Category: Advertising

How an Excellent Promotion Idea Bombed, and What I Learned

Whose fault is it when you sell a great promotion idea and the client screws it up?

Radio sales tip: it's your responsibility
Photo by jstaley4011/dpc

My friend Rod Schwartz took issue when I said this on a recent post:

“If you put together a program that drives traffic to your client’s website, and that traffic never turns into money, you have failed. Don’t just shrug your shoulders and blame the advertiser. You are an Account Executive. Your job is to execute. If the campaign fails and the client cancels, it’s on you.”

Rod’s reply:

Is it also on the AE if his radio or TV ads bring traffic to the store, but the traffic never turns into money because: a) the store doesn’t have the merchandise;
b) store employees aren’t doing their job;
c) anything else that isn’t directly under the AE’s control causes the prospect to take his money elsewhere?

Of course not.

The AE’s job is to execute the actions for which he is directly responsible. Holding him accountable for the client’s failure (to convert traffic into sales, or whatever), when he hasn’t been given the authority or resources to effect the necessary changes, seems a bit much. Of course a conscientious AE is going to call attention to problems he spots and suggest solutions, but in the end, it’s on the advertiser.

I believe that the salesperson needs to be actively looking for ways that things can go wrong, and taking pro-active steps to make sure those issues are dealt with before the campaign hits the air.

Here’s a story of a time that I failed to do that.

In 2006 I was a  salesperson for Clear Channel Radio (now iHeart Media) in Portland, Oregon. I stumbled onto a great summer auto dealer promotion idea in a newsletter, and took it to one of my biggest clients, Beaverton Mitsubishi.

The idea: on a designated weekend, everyone who takes a test drive gets a free half-gallon of ice cream.

The logic: many buyers — especially used car buyers — spend an afternoon on Auto Row, going from dealership to dealership test driving the cars. It’s frustrating to spend significant time with a customer only to have that customer wave and head for the lot across the street. Give them a carton of ice cream, and they have to go home and put it in the freezer. Your lot is the last one they visit for the day.

The store GM loved it and we scheduled the promotion for a weekend in July. I told the general manager to tell the salespeople to give everyone the ice cream after a test drive, whether they asked for it or not.

This wasn’t really a traffic-driving promotion — even though we ran radio ads, I wasn’t convinced a lot of people would make a special trip to Beaverton Mitsubishi just to get some ice cream. The aim was to change the behavior of every customer who took a test drive, not just those who responded to the radio.

The GM promised he’d let his sales managers know, and they’d tell the salespeople. That sounded fine to me.

Big mistake.

I found a company to rent us a freezer and had it delivered to the dealership. The GM was supposed to buy the ice cream, but a couple of days before the event he asked me to do it because he “didn’t have time.”

Warning sign. I missed it.

I picked up 25 half gallons of ice cream, brought them to the store and stocked the freezer. I showed them to the GM and told him to call my cell phone if he ran low and I’d pick up some more.

The weekend came and went. No calls from the store. On Monday I went back to the store, and there were 20 half-gallons of ice cream still in the freezer. The manager told me that the promotion had bombed.

It turned out that the managers hadn’t really explained the concept to the salespeople. Some of them had no idea why there was a freezer in the back office, and the ones who knew about the promotion thought they were only supposed to give the ice cream to people who mentioned the ad.

Whose responsibility was that? It was mine. Looking back on it, what were the odds that an auto dealership manager was really going to take the time to explain a radio promotion to his salespeople? Slim, at best.

I could have shown up at a dealership sales meeting, played the commercial for everyone, told them exactly what to do, and explained how they would benefit. I could have shown up on Saturday morning, taken a few minutes to talk with the salespeople, made sure they remembered that this was the weekend of the big ice cream promotion, and gotten them enthusiastic about it.

I didn’t. The GM had told me he would let everyone know, and that sounded good to me. One less thing for me to worry about.

