Category: Advertising

Does Relentless Advertising Work?

One answer to this question comes from a study conducted a few years ago by the Stanford University School of Medicine and Packard Children’s Hospital.

child and fast food -- result of relentless advertising
Photo by Andrey Armyagov/dpc

According to AdAge.com, kids 3 to 5 years old were fed two sets of identical foods — some in McDonald’s wrappers and some wrapped in plain paper.

They overwhelmingly preferred the stuff when it came with a Mickey-D’s logo.

“Each child was given chicken nuggets, a hamburger and french fries from McDonald’s, and baby carrots and milk from the grocery store… With one exception, significantly more children said the McDonald’s-labeled product tasted better.”

McDonald’s spends an enormous amount of money to advertise to children, and apparently they have purchased brand loyalty beginning at a very early age. If you’ve ever driven past a McDonald’s at lunchtime with a car full of kids, you’ve seen brand loyalty translate into sales. And although they’ve hit some bumps in the road recently, they’ve got a 60-year track record of sales dominance — without question, they belong in the advertising training textbook.

McDonald’s has enough money to be seen and heard just about everywhere; the rest of us have to be more selective in choosing market segments and media opportunities we can afford to dominate. But even without a huge marketing budget, you can still follow the basic principles that have kept McDonald’s at the top of their category:

1. Have a consistent theme and spokesperson — the Golden Arches logo has been there forever, and Ronald McDonald has been a significant part of the marketing effort for decades.

2. Establish a long-term plan, and stick with it. The most successful markets map out a year at a time, and they don’t cancel their ads after a bad weekend.

3. Make an offer. A small portion of McDonald’s advertising is for image, but most of it gives the target consumer a specific benefit — a coupon, a new product, a movie tie-in — for doing business with them today.

[bctt tweet=”The basic techniques for generating action haven’t changed. Start early, keep going.”]

It takes careful planning, patience, and money to establish a dominant position in your market. Attention spans are shorter than they’ve ever been.

But the basic techniques for gaining the consumer’s attention, interest, desire, and action haven’t changed. Start early, keep going.

[reminder]

When Should You Change Your Ad Campaign? Here’s How to Tell

The medical practice director was bored with her ad campaign, and wanted to start something new.

radio advertising sales training tip: leave it alone if it works
photo by Karin & Uwe Annas/dpc

She told me she had stumbled onto an ad for a particular procedure that worked better than anything else she had ever tried. Her television station salesperson measured click-throughs from the station website to the clinic’s site. The practice director measured response response by phone traffic, appointments, and revenue.

By any measure, this ad pulled better than anything else she’d ever run. She’d been running it steadily for the past three months.

I asked her if there’d been any drop-off in calls, appointments, or patient count. No, she said — response and sales were all as strong as they’d ever been. She was just “feeling like it was time to change it up.”

“Leave it alone,” I said. “Your patients will tell you when it’s time to change — when they stop coming in.”

Today’s Advertising Sales Tip:
Clients Will Get Bored Long Before The Public Will

The advertiser will be watching or listening closer than anyone in the general public — it’s their business, their campaign, their money.

The public? They’re doing this:

radio sellers: let it run
photo by Vladimir Jovanovic/dpc

 

[bctt tweet=”Advertising Reality 101 for Salespeople: The target isn’t paying attention.”]

Advertisers will get bored much faster than the target. The best advice you can give your clients is to leave the campaign alone as long as it’s working.

A ringing cash register is never boring.

How to Say No to Blah: Can It Pass The “So What” Test?

Timing is a funny thing. The other day I read the Miles & Co What Are You Bragging About? blog post, in which Lynn Peisker finds a hotel chain’s chest-thumping less than compelling. Peisker asks this question:

Does your messaging truly reflect your above-and-beyond-brand of Shareworthy Service, or are you promising what every customer simply expects?

radio advertising sales tip: get rid of the blah
photo by chrisdorney/dpc

The very next day I received an email from a television advertising salesperson on the West Coast. She was looking for a creative idea for a roofing company. She had asked the client what made his roofing company different, and got this answer back:

“We will complete the job to the customer’s satisfaction. We are here before, during and after the job.”

That’s the company’s unique selling proposition? They’ll complete the roofing job to a customer’s satisfaction? That’s an awfully small hook to hang their hat on.

