Category: Portland advertising

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.

___________________________________________________________________________________

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.

Should You Click an Ad to “Support” a Blog?

Interesting discussion happening in the Comments field at TechSoapbox. It was prompted by a post on Seth Godin’s blog that reads, in part:

If every time you read a blog post or bit of online content you enjoyed you clicked on an ad to say thanks, the economics of the web would change immediately. You don’t have to buy anything (though it’s fine if you do). You just have to honor the writer by giving them a click.

Ahmed of Techsoapbox takes issue with Seth’s approach, calling it “cheating”. Seth doesn’t post comments on his blog, but Ahmed does — and it’s producing an often-thoughtful, sometimes-heated conversation.

For the record, I lean toward Ahmed’s side, but not strongly. The pay-per-click model only works for the advertiser if the clicks come from genuine prospects. If the advertiser has to pay for a bunch of extra clicks from folks who aren’t truly interested, the advertising will ultimately cease.

On the other hand, some of the “support clicks” could come from people who might need the product or service, but who would otherwise not have paid attention to the ad. So the support clicks might create a positive ROI after all.

The results of Seth’s approach will ultimately depend on how relevant the ad, and the offer, is to the lives of the readers. Which sounds a whole lot like every other form of advertising.

What do you think? Feel free to weigh in in the comments section below.

___________________________________________________________________________________

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.

Does This Customer Survey Have Value?

Customer surveys can be a terrific way to check on your sales and customer service efforts — not everyone will fill them out (and those who do may not tell you everything you need to know), but in some cases you’ll have the opportunity to correct problems you didn’t know you had.

This only works if you act on what you learn.

A survey we recently received in the mail has the potential to be teaching tool, or a complete waste of postage. Updates will follow. The history:

In June, we needed a new backyard fence. This post has more details. The short version is that my wife called three well-known companies. One never returned a phone message, although they did send a postcard promising that someone would call. A second company sent a salesman who took measurements, promised to return with a bid, and was never heard from again. Only the third company followed up with a quote, and that company got our business.

[Roland Young of Rick’s Custom Fencing & Decking deserves credit for his follow-up, and for doing a fine job on the fence. A radio campaign would be an excellent way for Rick’s to tell the world about what they do, and I invite them to call me at 503-323-6553. But I digress.]

The company who never returned our call just sent us a survey. The cover letter is signed by the president of the company. It says, in part:

Our business is based on referrals from the clients who contact [us], and we want that experience to be positive. So that we can ensure that we’re doing a good job for clients, we ask for feedback to see how we are doing. It would help us a great deal if you would complete the questions on the back and return this form at your earliest convenience in the enclosed self-adressed envelope.

Our initial reaction upon opening the envelope was amusement. After having completely dropped the ball, how could they, with a straight face, ask us how they did? But I now think this was a smart move. They don’t what happened, because we never told them — all we did was spend our money with someone else and move on. The survey represents a system they’ve set up to make sure they find out about things like this.

So we’re going to fill it out and send it back. We will be candid about our experience. Our answers may help them plug a hole in their sales funnel, and improve the results of their advertising — but only if someone reads it and acts on what they learn.

Stay tuned for updates.

__________________________________________________________________________________

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.

Are You Ignoring Your Best Prospects?

From Dan Kennedy’s “No BS Marketing Newsletter”

Most salespeople haven’t worked in ages. I was comparing notes about this with a friend last week, and neither of us could remember the last time we were “prospected” by a salesperson, followed up on by a salesperson we’ve previously bought something from. There’s crying in the car business, but no salesman or dealer from whom I’ve purchased new cars in the past five years has contacted me. There’s a mass exodus in real estate agents in surrender, but none I’ve purchased a property from has contacted me to sell me another. Retail: from the clothing store in my hometown where I spent $1,800.00 in my first visit two years ago… from the clothing store in my other home city where I spent $500.00 on my first visit… from a store in Vegas where I spent $2,000.00 on cowboy boots… no salesman has attempted contact.”

Do you see yourself in that passage?

I saw me.

This afternoon I left a message for a client who’s been advertising on one of my stations, asking for an update on how his sales have been going. He left me a voice mail in return, telling me that the campaign I put together for him has brought him 18 brand-new clients in the past six weeks — monetarily, about a 5:1 return on his investment.

I was very pleased to hear this, but until I read the passage above I did not connect the dots: I have three other radio stations that are demographically appropriate for him. He is currently spending 100% of his advertising budget with me, but there’s a strong case to be made that increasing his budget would be very profitable for him. And, not incidentally, for me.

Tomorrow’s project is to make a list of all my clients, past and present, determine how many other opportunities like this there are, and pick up the phone.

How about you? Have you missed some great upselling opportunities — the kind that would benefit you and your customers? What are you going to do about it?

Tell your story in the comments field below.

___________________________________________________________________________________

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.

Chris Lytle on Money

If your marketing works, you will ultimately find yourself in front of prospects — people interested in buying something from you, or hiring your firm. And they’ll ask you how much your solution is going to cost.

Most sales courses recommend ducking the question until the customer is pretty far along in the process — you don’t want to scare him off early.

Chris Lytle, author of The Accidental Salesperson, takes another approach — he recommends addressing the question early:

In fact, if the customer doesn’t bring up the money question in the first meeting, I do.

Find out why, and how to approach the topic, 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.