising. In general, both customers and the Web sites that offer rich-media ads like them because consumers don’t have to actually leave the site to interact with the banner, and clickthrough (which is when a consumer actually clicks on an ad to visit the Web site being advertised, instead of just viewing the ad but not going further) can be quite high.
  • Keyword advertising: This Internet form is where you pay a search engine, directory, or some other Web site to have your ad or the link to your site pop up first when someone does a search on the keywords you buy. For example, if a consumer is searching for information on knitting, she may type “knitting” into an Internet search engine. Because your business is designer knitwear or knitting instruction (and you’ve paid that search engine for keyword advertising), your ad is among the first to appear to the customer.
  • Word-of-mouth advertising: The Internet is also the perfect place to take advantage of this form of online advertising via message boards, online clubs, blogs, chat rooms, and the list goes on — and most of it is free.
These types of online advertising are just a few you should consider for your business. Spend some time surfing the Web to see what type of ads are being run by other companies that offer the same type of product or service as your business, and decide what works best for you (and your budget — don’t forget the budget!). Don’t be hesitant to think outside the box to see what other businesses that don’t compete with yours are doing, because you may also want to borrow some of their approaches to Internet advertising! Flip to Online Advertising and Investing in Internet Advertising for more information on advertising on the Internet.

Newspaper
In the area of print, you don’t need to buy large ads in order to be noticed. Take a look at your daily paper and you can see that, in most cases, the smaller ads are placed at the top of each page — they sit atop the large space ads. The newspaper’s layout department just does it this way, for some reason. Now, while I can’t deny that the eye may be first drawn to the largest ads on a page, it stands to reason that if your message is clear enough, presented in a clever way, and positioned near the top of the page with a good headline and an eye-catching graphic element, you can get as good a response as the guy whose big, fat ad is sitting beneath yours and contains none of the above. See Using Print Ads and Buying Ad Space in Print Media for more information on advertising in print.

Radio
Advertising your business on the radio varies widely in price, depending on the time of day you want. For example, WXTU 92.5 country music in Philadelphia charges $425 for a mid-day ad but only $75 to $100 for an evening ad. So think carefully about when your target audience is most likely listening and what works best for your budget. Want to find out more? Check out Radio.

One of the top-rated news- and talk-radio stations in the Bay Area sells primetime ads (during the morning and evening commute) for prices in the $1,000- to $1,500-per-spot range, but its late night (midnight to 6:00 a.m.) ads can be had for as low as $100 a spot. I actually know of one local business that buys the late-night time slot on this station and pays for the commercials with $100 bills. The beleaguered station sales rep has to schlep over to his office to collect the money this guy pays in advance for whatever number of spots he can afford on any given week. This strategy may sound a bit hokey, but advertising on this station during the late-night time slots really works for this guy. He has a presence on a major station, which gives his business an aura of prestige, and he gets it on a surprisingly low budget. So, what is the moral of this little story? On radio, you don’t need major ad bucks in order to sound like you do. 

Another affordable way to buy radio is by taking advantage of the package deal, which includes a certain number of prime spots, a few mid-days, a few overnights, and a few rotators (spots that the station may run anywhere it likes). Radio stations usually tell you that they’ll sell these packages to you for only “$50 a spot!” or whatever the amount — referred to as an average spot cost. And that’s true if you look at the average cost of the ads when grouped together. But because you reach a lot more people during the morning commute than you can hope to reach at 3:00 a.m., an average spot cost isn’t the best way to analyze the cost effectiveness of package deals. You’re better off asking the station rep how many gross impressions the spots in the package will generate — that number tells you how many people will actually hear the ads, which in turn helps you decide whether the package is all that it’s cracked up to be.

Cable TV
Cable television is an affordable media, but if you use it, you need to be diligent about a few details. Here are some questions you need to ask before you buy:
  • On which of the cable channels will my spots run?
  • At what times will the spots run on those channels?
  • In which zones will my spots run?
Sound confusing? I can tell you how confusing it really is: Cable TV has been known to reduce a professional media buyer to tears. And a seasoned ad agency’s accounts payable manager once said that he’d rather schedule a root canal than try to decipher a cable station’s invoice. Here’s why: Every cable company is selling ads on a hundred or more different channels; each channel is programmed to reach a separate and unique market segment and is broadcast into various zones within the overall coverage area. So, although eminently affordable, particularly at a paltry two bucks a spot in some cases, make sure you know precisely what you’re buying. Demystifying TV Commercials and Getting Your Ads on Television explore cable TV in more detail.

