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.

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.

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

In this 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.

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.