Category: Portland advertising

A Smaller Pie Doesn’t Mean No Pie

Over at the Sales and Marketing Loudmouth Blog, Tim Rohrer has a very interesting take on the role of local marketing. He summarizes his premise this way:

Remember, to advertise effectively at the local level, find out how consumers are behaving and then fashion your message to take advantage of their direction and momentum.

I agree with him as far as that goes. But he loses me when he tackles the car industry. Although he doesn’t come out and say it, this paragraph would lead an auto dealer to conclude that he should stop all advertising until sales improve:

Auto dealers must measure the cost of the advertising against the return they are likely to get right now and not on some future share. The reason is simple: A very small percentage of the public is in the market for a car (maybe 3% under normal circumstances and 2% right now). Consumers only hear the advertising that pertains to them. So, any market share gains made by a local auto dealer are being made with the 2% of people who are “now” buyers of autos. These now buyers will not be in the market again for another three years so the advertising seller is asking the auto dealer to spend money with them to 1) gain market share of an unusually small pie and 2) wait three years to get a payoff on that growth in share.

What this argument neglects is that if, for example, Chrysler’s sales are down 25% (as they were in May), that means that 75% of the normal-year buyers are still buying Chryslers from someone. And there are fewer Chrysler dealers on the radio this year than last.

So the “right now” pie is 25% smaller, but a Chrysler dealer willing to be agressive has a shot at a larger piece of that pie right away. And that dealer’s ads are also talking to a lot of folks who are going to buy from someone later this year. If you’re a Chrysler dealer, the fact that overall sales are down 25% doesn’t mean that you have to be down 25%.

A good, well-thought-out campaign may mean that you’ll stay even while your competitors drop even more. And the difference may very well justify a significant advertising investment even now.

All the standard rules apply — frequency, a strong offer, and good creative — in fact, those things are more important than ever. And yes, dealers are going to have to cut back.

This scenario is playing out in many different industries. Some consumers have changed their behavior, but many are still going to buy from someone. The fact that the pie may be smaller right now doesn’t mean there’s no pie to compete for at all.

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How Important is the Call to Action?

Nearly fifty years ago, social psychologist Howard Leventhal conducted experiments in which he tried to convince Yale University seniors to get a tetanus shot. Leventhal initially divided the seniors into several groups, and gave each group different versions of a seven-page booklet on the disease and its effects.
 
According to Malcom Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point, there was a “high-fear” version of the booklet, with dramatic descriptions and photographs of the disease, and a “low-fear” version with toned down descriptions and no pictures.  

A few months later, Leventhal redid the experiment, with one change: this time “…he included a map of the campus, with the university health center building circled and the times the shots were available clearly listed.”

This change, by itself, increased the vaccination rate from 3% to 28%. Nine times as many students got the shot when they were told how to do so.
“…Of the 28% who got inoculated, an equal number were from the high-fear and low-fear group. Whatever extra persuasive muscle was found in the high-fear book was clearly irrelevant… The second interesting thing is that, of course, as seniors they must have already known where the health center was, and doubtless had already visited it several times already.
“The students needed to know how to fit the tetanus stuff into their lives; the addition of the map and the times when the shots were available shifted the booklet from an abstract lesson in medical risk… to a practical and personal piece of medical advice. And once the advice became practical and personal, it became memorable.”
Like Leventhal, your goal when you advertise is to persuade your prospects and customers to do something.
 
Your odds of success increase greatly when you make your message practical, personal, and memorable by telling them exactly what to do, and how to do it.
 

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Great Reason for a Sale

In Influence, the Science of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini cites experiments demonstrating that people are more likely to comply with your request if you give a reason. The reason doesn’t even have to make much sense. Copywriting instructors have incorporated the “Reason Why” technique into their lessons.

Mr. Toskana’s obviously been studying up on this stuff — and his “Reason Why” makes all the sense in the world.

Special thanks to Rick Lewis of Clear Channel for tipping me off.

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“The Phones Aren’t Ringing Anymore”

If you work in media sales, and your client tells you that your campaign isn’t making the phones ring anymore… don’t forget to check the phone system.

I have a client in the elective medical field. The practice had been using my stations and web sites for more than two years. It was a nice setup. The commercials would run; listeners would call the clinic, and a substantial number of them would make appointments. Happy patients came out looking younger and thinner, the client bought more advertising, and my kid’s college tuition got paid.

Until one day the client told me that listeners had stopped calling. We discussed, at length, all the possible reasons — the economic downturn, the fact that we’d been advertising the same procedure for a long time, even the possibility that we’d “used up” the station’s audience. For several months, we experimented with different copy approaches and different voices, but nothing seemed to help.

Finally the client cancelled. I understood.

In the course of the conversation, I mentioned that I’d tried to call her a few days before and had encountered an automated phone voice rather than a live person. Rather than wade through a series of prompts, I’d hung up and called her cell phone.

This caught her by surprise — although her staff was leaner than before, there was no reason for a machine to have picked up during business hours. We didn’t dwell on the subject, but a week later she told me that she’d investigated and found a glitch in the phone system. She had it fixed, and the phones were ringing again.

I was mortified. She and I usually communicated by cell phone or email, and when she was out of the office she’d usually call her staff on their cell phones. It had not occurred to me to call in the way a patient would.

Was the phone system the culprit? Maybe, maybe not. There’s no way of knowing how long the glitch had been there, and now that it’s fixed, the client is off the air.

But the next time a client tells me the phones aren’t ringing, I’ll be dialing in. Lesson re-learned.

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When the Disclaimer Cancels the Rest of the Ad

A recent issue of Automotive News had a print ad for Force Events. Here’s the headline:

GET 1000 UPS* IN YOUR SHOWROOM THIS WEEKEND!

An “up,” in auto dealer lingo, is a prospect who walks onto the lot. So if a dealer hire Force Events this weekend, he’ll get a thousand customers through the door, right?

Not so fast, Chester. The asterisk takes you down to some really, really tiny print at the bottom of the ad: “Results may vary.” It could be a thousand customers. Or a hundred. Or ten.

For all I know, Force could be a terrific company. But the fine print at the bottom wipes out the promise they make at the top. And auto dealers are masters of fine print — they won’t miss it.

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