Broadcast TV
TV advertising prices vary widely depending on the time of day. For example, at the time of this writing, Channel 6 (ABC/WPVI) in Philadelphia charges the following prices at different times of day:
  • $1,000 for a 30-second commercial that runs during its weekday local news at 5 a.m.
  • $1,400 for a 30-second commercial that runs during weekday local news at 12 noon
  • $3,300 for a 30-second commercial that runs during weekday local news at 5 p.m.
  • $5,000 for a 30-second commercial that runs during weekday local news at 6 p.m.
Of course, these prices vary from week to week and season to season. The total range of prices is anywhere from $500 to $50,000 — the high end being the price for a 30-second commercial during, say, the finale of a popular TV drama or national sporting event.

But broadcast television can be affordable in certain time slots. One chain of auto-repair shops for which I have done work buys one or two 30-second commercials daily on the early morning news show (6:00 a.m.) and the early fringe news program (5:00 p.m.) on the local ABC-TV station. Because he’s on these local news shows every day, and because these shows are very reasonably priced, he has a substantial television presence (at least with the people who watch those shows) for less than $5,000 a month. 

Late night, early morning, and even midday time slots may offer just the kind of programming that your target market views. And these time slots are priced within the budgets of most local advertisers (so that’s why you see all those car dealer ads at those times).

National magazines
Yes, unbelievably, you can afford to buy ads in big-time magazines like Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, and the like by buying advertising in what’s called their regional editions. You can place your ad in one of these publications, or a predetermined group of publications that is sold as a package, for relatively small amounts because all the big magazines break down their circulation (and actual printing) into zones or regions. For instance, you can buy an ad for the circulation of the entire Bay Area, or break it down to just your city. Some magazines will also sell you a cover wrap, sort of like a book’s dust jacket, which can be a fairly prestigious way to get the word out there! 

Although magazine advertising is a rather dramatic vehicle for a local business to use, it doesn’t cost nearly as much as you think. When you can buy a big-time publication that allows you to pay only for the area from which you can reasonably expect to attract business, you can afford to at least look like a major player. So, if you want to impress the neighbors and keep up with the Joneses, pop a full-page ad into Time magazine. That ought to get their attention! For more on national magazine ads, turn to Using Print Ads.

Bottom line: Go bargain hunting
You want an advertising presence in media that gives you your best chance of attracting large numbers of customers. The various media options listed in this part are only a few of the many ways you can save money and still buy media that does you the most good. In Buying the Different Media, I provide even more information on the various forms of media and how to buy them. 

Concentrate your available dollars in good, solid media — even though you may not be able to afford to buy prime-time TV commercials or fullpage magazine ads. Don’t toss away your money on cockamamie “deals” offered to you by off-the-wall media that no one will pay attention to. In other words, don’t buy a rotten egg when you can afford a lovely omelet.

Go bargain hunting. Your local media, even some of the national media, have some great deals.

Getting the most out of your creative and production

Creative and production are areas that, with just a bit of good writing and skillful execution, are perfect places to save money without sacrificing effectiveness. Your ads can look and sound like champagne, even though your budget can only afford beer. You don’t need to spend a small fortune producing a television commercial to sell something that could easily be explained in a well-written and cleverly produced radio spot. Nor do you need to buy a full-page, four-color newspaper ad when a small-space, black-and-white ad with a killer headline and graphic will likely attract as much or more attention. And you needn’t waste money on a so-called celebrity spokesperson to pitch your business on radio if you can hire an actor who simply has a great voice.
You can save money on advertising production if you begin with a clever concept and good writing that take cost-effective production into consideration from the very beginning. In other words, don’t write a TV spot that must be filmed beneath the Eiffel Tower if you can’t afford to send a film crew to France. Putting together a radio spot by using French music, European traffic sound effects, and an actor with a believable French accent may be a bit more cost-effective. If you do it right, the listener will add the mental image of the Eiffel Tower for you, free of charge.
Okay, so you’re not planning to do a full-blown commercial shoot in Paris, but you may be tempted to write and produce a TV spot because you feel your product is so darned visual that the consumer simply must see it to appreciate it. Here are two truths to ponder before you bite off more than you can chew:
  • Television production costs more than radio production.
  • Radio can conjure visual images in the mind of the listener if you use it correctly.
Armed with this information, why not write a radio commercial that’s filled with visual imagery and costs only a pittance to produce as compared to a TV spot? These mental images (the theater of the mind, as I call it) can be more effective than showing the actual product. For example, a chain of furniture stores my agency handles hasn’t done television in years because we proved to them that radio can effectively paint mental pictures of the various furniture pieces they’re selling. With the same amount of dollars they were spending on one or two broadcast or cable TV stations, they’re now buying time on a half-dozen radio stations — and their business has never been better.
Begin by planning a creative concept that can, at the same time, be produced inexpensively and is clever enough to be heard above the roar. Easier said than done, you say? Perhaps. But it’s not impossible, and it can be quite a bit of fun. Besides, why would you want to do boring advertising? Consumers don’t want to see or hear any more boring advertising — they’re already saturated with it. They’d much rather see or hear clever, funny, memorable ads that, more often than not, will jolt them into responding. This type of advertising is what you should be shooting for.
Want a voice for your radio spot or TV commercial? Call your ad agency, or look in the Yellow Pages under “Talent Agencies & Casting Directors.”