It would have been easy to blame the store for not executing the promotion properly. But I was the Account Executive. Responsibility for execution was mine. 

 NINE YEARS LATER

Beaverton Mitsubishi is long gone, but I still drive by the lot on Canyon Road every now and then. Each time I do, I think about the ice cream promotion, and I wince.

Next week I’ll be in the Midwest, and one of my meetings is with the owner of a chain of weight loss clinics. The advertising drives people to their website, where they are supposed to sign up for a consultation. I looked at the site, and found that it takes several unnecessary clicks to get to the signup page, and once I got there the instructions left me confused. People who are confused often do nothing. The website doesn’t pass The Mom Test.

I could just shrug and say, “The TV is doing its job — it’s getting people to the site. It’s not my fault that the site is screwed up.” But I know that’s a cop-out. Next week I’m going to pull the site up on my laptop, show the client exactly where her prospects are getting lost, and tell her what changes she needs to make before her ads go back on the air.

The success of the campaign is our responsibility.

THREE WAYS TO APPLY THIS TO YOUR BUSINESS NOW

1. Spend a few minutes reviewing the upcoming campaigns you’ve sold. Ask what has to happen to make each campaign successful. Is the product in the store? Do the front-line employees know about the promotion? Can the advertiser’s website pass The Mom Test?

2. Begin including a “To Do” list with each presentation. Give the client a list of tasks that must be performed. Agree, in writing, on who will perform each task. Follow up to make sure everything gets done.

3. Start a discussion with your peers. Share this on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

 

[reminder]Agree with me? Want to argue?[/reminder]

How to Reach “The Right People” With Your Advertising

When you work on a marketing campaign, how can you make sure you’re targeting “the right people” with your message – the people who are most likely to do business with you?

Radio advertising sales tip: television reaches the right people, too.
Photo by creative soul/dpc

Advertising salespeople have access to a variety of research tools to make some educated decisions about the kind of people who are listening to, reading, watching, or logging onto their media. And a lot of time, effort and money are spent in trying to pick the vehicle that reaches The Right People.

Here’s a tip:  the problem with this approach is that nobody has an exclusive on The Right People.

The Right People are watching television — a whole lot of television. They are on the Internet — sometimes on a laptop, often on a mobile devise. They listen to the radio. They see billboards. Some still read the newspaper on paper.

Any advertising medium you decide to use will reach some of your target customers, and will miss others.

Further complicating the picture is the fact that very few people make decisions by themselves. People talk to each other and influence each other’s choices. The end user may or may not be the person who decides what to buy.

In large companies, office equipment may be used primarily by administrative personnel. But the sales order may be issued by someone in the purchasing department. And orders over a certain size may need the blessing of the controller or even the CEO. All of those people may even seek advice from colleagues at other companies. When you’re marketing office equipment, what target do you choose?

A few years ago, a Wall Street Journal article revealed how the Phi Beta Kappa college honor society solicits members:

You get a letter during junior or senior year, with congratulations and a request to pay an initiation fee (generally $50 to $90). If you don’t respond, some chapters send a follow-up letter to your parents.”

Who makes the decision to enroll in Phi Beta Kappa – the student or the parents? 

In 2013, the Obama Administration needed to convince adults under 35– the so-called “Young Invincibles” — to buy health insurance. They spent some time and effort targeting them directly, but they also went after their moms.

It might seem counterintuitive that adults, many of whom have left home and started their own families, would be convinced by their aging parents to buy health insurance. But research shows that today’s 20 and 30-somethings — sometimes referred to as “millennials” — are closer to their parents than were adults from earlier generations and still rely on them for important career and other decisions…

“They have just recently left their parents to go to college, they’ve just kind of left the nest, but they’re still very close to their parents and specifically moms,” Brown said. And, even more importantly, “many of these young people are still in some part financially dependent on their parents. That’s when especially the mom enters these decisions.”

