Category: Media

Trying to Sell Without Selling

Thursday’s Wall Street Journal has a fascinating article about Unilever’s efforts to promote Axe deodorant by producing a television series called “The Gamekillers”. It details the sometimes contentious negotiations between Unilever — who wanted to make sure that viewers got the connection between the program and Axe — and MTV, who feared that an explicit connection would turn viewers off.

The end result was an entertaining show that may or may not have contributed to Unilever’s bottom line. Axe sales increased 60% in 2006, so obviously Unilever did something right. But without any response mechanism besides a Gamekillers Myspace page, how do you measure the results?

My white paper, “The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them” is still available at no charge. It neither recommends nor opposes creating your own television series, although right now I’m leaning against the idea. Click to download your copy

The Danger of Sale-Only Advertising

“Your customers buy when they want to buy — not when you want to sell.”

—– Clate Mask, Infusion Software

Jane sells high-end furniture to homeowners in the Pacific Northwest. As a general rule, she only advertises when she has a sale or special event.

In 2006, she decided to have a storewide year-end clearance sale. She bought a strong radio and newspaper schedule — good copy, great frequency, and a really good offer — and almost doubled her sales goal for the month.

She was so happy with the results that she put on another big sale in January. Sales weren’t as strong as the last event, but they were pretty good. So at the end of February, she had another sale.

The February sale was a bomb. Not much traffic, not many sales. Jane decided that the advertising wasn’t working anymore — and she’s decided not to advertise again until the fall.

What happened? Did people stop reading the paper and listening to the radio? Or were there other factors at work?

In my mind, Jane made three mistakes:

1. She patched together a series of short-term strategies rather than a long-term plan.

2. She created “sale fatigue” among her customers by holding three big sales in three months. By the time the third one rolled around, it didn’t feel like such a bargain.

3. She didn’t create any value in the customer’s mind before cutting prices.

Instead of deciding not to talk to her prospects until the next big sale, she might want to consider the philosophy of Dale Carlsen, President of Sleep Train Mattress Centers. Reflecting on the fact that the average consumer buys a new mattress every seven to ten years, Dale had this to say:

“If a customer doesn’t walk into my store when he’s in the market, I won’t have another chance for seven years. And I don’t know when he’s going to decide he needs a new bed. So I want to be talking to him every single week, all year long.”

The most successful marketers recognize that people make purchasing decisions for many reasons. Some, it’s true, are motivated by a big sale. But especially for big-ticket purchases, many consumers won’t buy until they’re ready.

If they’re not ready when your sale happens, the best advertising in the world won’t bring them in.

On the other hand, if they decide they’re ready to buy right now, they could very well buy at full retail. But they’ll only buy from you if they remember you’re there.

You don’t need huge budget to craft an effective long-term plan. If you can’t afford to be in multiple media like Fred Meyer, pick one. I’m partial to radio and internet, but any medium will work if the message is good, your frequency is strong, and you stay put.

If you can’t afford to be on a bunch of stations all the time, pick one. If you can’t afford to be on the #1 station all the time, pick the #10 station. To paraphrase Roy Williams, you’d be surprised how many couches 50,000 people will buy in a year if you talk to them enough.

“The only difference between lettuce and garbage is timing.”

—- Bill Glazer, Glazer-Kennedy Marketing

You can’t control the timing of customer demand. They’ll buy when they want to buy, not when you want to sell. That’s why Dale Carlsen advertises all year long, and why Les Schwab, Fred Meyer and The Shane Company don’t cancel their campaigns after a slow weekend.

Want the results the best marketers get? Do what the best marketers do.

Salesmanship Vs. English Grammar

In the space of a couple of hours, I read a couple of articles that contradict each other on the subject of language.

First (in order of when I read ’em) was a capsule review of the book Branded Nation by James B. Twitchell. “Twitchell,” wrote reviewer Steve Cone,

“is unusual among college professors in that he teaches both English and advertising, two disciplines that make perfect sense together.”

Offering a different point of view is direct-response copywriter Bob Bly. In his blog, Bly tackles the occasional conflict between good grammar and effective selling. A subscriber to his newsletter had complained that the expression “free gift” was redundant. “Is there any other kind?” wrote the reader.

Replied Bly:

…your argument is that ‘free gift’ is redundant — like ‘armed gunmen.’ But, tests prove that in direct marketing, omitting the word ‘free’ and just saying ‘gift’ actually depresses response. I teach in business writing classes to avoid redundancy … but I am not sure that’s always good advice. The reason for redundancy is that some people need to read a thing several times before it sinks in.

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Who Are “The Right People”?

When you work on a marketing campaign, it’s natural to want to make sure you’re targeting “the right people” with your message – the people who are most likely to do business with you.

Media people 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 our media. And a lot of time, effort and money are spent in trying to pick the vehicle that reaches The Right People.

If you promise not to tell, I’ll pass along a dirty little secret of this business:

The Right People are listening to my radio stations… and my competitor’s stations. They watch TV (a whole bunch of channels, too). Some of them get their information from the newspaper, and some from the internet.

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.

Examples?

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.

Here’s how the Phi Beta Kappa college honor society solicits members, according to the Wall Street Journal: “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? And when you’re marketing office equipment, what target do you choose?

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 (“Cheney for President” on a Progressive Talk station 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, and that you tell it well.

I can help you with that.

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Update on the Freak Dancing Story

The Oregonian’s Sunday print story on the issue was solid. It presented views from principals, chaperones and students. It also touched on the history of skirmishes between parents/educators and teens about their dancing — which, apparently, dates back at least to the nearly 1900’s and the Turkey Trot.

[This last tidbit came from Julie Malnig, a social dance historian at New York University. I had no idea that there were jobs available as social dance historians.]

It seems as if the Oregonian knows they’re supposed to be using this web video thingy, but they can’t quite figure out how or why. Below the subhead, the O once again tries to lure you to their web site to see “video from last weekend’s Blackboard Music dance in Beaverton.” The pitch is accompanied by a color photo of teen torsos. Don’t listen to the carnival barker, folks. There’s still nothing interesting under the tent — it’s the same poorly-lit, substance-free video that was on there yesterday.

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