Maximizing Your Budget

You need to spend enough money on advertising to make an impact in the marketplace. You need to make some noise — be heard above the din of other advertising messages. But you don’t want to spend more on advertising than you can comfortably afford. Making the most of the money you have can be a difficult tightrope act.

One of my clients, whose advertising budget remains steady from month to month regardless of ups and downs in sales, preaches consistency as the number one rule in his advertising plans. His philosophy is simple: In order to compete, you must be heard. You want consumers to think of your business when they’re in the market for the products you sell, so you should at least have some advertising presence at all times. His thinking is, over the year, it all averages out.

On the other hand, not everyone can afford to have an advertising presence year-round. You may not even need to be out there every day. By virtue of your unique product or service, you may be able to do a fine job by only advertising special events or sales on an as-needed basis. This kind of advertising requires a bit more planning and creative-media buying in order to get the job done, but it’s a workable option for many businesses.

Finally, many businesses simply don’t have enough money to do much more than advertise when they absolutely have to, such as at Christmas or back-toschool times.

No matter what group you fall into, keep in mind that you can save big bucks in many different ways, several of which I outline for you in the following Maximizing Your Budget.

Knowing your product’s appeal

What you’re selling helps you determine what media you should be buying. Are you selling tires? Then make print your primary media, because you need to list all those different brands, sizes, and prices in those long columns of itsy-bitsy type. You may also call attention to your print ads with some radio spots. And, if you want to show how clean and beautiful your shop is, consider some TV. Direct mail, if it’s a stand-alone piece for you and you alone, can be somewhat effective as well.
On the other hand, are you selling a professional service such as accounting, financial management, or consulting? Then you want to look at news, talk, or another radio format listened to by business people. If print is in your ad plan, then the local business journal or the business section or main news section of your newspapers are good bets.
If you’re selling beauty products or run a hair or nail salon, you need to reach your target market by buying on radio stations that can prove to you their audience composition includes mostly women. Women also read the newspaper’s business page in great numbers, as well as the entertainment, society, style, home, and main news sections. And dozens of television shows, even entire cable stations, are targeted toward women — for example, the Lifetime network, WE (Women’s Entertainment), Oxygen, and many others.
What I’m getting at here is that you must narrow your focus in order to get a handle on the amount you need to invest in advertising, by identifying your primary market segment. There’s no sense in taking the shotgun approach when a well-aimed rifle shot can find more of who you’re looking for — and for a lot less money. If you’re selling a female-oriented product, you don’t want to waste too much of your ad budget advertising to men, and vice versa. Sure, you’ll get some spillover, and you can’t do anything about that. But targeting your media buys as narrowly as possible saves you money in a big way.

Identifying your target market

By identifying your primary target market, you can do a better job of narrowing your media buys, which leads you to a bottom-line budget figure that makes sense. This information also helps you when the time comes to design and write your ads. Teenagers, as you know, speak an entirely different language than adults, so not only must you buy the media they’re attracted to, but you also want to write and design your ads to attract their attention in the first place.
For example, if you own a skateboard store, then you’re going to target teens rather than senior citizens, right? And those teens aren’t reading the newspaper or looking at direct mail pieces; instead, they’re online at their favorite Web sites, listening to very narrowly programmed radio stations, and watching certain TV shows. If, on the other hand, you’re selling luxury cars that are purchased primarily by affluent adults over 55, you can do well by placing ads in the business section of your paper and buying spots on radio stations programmed with news, talk, oldies, or classical music. In other words, just a little bit of thought into who your target market is and what forms of media it pays attention to can save you lots of money and tons of grief.