You can spend a lot of time agonizing over the question. The beauty and the curse of marketing is that there’s no one right answer. The odds are pretty good that whatever media choice you make (“Elizabeth Warren for President” on  Fox News being a possible exception), you’ll reach a significant number of The Right People, and you’ll miss some others.

Make sure that the people you do reach hear your message often – the more often you talk to someone, the better the chance he’ll give you a call when he has a need.

Then, using the time you saved by not agonizing over your media choice, agonize over your message. Make sure that your story matters to your prospects, that you tell it well, and that you tell it often.

[reminder]How do you decide who The Right People are for your business?[/reminder]

Why Isn’t Your Advertising Working? (Don’t Blame The Media)

Some reasons to ponder come courtesy of a Roy Williams’ Monday Morning Memo essay, from way back in 2008. Read the whole thing here. Every point he makes is still valid today. Here are a couple:

 2. reputation.
Consider the people who don’t buy from you. Are they buying elsewhere because they haven’t heard about your company, or is it because they have? I’ve never met a business owner willing to believe their company had a bad reputation…
 

7. media myths.
Are you anxious to find a more effective media? If so, you’ve got really bad ads. I’ve never seen a company fail because they were using the wrong media or reaching the wrong people. But I’ve seen thousands fail because they were saying the wrong things. A powerful message will produce results in any media.

Radio Advertising Sales Tip: Television Works!
Photo by Aurelio/dpc

In my advertising sales/consulting practice, I meet with about 200 local businesses each year.

  • They hear from television advertising salespeople, telling them to get out of radio because radio doesn’t work.
  • They hear from radio advertising salespeople, telling them to get out of newspaper because newspaper doesn’t work.
  • They hear from social media “experts” telling them to get out of radio, newspaper and television because traditional media doesn’t work.

Here’s the dirty little secret I pass along to them:

There are plenty of potential customers who watch television, listen to the radio, read the newspaper, and consume media online every single day. When I hear that the advertising isn’t working, it’s generally one (or more) of three problems:

1. They didn’t get the message right. You’ve got to tell a story your audience cares about, and give them a good reason to do business with you.

2. They aren’t delivering the message often enough, or consistently enough. Customers will buy when they’re ready and not a moment before. You need to keep reminding them.

3. They don’t deliver on the promises their advertising makes, and the audience doesn’t believe them.

 

If you tackle the issues above, you’ll get the advertising to work. If you don’t, switching media isn’t going to help.

[reminder]

 

 

Are You Making This Embarrassing Mistake With LinkedIn?

Ani DiFranco once said that every tool is a weapon if you hold it right. LinkedIn can be a very powerful sales weapon — but it will backfire if you don’t use it correctly.

the wrong way to use a radio advertising sales tool
Photo by apops/dpc

LinkedIn has become a powerful tool for researching and making contact with new prospects. But like any other tool, there’s a right way and a wrong way to use it. I’ve received a couple of egregious “wrong way” examples in the past couple of weeks.

Both came from members of LinkedIn Groups I’m also part of. The writers have figured out that being part of these groups gives them the ability to contact complete strangers who are also members. They have not figured out how to use that ability.

The first one started like this:

Hi Doctor

Hope you’re doing well.

I wanted to take a few minutes from you today to mention how “hosted” video conferencing is changing real time collaboration. Although most of us know what video conferencing is, the only difference here is the word “Hosted”. Like every technology, now video conferencing is available on demand on cloud.

Here is a whitepaper that will tell you why this technology is spreading like a wildfire.

She wanted to “take a few minutes from me today”, but she offered no reason to give her those precious minutes. It would have been helpful if she’d “taken” a few minutes of her own to learn something about me before sending the message out.

The other one went like this:

Hi,

I saw your profile and felt you might fit the profile of what we look for in our company (Elite Sales experience to the SME/Enterprise Space)

Can you please review this YouTube video of our company and what we offer, and then give me your feedback on interest level?

No, I can’t. Or, more accurately, I can, but I won’t.

