Category: Branding

How to Handle a Bad Month

Ed Ridgway is a marketing consultant to the dental industry. Based in Pennsylvania, Ridgway consults with dental practices all over the country. He also publishes a blog called The Dental Marketer.

June was a rough month for many dentists. Some reacted by scaling back their marketing, and others stuck with the plan they had in place. Ridgway recently dealt with the issue on his blog. Although he is specifically addressing dentists, his advice applies to just about anyone reading this newsletter.

The efficient marketer realizes that ROI success and failure is measured over years, not just a month at a time. Your long term efforts are rewarded by an established position in the mind of the consumer. People still need dentistry, even if some are postponing purely cosmetic procedures. Don’t be the office that disappears. Be the practice that’s been around forever – the one everyone knows. You do that with consistency.

The dental practices who maintained or increased their marketing after the tough month of June rebounded with a strong July. This illustrates the wisdom of long-term planning, and confirms the efficiency of sticking to a plan. Yes we need to track, evaluate and adapt – and we don’t throw good money after bad being stubborn. But a good plan remains a good plan, and a bad month doesn’t change that.

You can read the complete post here.

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Sarah Palin — Premature Product Launch?

Years ago I was involved in the Portland launch of a mobile phone company called VoiceStream Wireless (now T-Mobile). The company was determined to make a huge splash.

They opened a bunch of stores… spent an enormous amount of money on radio, TV, print, and transit advertising… rented Pioneer Square in downtown Portland for a launch party. It was beautifully orchestrated. Thousands of people bought their phones and signed up for service during the first week.

Only problem was, they didn’t have any near enough towers in place, so the phones didn’t work very well. A huge percentage of their early customers returned their phones and cancelled the service.

It took VoiceStream a long time to recover.

I’m reminded of this as more details emerge about Sarah Palin. Daughter’s pregnancy, husband’s (22 year old) drunk driving conviction, and other stories that are moving the discussion away from whether the McCain-Palin ticket is better than Obama-Biden.

Whether any of these details affect her ability to perform as VP or President is irrelevant now. What’s relevant is that the McCain camp appears unprepared to deal with their emergence.

The Republicans appear to have rushed the product launch without having all of their cell towers in place. The damage to their brand may take four years to repair.

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Request your free copy of my white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call me at 503-323-6553.

Sarah Palin as Marketing Strategy

A reader of yesterday’s post about Sarah Palin criticized the choice as “a slimy, deliberate attempt to pander to Hillary supporters.” It’s a thought that deserves its own discussion — so here goes.

I’m inclined to set aside “slimy” — this is politics, and unless money changed hands or sexual favors were granted, this doesn’t show up on the slime-o-meter. “Deliberate” isn’t a bad thing: “inadvertent” would be a much bigger problem. So let’s focus on “pander to Hillary supporters.”

A presidential campaign is one big pander festival (pandermonium?) — an extended sales call on millions of prospects. So does this choice move McCain closer to a sale or farther away?

A good salesperson needs to skip over the prospects who would never buy, and focus on the ones who might. Hardcore Obama supporters won’t vote for McCain no matter who he chooses, so they can be safely ignored.

In this election, there are two big group of folks who can still be persuaded:

1. Many Hillary supporters are available for pandering, and now have some serious thinking to do. Palin may oppose everything Hillary stands for, but she’s a working mother; for those who have long dreamed of a female president, she represents perhaps the quickest path to the goal. If Obama wins, it may be eight years before a Democratic woman next has a legitimate shot at the office. By contrast, the McCain will be 72 on Inauguration Day.

2. Hardcore right-wingers who don’t like McCain, and might have stayed home in November. Palin’s an anti-abortion, NRA member who supports oil drilling. Yesterday, Portland conservative talk show host Lars Larson announced that because of Palin’s selection, he’s climbing aboard the McCain bandwagon. He’s not alone.

There’s also some evidence that the Democrats haven’t figured out how to deal with Palin yet — after some Obama aides blasted the selection, Obama himself made a point of praising her. So the choice may have the added benefit of tying the opposition up for a little while.

So does Palin’s selection move McCain closer to a sale? In other words, will this particular pandering attempt accomplish its goal?

On the basis of early evidence, I’m going to say yes. It hasn’t scared away anyone who was already in the McCain camp, and it’s given two big groups of undecideds a new reason to consider him.

Speaking strictly as a fellow professional in the persuasion industry, I applaud.

An Interesting Side Note

Yesterday, my original post about Sarah Palin brought a quick spike of traffic, which pleased me until a reader pointed out that I’d misspelled her name. When I fixed the error, my traffic started to drop. A look at my stats revealed that the most popular search terms for those who found this blog were…

Sarah Pailin and Sara Pailin

So for those of you who found me with those spellings — or Sarah Pallin or Sara Pallin — welcome.

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Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising Blog.

Request your free copy of my white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call me at 503-323-6553.

Using Viral Video: What Do You Want to Accomplish?

My colleague Adam Orth recently handed me Ken Wheaton’s Advertising Age column about Extended Stay Hotels. The column concerns a video, allegedly authorized by the client, in which an attractive woman licks pretty much everything in a hotel room — including the toilet. This apparently is intended to demonstrate that Extended Stay Hotel rooms are clean.

The video’s since been taken down by YouTube, but as of this writing can still be seen here.

Assuming that the video is a legitimate viral video attempt, it’s worth asking what the client was hoping to accomplish. They certainly raised awareness — Wheaton says the video received over 300,000 views, and it’s likely that many, if not most, of the viewers had never heard of Extended Stay Hotels before. Count me among them.

If “awareness” was the goal, then mission accomplished.

But will that awareness result in higher occupancy or improved profits? My brain now “knows” something about Extended Stay Hotels. But it’s not “Boy, are their rooms clean!”

It’s “She licked the toilet! She licked the toilet!”

Given the choice between booking a room at Extended Stay or making a reservation just about anywhere else, I’m going for Anywhere Else.

But I’m a sample size of one. What do you think? Leave a comment below.

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Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising Blog.

Request your free copy of my white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call me at 503-323-6553.

Portland Small Business Advertising Seminar

Just a reminder for those in the Portland area — the Portland Business Alliance Cornerstones for Success event is this coming Thursday, August 7 from 4-6pm. It’s at the Portland Business Alliance, 200 SW Market Street.  You can find out more, and register online, here.

Once a month, the Portland Business Alliance puts on an educational forum for small and medium-sized businesses called Cornerstones for Success. The topics change each month, but each one is chosen for its relevance to the challenges faced by local merchants.

On Thursday, August 7, the subject is “Advertising Avenues”. I’ll be on the panel along with Craig Brown of KGW-TV and Brian Johnson of The Oregonian. We’ll be talking about how a business with a finite budget — like yours — can effectively deliver a persuasive message to the people who could become your customers.

It takes place from 4-6pm at the Portland Business Alliance, 200 SW Market Street. You can find out more, and register online, here.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising Blog.

Request your free copy of my white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call me at 503-323-6553.