Researching and evaluating your competition

A good step to consider when devising your advertising plan, and planning the extent of your budget, is to analyze what your competition is doing. In Buying the Different Media, I give some guidelines and relative costs for all media, but you can pin it down even further with a few well-placed phone calls in your own area. Here are some guidelines:
  • Do you see ads for your competitors in the newspaper on a regular basis? If so, call the paper and ask for its retail display-ad rate in order to figure out how much the competition is spending to advertise there.
  • Do you hear competitors’ radio commercials often? Call the station’s sales department and ask about its rates. A salesperson will likely tell you precisely what your competition is spending so she can talk you into doing the same thing.
  • Does your weekly mail bring coupons or brochures from your competition? Again, contact the vendor of the mail pack that sends these coupons and find out what those ads cost.
Why should you want to know what your competition is spending? Because this information gives you some basis for planning your own budget. Forewarned is forearmed, which in this case means that gathering information about the other guys helps you make a quantified judgment as to how much you need to spend in order to compete with them. If you own a momand- pop hardware store, you may have a tough time generating a budget that can compete with the monster-size warehouse stores — but don’t panic. Simply outspending the other guy (or even trying to keep up with him) isn’t the whole answer. 

You may be relieved to know that you can spend a lot less than your competition and still make more of an impact by being more creative with both your message and your media buying. You can make up for a lack of money with an abundance of creativity and careful — no, make that diligent — media negotiation and spending. You can also make your available advertising budget stretch if you don’t waste any of it on irrelevant media that brings you little or no business. 

Regardless of the limits of your ad budget, and whether you’re trying to reach a broad audience, accept this as a given: You can afford mass media. You can afford to buy radio commercials, ads in a mass-circulation daily newspaper, spots on broadcast television and cable stations, ads in the regional editions of major magazines, and a variety of Internet advertising, including your own Web site. This media may, at first, appear to be unaffordable. But, regardless of the expense (which may be less than you think), when you consider how many people you can reach, it’s the smartest way you can spend your money. 

What you can’t afford to do is fritter away a limited ad budget on questionable media, like the dozens of ads you find in your mailbox every day, that are better suited for wrapping fish than they are for attracting new customers to your business. The old saw “You get what you pay for” is never truer.

Developing an Advertising Strategy and a Tactical Plan

You probably went into business to succeed — and that means you’ll do whatever it takes to reach this lofty goal . . . as long as it’s legal and within fiscal reason. But in order to succeed with your advertising — or with anything in life, actually — you need a plan of action. In this Developing an Advertising Strategy and a Tactical Plan , I help you come up with a plan that works for you.

Determining How Much You Can Afford to Spend

So, what dollar amount, or percentage of gross sales, should you invest in your advertising budget? The question is a very tough one. And although I can give you some guidelines, only you are able to answer it when it’s all said and done. After all, it’s your money.
A good place to start when you’re setting a budget is in examining your goals. If you want to become the Big Dog — that is, if your driving ambition is to elevate your business into an industry-leadership position and blow your competition away — then of course you need to spend a lot more money than if you’re satisfied with just getting by. In this blog, I make the assumption that you want to do much better than just getting by — you wouldn’t be advertising at all if you didn’t want your business to grow and prosper. But in order to see the kind of success you’re after, you need an ad budget.
Over half of new businesses fail within their first two years. This depressing statistic is probably due to a number of factors, but a lack of working capital (cash) is usually at the top of the list. Most businesses start out with great hopes and limited cash, and it’s the hand-to-mouth reality of a start-up that kills most of them. When people open new businesses, they often forget to set aside enough money for a large enough ad budget to get their name out there. You can invent a better mousetrap, but not having enough working capital to afford to tell the world about it is like trying to tow a boat with a rope.
To get an idea of what typical businesses spend on advertising, I asked several of my agency’s clients what percentage of gross sales they spend. Not a single one of them could give me a straight answer to my question. They had each used a different formula to arrive at their budget number, and they each planned their advertising expenditures, using different criteria.
Our agency has one retail client who spends as much as 10 percent of gross sales on advertising. Although this percentage may seem high, some businesses must spend that amount in order to compete, and I’ve worked for clients who spent even more. On the other hand, I’ve seen businesses spend 2 percent or less on advertising — and in the case of very small companies, some don’t spend even that much on a sustained basis. Most small businesses spend between 2 and 7 percent of their gross sales on advertising, though some allocate as much as 10 percent.
Percent of gross is a very helpful budgeting tool, but it can leave a start-up business with inadequate exposure. Start-ups often must budget a percentage of projected gross, overspending in the introduction of your business to build business to a profitable level.
You can use these figures as general guidelines to help you set your own advertising budget, but keep in mind that each business is unique. What works for one company may not work for another. When in doubt, follow this simple rule: Spend as much money on advertising as it takes to make and sustain an impact in the marketplace, but don’t spend so much that you run the risk of putting your business into financial jeopardy.
You can begin the process of setting a budget by trying to come up with some answers to the following questions:
  • How big is your business?
  • How much yearly income does your business generate?
  • What do you want to accomplish with your advertising, and how much will that cost?
  • What is your competition spending?
If you’re in a highly competitive business, such as cell phones, restaurants, clothing boutiques, or car sales and repairs, you need to step up to the plate with some serious bucks in order to hit a homerun in your marketplace. Your competition is spending their brains out, and you have to do the same. On the other hand, if your business enjoys a unique status in your market, if you provide merchandise or a service that people can’t find elsewhere, then you can get away with much lower spending.
If your budget is too limited to make an impact in the market on a daily or weekly basis, stash your cash until you’re having some special event or sale and then attack the media full-force. In advertising, you’re better off having a big voice once in a while than a weak voice every day.