Looking for something more, I went to the company’s website, where I learned that they are “Roofing Experts”.

Blah.

Blah.

Blah.

.
Customers expect a job done to their satisfaction. They expect a the people who work for a roofing company to be roofing experts. Any of their competitors can make exactly the same claim.

Advertising Sales Tip: Say NO to Blah

If you are an advertising salesperson tasked with coming up with a strong campaign, you have a responsibility to say NO to blah. need to dig for something more.

What else can your client talk about? Do they offer a guarantee that’s better than anyone else in town? Offer a product, or installation technique, that’s unique to the area — and better than the alternatives?

What does your client do that nobody else does? What can they offer that nobody else can? Find the answer, and you’ve got your campaign.

[reminder]What’s the most interesting claim you’ve ever been able to put into an ad?[/reminder]

Can You Describe Yourself In Three Words or Less?

How do you want your customers to describe you? Can you give them an easy, short phrase to remember?

Re-reading Scott Ginsberg’s How To Be That Guy recently, I happened upon this gem:

PICTURE THIS: you’re sitting in the CNN Green Room, ready to be interviewed about your cool new idea, company, or product. After giving the producer the correct spelling of your full name, she asks you, “Oh, and one last thing before you go on the air in five minutes: what two or three words do you want written underneath your name?”

radio advertising sales tip: two or three words
Photo by mishaabesadze/dpc

Ginsberg is known as “The Nametag Guy” (his web domain is HelloMyNameIsScott.com).  How To Be That Guy, which came out in 2006, is a quick read with a lot of actionable tips on how to make yourself more memorable.

The “two-or-three-word” exercise is a valuable reality check. You might have a multi-page web site or brochure. You might have a complex and sophisticated integrated media campaign going. But when one of your customers mentions you to a friend, relative, or co-worker, the description may only be a few words.

Your assignment this week is to boil your selling proposition down to its essence —  describe the value you provide in three words or less.

[reminder]I’m Phil Bernstein, Attention Rental Expert. Who are you?[/reminder]

How to Be The Expert: Become Known For What You Know

Here’s how: learn something valuable that your colleagues and competitors don’t know.

sales tip: become a radio advertising expert
photo by waldemarus/dpc

 

Here’s one example:

Every state has consumer protection laws designed to shield the public from deceptive advertisers. Many small business owners don’t know the laws, and can’t afford to pay a lawyer to keep them on the right side of the law. During my radio advertising sales days, I became that expert.

One day, I saved a client several thousand dollars with that kind of knowledge. He was the General Manager of a local auto dealership. He had worked for a long time in the Portland car business, moved to California for several years, and recently returned to Oregon.

He emailed me  because he was planning to launch a new used-car promotion. He had a selection of pre-owned vehicles priced at half their original MSRP, and wanted to feature them in his radio advertising.

What he didn’t know is that while he’d been in California, the state of Oregon had made it illegal to compare a used vehicle’s price to the MSRP in an ad. The official commentary accompanying that section of the law (technically an Administrative Rule) explained that MSRP is a term reserved strictly for new vehicles. Because so many factors (mileage, wear and tear, accidents, etc) affect the price of a used car, the revised law prohibited using an MSRP in any way when referring to anything pre-owned.

I knew this because a little more than a year before, I’d been the only Portland broadcast rep to drive to Salem for a seminar on the new laws. So I was able to warn my client away from a strategy that would have earned him a substantial fine from the state.

My automotive clients knew I’d taken the time to learn the rules, that I had copies of all the relevant consumer protection laws, and that I checked with my contacts at the Oregon Department of Justice if I wasn’t sure of something.

They also knew that my competitors hadn’t gone to the seminar (I’d been known to bring that up in conversation), and didn’t know the law as well as I did. So I got phone calls, and business, from advertisers who might otherwise take their money to another station.

These days, I train advertising salespeople to do their jobs more effectively, and automotive remains a huge advertising category. In every state I travel to, there’s a crying need for someone who knows the consumer protection laws and can advise their clients on how to keep their marketing legal. It’s rare that I ever see anyone try to fill that need.

Can you be that expert at your radio or television station?

[reminder]What do you know that your competitors don’t? Where can you be the “go-to” expert?[/reminder]