“Doctor” Phil Bernstein – Page 2 – Phil Bernstein's Advertising, Marketing, and Sales Training Blog

When Is It Okay to Stop Advertising?

The other day in a Midwest market, a store owner asked me, “How long will I need to advertise?”

It’s a common question. A lot of advertising people like to answer with a story about McDonald’s.

For one day, the story goes, McDonald’s pulled everything — radio, TV, print, you name it. They’d been relentlessly marketing their products for decades, and figured they’d earned the right to take the day off and save a few bucks.

The punch line, of course, is that store traffic count and sales dropped immediately. McDonald’s executives were so shaken that they resumed marketing the next day, and haven’t stopped since.

Disclosure time: as much as I like the story, I have no idea if it’s true, and have never been able to locate its source. If you can point me in the right direction, leave a comment below.

Because I’m not 100% sure it’s true, I tell a different story. It’s about my biggest client during my radio sales days. I trust this story because I was there.

The client was Paramount Equity Mortgage. The company had been running radio ads on 1190 KEX in Portland for more than three years when this took place. They’d been relentless, advertising every week of the year during that time. Although the offers changed as business conditions changed, the basics had been remarkably consistent.

For more than three years, they’d used the same spokesman in every commercial — Hayes Barnard. They’d used the same jingle. There’d always been a single one call to action — “Call 503-718-one thousand”. After three years of this, many KEX listeners could recite that number from memory if you woke them from a sound sleep.

But not everybody.

One day, Chris Brown, who ran our commercial traffic department, received a voice mail from a KEX radio listener. I’ve changed the listener’s name and number, but otherwise this is a verbatim transcript:

Good morning Chris, my name is Bob Johnson. This morning on my drive in, approximately 5:15am on 1190, I heard a commercial… I believe it was for Paramount Equity, it was a mortgage company advertising loans… mortgage loans. I was unable to write down the phone number and would certainly like to contact these people. I do not have a contact number. If you could get that number to me, my number is 503-555-1212. I’m very interested in the product and if it would work for me. Appreciate your help.”

I called the listener back and gave him Paramount’s number. I asked him if he was a regular KEX listener, and he said he’d been listening for years, tuned in almost every day, and was a member of the Mark & Dave Cult (our afternoon show listener club at the time.)

In the three years before he called the station. he must have heard Paramount’s commercials – and phone number – hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. He should have been able to recite that phone number in his sleep.

And yet, the day he finally decided to take action, he needed to be reminded one more time.

Not everyone forgets that quickly. A strong campaign will get into many consumers’ heads — Les Schwab and Fred Meyer and McDonald’s have a semi-permanent place in millions of mental hard drives.

But Les Schwab, Fred Meyer, and McDonald’s know that “semi” always comes before “permanent”. The day you stop advertising is the day that your customers begin to forget about you.

[reminder]Do you know the origin of the McDonald’s story? Got a story of your own?[/reminder]

What Are You Doing Friday Afternoon?

It was a Friday, about 10:15 in the morning. I was working on some auto dealer copy. At a nearby cubicle, a couple of my radio sales co-workers were talking.

For the purposes of this story, I’ll call them Greg and Bill.

Greg and Bill were discussing all the reasons they weren’t going to hit their budgets that month.

The economy was lousy.
The ratings were down.
Their account lists sucked — other AE’s had all the good accounts.
The competition was dropping its pants.

This conversation went on for about half an hour. At 10:45 I left the office and met with my auto dealer to get approval on the script. Then the dealer and I went out to lunch.

After lunch, I met with the owner of an HVAC company, presented a creative idea with a schedule on my station, and closed a $21,000 new direct sale.

I got back to the office around 3:00. Greg and Bill were gone — they’d left at noon to get an early start on the weekend.

This article is appearing a few days before Labor Day Weekend of 2018. When Friday afternoon rolls around, your office will look like a ghost town. Most of your coworkers will figure out a way to sneak out early.

(Many veterans will remember this sentence with fondness: “I’ve got to go pick up a tape!”)

So will your competitors across town.

That doesn’t mean you have to leave.

Here are some reasons to see if you can make an appointment or two this Friday afternoon:

Retailers will be open.
Auto dealerships will be open.
Medical practices will be open.
Restaurants will be open.

Most of your competitors will be long gone. Even the ones who stay will be reluctant to make sales calls.

There may be fewer fish in the pond, but you’ll have the pond to yourself.

If you sell on commission, and you sell something on Friday afternoon, you’ll be paid for it.

That money might make your Labor Day weekend just a little bit more fun.

What are you doing Friday afternoon?

Are You Underselling?

Are your clients investing enough to get results? If not, the fault may be with your proposals.

Radio and TV salespeople should ask for enough to get results — Photo by ivanmateev

When I prepare for a market visit, I like to ask managers and salespeople how much money it takes to generate measurable results on their station.

The answer I get varies depending on market size, rates and ratings, but there’s usually a consensus among the staff on the minimum monthly spend necessary to move the needle.

And often, there are advertisers spending well below that number.

Recently I accompanied an AE to a “save” appointment. The client was threatening to cancel because he felt his advertising wasn’t working. It was my job to come up with a way to save the business.

“What’s the minimum an advertiser needs to spend on your station to see a return?” I asked the AE.

“$3000 a month, at least,” she said.

“How much is this guy spending?”

A look of embarrassment crossed her face. “$1950.”

“Why are you letting him do that if you know it won’t work?”

She replied, “He told me that’s all he had in his budget.”

This AE is not alone. Every time I go out on the road, I encounter at least a few clients who have big expectations for tiny budgets. They are destined to be disappointed.