Setting and Working within Your Advertising Budget

  •  Figuring out how much you can — and should — spend on advertising
  •  Buying ads where your potential customers look for them
  •  Making the most of your budget
Companies like Procter & Gamble, General Motors, and McDonald’s spend more on advertising each year than the average small to mid-size business could ever hope to gross in a lifetime. No one knows (and the companies aren’t telling) what their advertising budget to gross income ratios actually are, but you can bet they’re high. These companies have spent a king’s ransom to successfully position their products to be top-of-mind with the entire buying public — and it costs them a yearly fortune to maintain this branding of their products.

If one of these big company’s products begins to slip in overall sales, it throws $25 million in extra advertising funds at the problem without a second thought. The total amounts of their ad funds are simply astounding — for example, Coca-Cola spent $2.5 billion on advertising worldwide in 2005.

You, on the other hand, very likely look upon your advertising dollars as a seriously important personal investment — an investment that (shudder!) comes right off the bottom line and, therefore, is never a part of your hardearned take-home pay. For this reason, you need to do some careful planning as you decide what percentage of your gross sales you can realistically afford to spend for advertising. You don’t want to overdo it, but you can’t skimp too much either. As with many things in life, balance is what it’s all about. 

In this Setting and Working within Your Advertising Budget, you discover what some companies spend on their advertising so you can decide what you want to spend. You also take a look at how and where your competitors are advertising and why it’s crucial to know exactly who your target market is and how your business can appeal to it (if you don’t already!). I also give you tips on how you can get the most bang for your advertising buck by weighing the pros and cons of advertising in major or local newspapers; in national, regional, or specialized magazines; on radio; on broadcast or cable TV; and on the Internet.

Wieden and Kennedy

Dan Wieden and David Kennedy took advertising out of its traditional centers of the ad world (Madison Avenue in New York City., Chicago, and to some extent, Los Angeles) by setting up shop in Portland, Oregon. They’re listed on the top 100 people in advertising (for the last century, no less!). They’ve done great work for Microsoft, ESPN, and many other clients, but they’re still probably best known for revolutionizing the sneaker industry — or at least the advertising of it — by creating Nike’s “Just do it” campaign.

Bill Bernbach

Bill Bernbach was the Creative Director for Doyle, Dane, Bernbach during its heyday. Working with Helmut Krone as Art Director, Bernbach invented a new way to project a message to consumers, by introducing wonderful creativity and a kinder, gentler approach to advertising. The agency led the way with its fanciful Volkswagen ads from the 1960s, which supplied both entertainment and product information. Do you remember “Think small”? It was a huge shift in advertising communication and became the industry standard that lives to this day.
So memorable and trend-setting was that original Volkswagen advertising that when the New Beetle was introduced in the 1990s, the agency for Volkswagen of America, Arnold Communications of Boston, chose not to Dot-coms to dot-bombs in one easy lesson Whenever I think of Bill Bernbach’s very insightful quote, “Dullness won’t sell your product, but neither will irrelevant brilliance,” I’m reminded of the super-expensive commercials for various fledgling dot-com businesses that ran during the Super Bowl broadcast in January 2000.
Clearly, most of these businesses had never bothered to read Bill Bernbach, because their commercials simply reeked of “irrelevant brilliance.”
And most of the dot-com spots, purchased for as much as $1.5 million per 30 seconds, were so contrived, so devoid of a selling message (let alone a call to action), and so downright confusing that they wasted most, if not all, of their millions of ad bucks. This misuse of funds is also true of companies in other industries that choose to gamble the entire year’s ad budget on the Super Bowl commercials, but the 2000 dot-com debacle was the worst. The majority of these companies didn’t survive more than six months after their spots appeared — other than Pets.com, whose adorable sock-puppet spokesman starred in several Super Bowl commercials (before the company eventually went kaput).
Why weren’t these flashy ads successful? Because they not only forgot Bernbach’s rule, but they also ignored one of Ogilvy’s — namely, “We sell or else.” Their spots were so clever that they forgot to include a selling message that actually motivates someone to buy. Sadly, many even forgot to mention what service or product it was that they were selling. And, most important, they forgot to tell viewers why anyone should buy it.
These companies and their agencies got so lost in having a creative, good time on unlimited production budgets that they forgot why they were buying the incredibly expensive time on the most-watched show on television in the first place — they simply forgot to sell us something.
create a completely new campaign from the ground up, but rather to emulate the original concept. For example, the campaign for the New Beetle featured lots of white space (a Krone innovation that means just what it says — the ad wasn’t filled with color and copy from edge to edge), a small photo of the VW New Beetle in profile, and brief copy that read, “Zero to 60? Yes.” This kind of advertising is great stuff, and a compliment to the original ads created by Doyle, Dane, Bernbach over 40 years ago. In fact, Arnold Communications, when submitting its work for awards, still lists Krone and Bernbach as creative contributors.
Bill Bernbach, like David Ogilvy, was good for a pithy quote now and then, including the following: “Dullness won’t sell your product, but neither will irrelevant brilliance.”

