Category: Portland marketing

When Your Unique Position Becomes Generic

Years ago, back when it was fun to sell cars, I put together a radio advertising campaign for an Oregon Mitsubishi dealer. The hook was “I’ll buy your gas for a year”. Basically, if you bought a new Mitsubishi, you got a $500 gas card included with the purchase.

As I write these words now, it seems really weak. I’ve seen hundreds of gas card promotions in the last few years. But back then, we were the first dealer in town to make the offer, and customers poured in to take advantage of it. The customers were happy, and my guy was the #1 Mitsubishi dealer on the west coast.

Then his arch-rival in Vancouver started making the same offer, followed by another Mitsu store in Portland. Then a Volkswagen dealer got into the act, and two months later, the unique had become generic.

I was reminded of this when I read the Church of the Customer post on Whole Foods. Whole Foods built its business on organic products. Now that organic has gone mainstream, the grocer is suffering.

What do you do when your special idea becomes commonplace? You find a new niche. Check out Jackie Huba’s suggestion by clicking on the link above.

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

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein at 503-323-6553.


The Power of a Strong Opening Line

“It was the day my grandmother exploded”.

That’s the opening line of The Crow Road by Iain Banks. The book opens in the chapel of a crematorium in Scotland. The narrator has returned for a funeral. Although this is from a novel, it’s a great example of an opening line that compels the reader, or listener, to stick around to hear the rest of your message.

In a print ad, it’s the headline. In a radio commercial, it’s the first sentence of your ad. In either case, as Dan O’Day is fond of saying, it’s the “commercial for the commercial.” If your opening line is good enough, the listener will keep listening to hear what you’ve got to say.

The opening line has to grab the listeners’ attention, and give them a reason to continue to pay attention. You either need to surprise them, intrigue them, or offer them, up front, a significant benefit.

If all you’ve got to say is “We’re celebrating our seventh anniversary!”, they’re gone.

That’s Lesson #1 of The Crow Road. That line was so good that I absolutely had to keep reading until I found out exactly how Grandma blew up. It took 22 pages to get to the explosion.

I was hoping for an epic detonation, but the actual grandmother-explosion turned out to be a minor pop. Before reaching Page 50, I put the book down, and never opened it again. Lesson #2 is that your opening line is a promise, and you’d better deliver on it.

Somewhere, as you’re reading this, a woman is listening to the radio. The station she’s listening to has just gone into a commercial break. In the next five seconds, she will decide to either

1. Pay attention to the first commercial, or

2. Tune the whole thing out.

If it’s your commercial she’s listening to… how strong is your opening line?

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

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

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein at 503-323-6553.


Biznik — Does It Work?

I recently stumbled on a social networking site called Biznik. It’s been described as like LinkedIn, but with more social interaction and ways to promote. This evening, I set up a profile, and found one local person I know already on the network (hi, Michael!).

The basic membership is free, but there are more goodies available if you’re willing to pay $10 or $24 a month. Given the fact that time and money are both finite, I’m trying to figure out how valuable this service would be, both for me and my clients.

So, my question is for those who’ve been on Biznik for a while. Does it work? And by “work”, I mean, has it caused a quantifiable improvement in your business? More customers? More traffic to your blog?

And for those who have upgraded to a paid membership — is it worth the dough?

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

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

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein at 503-323-6553.


Lawn Sign Advertising — A Detective Story

Have you ever looked at a lawn sign ad — one for something other than a political candidate — and wondered how successful that marketing approach really is?

Me neither.

Robert J. Moore, on the other hand, got to wondering. While driving through Glassboro, New Jersey, he saw a lawn sign advertising an online dating service. After encountering similar signs in several other places, he decided to try to figure out where they all came from. The answer involves a variety of servers, internet addresses and companies stretching from Massachusetts to Texas to Panama and India.

Read about the whole thing on his blog. It’s more words than you ever thought you’d read about lawn signs, but it’s really fascinating stuff. What initially appeared to be the work of a little guy in a small town turns out to be a multimillion-dollar international industry.

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

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

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein at 503-323-6553.


Somebody Is Still Making Money

It is easy, these days, to convince yourself that all the news is bad, and everybody’s losing money. So I was heartened to read the following message from Jim Taszarek in his TazMedia newsletter:

Here are some numbers out last week.

  • Verizon profits up 31% in Q3 ’08. Everything cellular is hot.
  • Honeywell profits up 16%. Everything high tech is hot.
  • Existing Home Sales post biggest gain since 2003, up 5.5% in Sept. Somebody is getting credit.
  • The price of oil has dropped to $65 a barrel, down from $147 last July.
  • High oil prices has caused a serious look at energy and the emerging Green industry.
  • Warren Buffet says “Buy now!”

There is always good news. You just need to look for it.

Whatever business you’re in, there are still potential customers making money. Fewer than before, but they’re out there. If you can solve a problem for them, they’ll share some of that money with you.

But only if they know who you are, how to find you, and why they should contact you.

___________________________________________________________________________________

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

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

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein at 503-323-6553.