Category: Portland marketing

Portland Mattress Store Matches Message to Market

When I consult with local business owners around the country about their advertising, I advise them that their message must be distinctive and meaningful — they need to say something that nobody else in town in saying, and it needs to be of value to their target.

Here’s a great example of this from my hometown of Portland.

Mattress Lot is a small, family-owned mattress retailer on the Northeast side of town. There’s a lot of competition in this category here — multi-location chains such as Sleep Country and Mattress World have large advertising budgets. Going after the mass market, they’ll drown out anything a small operation that Mattress Lot could put out there.

But Mattress Lot has discovered a very interesting niche. Portland has a large, loud, and passionate bicycle community — the kind of community that speaks up, and gets a lot of attention from city government. The kind of community that just might devote its dollars to a local business that speaks its language.

So Mattress Lot is now delivering mattresses by bicycle:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOv4r1NMuZA]

Marketing guru Chris Lytle likes to say that the human mind is a card file, and most consumers only have room for a couple of “cards” in any category. If you’re the fifth place a customer might think of in your category, you’re often out of the running.

Mattress Lot may never be one of the top two cards in the general mattress category. But if they do this right, they have a chance to become the first place a Portland bicyclist thinks of when it’s time to buy a new bed.

They have created a new category, and have a chance to own it.

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Dentist, Market Thyself

Last week I called on an orthodontist — or more specifically, the practice’s office manager. I learned two things of note:

1. Things are really, really slow these days. Parents are still bringing their kids in for braces, but in smaller numbers. And their lucrative adult-braces business is way down.

2. The doctor has steadfastly refused to advertise.

So it was with interest that I read — and mailed to the orthodontist — Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal article on the trend among those in the dental profession to increase their marketing. The article told the story of Dr. David Wong of Tulsa, OK.  Dr. Wong’s business has dropped about 10% in recent months.

Dr. Wong has upped his advertising, taking advantage of low newspaper and broadcast rates, and now sends email reminders to customers on top of traditional mailed postcards. He is even on Twitter, aiming to connect with customers as “not just the guy in a white coat with a drill in his hand.”

“It’s a lot more work,” he admits. “You can’t go to the office and just be a dentist anymore; you have to go to the office and be a dentist and a CEO.”

Ed Ridgway, a practice consultant, offered this take on his Dental Marketer blog:

Are you growing your practice – or just waiting for the competition to eat your market share?

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Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

Pitfalls of Social Media Marketing

During my presentation/interview at the Northwest Business Virtual Summer Conference, Tom Cochrane asked me what the big difference is between marketing with social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc) and using the traditional sources such as TV, radio, and print.

I replied that there has always been something of a “contract” between the audience and old media — radio listeners get their content at no charge, and in return accept the fact that advertising is part of the landscape. Same for newspapers and television: the information arrives either at no charge or heavily subsidized.  Although there is more interaction than there used to be, the content is still “consumed”, and must be paid for somehow.

The fundamental difference with social media, I told Cochrane, is that people use it to communicate with each other, and do not expect to be pitched to. Even though Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are essentially free services at this point, the users, rightly, or wrongly, have a different set of expectations.

Since making those remarks, I’ve encountered a couple of good posts that expand on the topic:

At Marketing in Progress, Brett Duncan takes on the Twitter spammers:

It saddens me to see so many people constantly posting tweets and Facebook updates that go something like this:

  • Brand X is helping me lose 10 pounds a week. It can help you, too. CLick here . . . .
  • If you want to make $1,000 this week on the Internet, I have what you need.
  • Want to earn what you’re worth? Sign up with Brand X. Ask me how.
  • I get 300 followers a day. Go here to find out more.

Nobody gets on Twitter looking for crap like this. There’s nothing “social” about using social media as your own advertising medium.

And The Digital Marketer offers counsel on how to avoid damaging your social media reputation.

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

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Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

Current Event Advertising: Nice Try, But…

From the Oregonian Friday, July 3, 2009:

 

stimulus

I applaud The Adult Shop for attempting to use the story of 2009 in their marketing. And the term “Stimulus Package” is a nice touch.

But…

1. The discount is only ten percent.

2. Anonymity is likely to be important to a porn store customer

3. A significant number of jobless potential customers may be embarrassed about the fact.

So expecting unemployed people to walk into an adult store and “present [their] current unemployment check stub for sales associate to verify” — for a lousy ten percent — seems like a recipe for failure.

Of course, I’m neither unemployed nor an adult store regular. Am I wrong? What do you think?

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising and Marketing 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, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

Business Northwest Virtual Summer Conference

I’ll be one of the presenters at the Business Northwest Virtual Summer Conference, happening over three days (July 9-11) later this week.

 The theme of the conference is “Getting Your Business Message Out in Today’s Economy With Today’s Technology.”

 There’s a live event at the Marriott on July 9th at 9:30am featuring a panel with Kent Lewis and Hallie Janssen of Anvil Media, Matt Kish,  Managing Editor of the Business Journal, and Tom Cochrane of TKC Solutions. The rest of the presentations, including mine, will be on the web.

 My presentation, titled “Brand New Technologies, Same Old Errors: The Seven Deadly Online Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them”, is tentatively scheduled to run at 9:30am on Friday, July 10.

 Attendees will be able to see all the presentations, ask questions of more than 20 speakers in special forums, and download written materials. You can have access to the whole thing — you can see it live or watch the archived presentations at your convenience for 30 days — for just $8.50.

 Find out more, and register, at www.businessnorthwest.org/conference.

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising and Marketing 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, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.