David Ogilvy

The first book I ever read about the advertising business was Confessions of an Advertising Man, by David Ogilvy (recently reissued in paperback by Southbank Publishing). Ogilvy was an inspiration to me — and to thousands of other advertising professionals. He died in 1999 at the age of 88, yet he’s a true legend in the advertising world, even though the ads he made famous were created decades ago.
Ogilvy is also famous for succinct statements about how to create compelling, memorable ads. Here are just a few that I try to live by when writing ads for my clients:
  • “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar.”
  • “Never write an advertisement you wouldn’t want your own family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell lies to mine.” - “Every word in the copy must count.”
  • “We sell or else.”
  •  “Advertise what is unique.”
Born in England, David Ogilvy didn’t even get into the advertising business until he was 39 years old. He had tried everything from selling stoves door-todoor, to a brief tenure as a chef in Paris. He was even a member of the British Secret Service. Financially broke at the age of 39, he cofounded an advertising agency — Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather. And he made a list of five clients he wanted to land: General Foods, Bristol-Myers, Campbell’s Soup, Lever Brothers, and Shell Oil. Eleven years later, he had them all. Ogilvy preached the virtues of sales-driven copy. He also expected advertising copy to be expressed with clarity, relevance, and grace. He knew that the real purpose of advertising is to sell. His ads may have been gorgeous, but they were filled with unique product difference and sell — albeit with an emotional edge. He invented eccentric personalities to capture the reader’s attention, based on the idea that memorable faces help make memorable brands.
Ogilvy also said, when talking about creative types who worked for (or wanted to work for) his agency, “Every copywriter should start his career by spending two years in direct response.” What he meant is that the primary purpose of advertising is to sell.

Lessons from the Legends: Figuring Out Your Advertising Needs

Although your advertising may not come close to the greatest ads created by the top ad agencies (after all, that’s not your intent in the first place), you can still gather greatness from the best. The creative legends of the advertising business have a perceptive understanding of consumers (and how to motivate them). Because they understood consumers, they were able to produce advertising that was so effective that it remained memorable decades after the campaign’s end.
In the Figuring Out Your Advertising Needs, I describe some of the gurus of advertising whose work has taught me much of what I know — and can do the same for you.
A spectacularly ineffective advertising vehicle One of the other tenants in our office building — a small insurance company specializing in assigned-risk auto coverage (for customers whose driving records aren’t exactly stellar) — recently unveiled its latest, breakthrough advertising vehicle. And I do mean vehicle.
I came to work one morning and couldn’t miss it, parked out on the curb in all its glory. The company had pounded out the dents on a 1960s Volkswagen bus, spent $50 to have it freshly painted a sparkling bathtub white, and bolted a 4-by-8-foot, double-faced billboard to the roof to advertise its business. Because the old wreck needed brakes, our business neighbors quit driving it around town and parked the thing conspicuously in the parking lot in front of our building, much to the chagrin of the other tenants. The sign that sat atop this moveable beast, purportedly to tell the world about the company’s insurance business, included no less than 32 words (including sure thing and no driver refused) and an 11-digit phone number, all arranged helter-skelter in 6 different fonts and painted in 3 different colors.
The bus was a gigantic waste of advertising dollars. But the business owner probably thought, like so many small to mid-sized retailers and service businesses do, that he couldn’t afford “real” advertising. So he tried the VW bus routine instead. I don’t think I have to tell you to avoid this kind of mistake at all costs.