When a client underspends on a campaign, there are three losers:

The advertiser, who won’t get the return they expected.
Your station, who now has a customer telling their associates: “I tried [TV or radio] and it didn’t work.”
The salesperson, who loses confidence in the power of the medium.

If you’re a sales manager, this is a great subject for a sales meeting.

Before your next meeting, ask your sellers to email you a number – the minimum monthly dollar amount they think is necessary to get results on your station or media platform.

Compile the responses, lead a discussion on what it takes to generate results, and agree on a range.

When the meeting ends, ask your AE’s to go back to their desks and pull out their last ten direct proposals. How many of them were above the number?

You – and they – may not like the answer. Many will have to admit they’re not asking for enough to get the job done.

In my book Breakthrough Prospecting, I recommend setting an “Evangelista Number” – a minimum dollar amount for every proposal that goes out the door.

The Evangelista Number may vary for each AE depending on experience level and market conditions. But it should always be above the minimum necessary to get results.

As marketing professionals, it’s our job to educate advertisers on the right way to do things. That includes investing enough money to get the job done.

[reminder preface=” “]Confession time: As a radio sales rookie, I once accepted an order for $20. What’s the smallest order you ever took?[/reminder]

Is Jargon Killing Your Sales?

Do you use jargon in your sales presentations? Industry terms that, while understood by your colleagues, mean nothing to your customers? Jargon can scare your prospects away without your even knowing it.

Plain talk makes sales. Fancy talk makes you sound lame. – Jeffrey Gitomer

I once watched a TV salesperson present some online marketing ideas to the owner of an insurance agency. One of the items in the proposal was labeled “PPC”, and the AE referred to “PPC” several times during his remarks.

Finally, the exasperated client raised his hand to stop the presentation and said, “What the heck is PPC?'”

Only then did the rep explain that it stood for “Pay Per Click” — the text ads on Google (advertisers only pay Google when someone clicks on the ad).

We were lucky our prospect asked. In many cases, customers are afraid to speak up because they don’t want to look foolish. The result can be a lost sale — people won’t buy what they don’t understand.

[shareable]If they don’t understand it, they won’t buy it.[/shareable]

It’s time to eliminate jargon from your vocabulary. Your “inside” expressions — the ones you use every day with co-workers and advertising agencies — don’t belong in the sales conversations you have with your direct clients.

Here are some terms your co-workers understand but your customers may not:

Demo — the furniture store owner doesn’t have a demo. She has customers.
DMA — the PI attorney doesn’t know what your DMA is, and doesn’t care. He might be interested in how far your signal goes, or what counties you’re carried in.
“8a-10a” — the real estate agent you’re calling on doesn’t get to the office at 8a. She arrives at 8am, or 8 in the morning.
OTT — the newest addition to the industry gobbledygook list. The auto body shop owner has no idea what “OTT” is. He’s never heard of “over the top media”. But he’s got a millennial daughter who watches Hulu on her phone every night.
SEO — the insurance broker has no idea what “SEO” is, but he wants to show up higher when people are searching online.
PPC or SEM — same as the above. Talk about the text ads people click on when they go to Google.

Sales expert Jill Konrath summed it up this way:

“Our goal should always be to ensure clear communications. That means we need to speak like we’re talking to normal human beings. Sometimes that’s harder than it sounds. But, by keeping things simple, we all benefit.”

Whether you’re talking to customers online, on paper or in person, ditch the jargon. Your sales numbers will be glad you did.

A Strong Model For a Recruitment Campaign

“If I advertise, I won’t be able to handle the business. I can’t find employees!”

Smart salespeople handle this objection by turning the conversation to recruitment advertising. If the client goes for it, how do you structure the campaign?

The strongest campaigns use the “tradigital” strategy Tom Ray recommends in his book, Branding Is OUT, Results Are IN: Lessons For The LOCAL Advertiser.

I recently encountered a very good recruiting campaign in a Southeast market.

Hiller Plumbing, Heating, Cooling and Electrical is a major force in Tennessee and Alabama. Like many in the industry, they are constantly in need of employees. They use a “tradigital” strategy to get them.

The traditional portion includes television (note: it’s possible they use other media as well). Here’s the TV commercial, which ran recently in the local morning news:

What can you learn — and borrow — from this?

They use an custom web address. Interested viewers are sent to HillerIsHiring.com. The URL reinforces the core message, and is easy to remember. In addition to TV, the URL is simple enough to work on radio, a billboard, or a transit sign. You can deploy this technique, too: go to GoDaddy and buy “[name of your client] Is Hiring dot com.”
Hiller doesn’t make the mistake of sending people to their home page. HillerIsHiring.com redirects to a custom landing page that’s about one thing, and one thing only: getting a job at Hiller. If your media company builds landing pages, this is a digital revenue opportunity for you. If not, recommend that the client build a page and host it on their site.
Take a good look at the landing page at HillerIsHiring.com, It’s very simple and clean. The page doesn’t discuss anything other than job opportunities. There are three easy-to-understand CTA (call-to-action) buttons. “AVAILABLE OPPORTUNITIES” and “STOP BY AN OPEN HOUSE TODAY” are near the top, with one final request for action – “APPLY TODAY” – at the very bottom. It’s a good model to use when you build one for a local client.
They use branding elements, such as the jingle, from their “regular” advertising. Thousands of people who see the ad might not be candidates for employment…but they could turn into customers. Consistency helps the recruitment campaign reinforce the company’s selling message.

If a prospect can’t handle any more business, make recruitment part of the conversation. It can bring new clients on board, and help keep existing advertisers on the air.