Any time you attempt to communicate — on the phone, in an email, or a LinkedIn message — with a client or prospect, you are in the “attention-rental” business. You offer information to the recipient, who “pays” for that information with a very scarce resource: his or her attention.

You must offer a compelling reason for your target to give you that attention. It starts with giving some indication that you know something about them.

I suspect that the folks who sent me those messages were attracted by the ability to blast out hundreds of them with the click of a button. It’s fast, it’s easy, and requires very little thought.

It’s also spam, and they’re running the risk of having their LinkedIn accounts suspended.

With great power there must also come great responsibility. — Spiderman’s Uncle Ben

Membership in a LinkedIn Group gives you the ability to find common ground with complete strangers and build relationships with them. But it’s only an effective weapon if you hold it right.

 

How to Judge Super Bowl Advertising: Follow The Money

Let me tell you why I am not a fan of Super Bowl advertising… it sends the wrong message to our LOCAL advertisers. – Tom Ray, Jim Doyle & Associates

how to judge Super Bowl television advertising
Photo by Nomad_Soul.DPC

As the Super Bowl approaches, the advertising critics are out in force. Most of them will miss the point. When you’re deciding whether the ad you just saw is “good” or “bad”, consider the case of Salesgenie.

In 2007, Salesgenie, a sales-lead-by-subscription service, ran a commercial that was disliked by the vast majority of the media’s judges. Bob Garfield of Advertising Age called it “monumentally brainless and amateurish.” The commercial finished dead last in USA Today’s Ad Meter.

It lives on in cyberspace — enjoy it courtesy of YouTube, and then tell me if it’s a good commercial or a bad commercial:

A few days after the game, USA Today had this to report:

•Salesgenie.com. The sales-lead website generated more than 10,000 new customer subscriptions by late Monday, far more than the 700 it said it needed to break even on its ad cost. “Our ad wasn’t supposed to be funny or clever,” InfoUSA CEO Vin Gupta says. “It was supposed to bring in subscribers, and it’s been successful beyond our wildest dreams. We’re already working on next year’s ad.”

They needed 700 subscriptions to break even on the ad, and they got 10,000. This would seem to be a very nice ROI.

If you were to accuse Gupta and the others involved in producing the commercial of being obnoxious, offensive human beings, you’d get no argument from this blog. But the commercial is an awfully impressive piece of direct-response advertising.

Salesgenie chose a specific target — lazy male salespeople — identified what they really wanted, presented their product as a way for those salespeople to get what they really wanted, and then gave them a specific action to take. The company cheerfully ignored all of the out-of-the-target people who didn’t like the ad, and took their money to the bank.

As Tom Ray points out, Super Bowl advertising often causes otherwise-intelligent local businesspeople to judge their own advertising using the wrong criteria.

If the ad works, it’s a great ad – no matter how many rules are broken or how bad it may look, smell or taste. If the ad is not working, it is wretchedly bad – no matter how clever the production.” — Don Fitzgibbons, the Guru of Ads

 

Most of the Super Bowl television advertisers have a product or service to sell. The commercial must somehow advance the sales process to be effective. As you watch the advertising this Sunday, ask yourself what each advertiser is trying to accomplish.

  • What do they want the audience to do  as a result of seeing the commercial?
  • Did the commercial cause the audience to do it?

If it did, the commercial worked, and it’s a good ad. If not, it’s a bad one. Salesgenie wasn’t counting USA Today Ad Meter votes — they were counting subscriptions. Like it or not, there were more than 10,000 reasons to say that the ad worked. 

If you are a local radio or television advertising salesperson, or someone who advertises on local radio or TV, don’t let the Super Bowl media judges take your eyes off the prize. Artistic merit doesn’t matter — businesses advertise because they have something to sell.

Follow the money. The prize that counts is awarded in dollars.

[reminder]What’s the best Super Bowl television commercial you’ve ever seen — and why?[/reminder]

 

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