Poring over publicity

Technically, publicity isn’t really part of advertising, but good publicity can serve to advertise your business. Publicity is really about getting someone else to advertise your business. Basically, you’re calling attention to what you’re doing in a way that your newspaper may want to report on it, or a magazine may want to write a feature article about your business, or a TV show host or radio host may be so intrigued by something you’ve done that they talk about you on their shows. The two chapters in Defining and Positioning Your Message offer lots of great ideas and success stories on how some businesses have done this successfully.
Where your advertising appears is every bit as important as what message it contains — maybe even more so. Advertising is a numbers game: You want to spend as little money as possible, as effectively as possible, to reach as many people as possible, in order to make your phone and your cash register ring. Consider your many media options very carefully. You can waste your advertising dollars very easily by using the wrong media for your advertising goals.
Mass media advertising is affordable (turn to the chapters in Boosting Your Budget with Co-Op Programs for more information on costs). But so-called “affordable” advertising in the wrong media is a gigantic waste of your dollars and your time. No matter how affordable the media is, if it doesn’t bring customers through your door, you aren’t really saving money. On the contrary, you’re draining your limited budget without being the least-bit effective.

Ogling online ads

Last, but by no means least, is the newest ad medium — online — even though the Internet hardly seems “new”; still, it’s only been since the mid-’90s that companies have used the Web to advertise products, services, and businesses.
Online Advertising offers the pros and cons of online advertising on various Web sites (as well as how to develop your own), and it tells how to create various types of online ad formats, do e-mail advertising, and create your own blog. Investing in Internet Advertising picks up where Online Advertising leaves off and helps you with the financial side of online ads: hiring someone to help you create ads or your Web site and buying space on other sites.

Scrutinizing outdoor advertising

Outdoor advertising includes everything from billboards on highways to ads on bus kiosks, in subway cars, on taxis, or even on benches and other signage. As a $6 billion industry, it’s a small part of overall annual ad expenditures, but if you think it’s right for your business, Opting for Outdoor Ads tells how to choose the type of outdoor ad that can work best for you and how to design memorable advertising in this medium.

Musing upon direct mail

Direct mail is a $45 billion business, and it’s alive and well even with the growth of e-mail and other Internet advertising. Charitable organizations still send pitches for funds to continue their good works (like The Red Cross, The American Cancer Society, and Doctors Without Borders). Similarly, cultural institutions use direct mail to solicit donor support, which they need to supplement ticket prices from their audiences (think of your local theater company, public radio station, and even PBS). And direct mail includes the myriad catalogs that fill all of our mailboxes — from Land’s End to L.L. Bean to Victoria’s Secret, to J.Crew (to name just a few). Collateral Advertising and Direct Mail focuses on developing strong direct-mail messages that can stand out among the abundance in the mailbox.

Contemplating print

Print advertising encompasses both newspapers (daily and Sunday papers), which is a $49 billion business, and magazines, which is a $21 billion business. Newspapers are obviously a good choice if your business is regional and you’re targeting a broad consumer base; magazines are more-specifically tailored to different readers — for example, a subscriber to Glamour probably isn’t also subscribing to, say, Maxim, though the media kits of each provide the details on the number and demographics of the subscriber base. Using Print Ads offers insight on how to write and design eye-catching print ads, and Buying Ad Space in Print Media offers ideas for how to choose the right publication and negotiate a good rate for your ad.
Keep in mind, though, that many people who used to get information from newspapers and magazines now have the additional option of online subscriptions — to either those same publications or to alternatives that have never been printed on paper but are available only on the Internet. Online Advertising and Investing in Internet Advertising cover how to create and buy ad space in this new media

Rating TV

TV is a $68 billion business — and that includes the almost 2,000 broadcast stations plus the many cable and satellite TV stations. The growth in the number of stations has actually made it easier for advertisers, because TV programming is so much more targeted. For example, the audience for The History Channel is probably very different from, say, Lifetime or Oxygen or WE, the Women’s Entertainment channel.
Still, TV advertising is the most expensive medium (even with the tips offered in Demystifying TV Commercials on how to create TV commercials and keep down the costs!), so you should consider TV commercials only if you can afford them. TV is still a mass medium, even with the more-focused channels mentioned, and your ad budget may be better spent on a more narrowly focused media. But if you decide TV is for you, see Getting Your Ads on Television for guidance on how to find the right station and negotiate the best deal for your ad and your business

Regarding radio

Radio advertising is a $20 billion business — and it has expanded both because listeners can now tune in on the Internet and because of the development of satellite radio (Sirius and XM subscriber-based programming). But it’s also competing with MP3 devices, which means there may be fewer listeners to any given radio station or program.
But if your business appeals to consumers who’re likely to subscribe to this type of programming, or if you can reach them on broadcast radio during drive time or particular radio programs (especially those with celebrity hosts), then you should consider this medium. Radio provides guidance on developing memorable radio spots, and Purchasing Ad Time on the Radio offers information on buying radio time to maximize your reach — and your budget.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Getting to Know Your Media Options

Advertising comes in all shapes and sizes. And a big part of developing your ad plans and campaign is to decide which mediums are best suited to advertising your particular business. Following is a brief overview of your options, with details from Plunkett Research, Ltd. to give you a ballpark idea on how many billions of dollars are spent annually in each medium in the United States.

Making Advertising Work

Effective advertising sells a product or a service that fulfills all the promises made about it. On the other hand, effective advertising also sells inferior products or services, but only once!


So what makes advertising effective? Effective advertising is:
  • Creative: It delivers the advertising message in a fresh, new way.
  • Hard-hitting: Its headline, copy, or graphic element stops readers or listeners dead in their tracks.
  • Memorable: It ensures that the audience will remember your business when they think about the products and services you’re selling.
  • Clear: It presents its message in a concise, uncomplicated, easy-to-grasp manner.
  • Informative: It enlightens the audience about your business and products, while giving them important reasons to buy from you.
  •  Distinctive: It is unique and immediately recognizable as yours.
The well-established brands that most people use every day — brands like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, McDonald’s and Burger King, Budweiser and Miller, Bayer and Advil, Ford and Chevy, Tide and Cheer — live up to the promises made in their advertising. In fact, the products live up to the promise in such a dramatic fashion that those products have become a part of the everyday lives of millions of people. These products have been branded, which simply means that when you think of soft drinks, fast food, beer, pain relievers, cars, or laundry detergents, these brands come to mind. As surely as the cowboys of the Old West branded the haunches of their cattle, these products have been branded into your psyche — and the psyches of millions of other consumers.
When you begin to create advertising for your product or service, keep these suggestions in mind:
  • Don’t make promises you can’t live up to. Although your ad may draw more people to your product initially, you can’t retain these people as loyal customers in the long run if you make promises you can’t keep.
  • Identify the best features of whatever it is you’re selling and develop your advertising around these features. Think about how your product stands out from the competition, what sets it apart, and then focus on those attributes.
  • Try to create a memorable advertising message for your product. You want people to think of your store, your product, or your professional service whenever they’re in the market for such a thing.
If your message is creative, clear, and concise, if your product or service is something that can truly benefit people and live up to its hype, then you’re on the road to producing effective advertising.

If your advertising makes bold promises about your product, you may convince a lot of people to try it. But if those people buy your product and give it a try, and the product turns out to be less than you advertised it to be, you will most certainly never see those consumers again. Think about it: How many times have you responded to an advertising message for a new, improved, astounding product, only to be disappointed with the item after you tried it? You probably even felt like you’d been ripped off. If your advertising message leaves consumers with the same feeling, you simply won’t get anywhere.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Advertising: Mastering the Art of Promotion

In This Mastering the Art of Promotion
  • Being aware of the advertising around you (as if you could avoid it)
  • Putting the fundamentals of good advertising to work for you 
  • Taking a few lessons from the pros
Advertising is a $300 billion industry in the United States alone. Plunkett Research, Ltd. (the company that provided this figure) points out that the large numbers don’t stop there. In the United States, advertisers flood the following mediums in droves:
  • 1,749 broadcast TV stations (and that’s not including cable and satelliteTV outlets)
  • 13,599 radio stations
  • 2,250 daily and Sunday newspapers
And those figures don’t even take into consideration the thousands of magazines, direct mail, Web sites, blogs, outdoor advertising (billboards, bus shelters, and so on), or specialty or alternative advertising, which includes everything from airplane banners at the beach to tchotchkes, small items like tote bags, pens, and t-shirts that merchants and businesses give away to remind consumers to do business with them.

With all these choices of how to get your message out there, how do you decide what’s the best medium to reach the customers you’re looking for? And how can you develop an ad campaign that won’t get lost in the morass? You don’t have to hire an ad agency (though you can: Deciding Whether to Hire an Ad Agency offers guidance on how best to do this, and Ten Ways to Know It’s Time to Hire an Agency gives you ten ways to know whether you need outside help). But you can also do it yourself, and this book tells how.

You don’t have to hire an ad agency. But you can also do it yourself, and this blog tells how.

In this part, I fill you in on the basics of advertising — what’s effective and what isn’t. Then I give you a short course on all your advertising options —radio, TV (network and cable), magazines and newspapers, direct mail, outdoor, the Web, and more — and I show how you can put them to work for you. Finally, I end with stories about two legends of advertising as well as brief introductions of more recent ad giants, because if you focus on the best and figure out what they’ve done well, you can try to incorporate some of their genius into your own advertising — and come out ahead of the competition.

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