How to Boost Your Ego… Free! 4 Easy Steps

  • Step 1: start a blog
  • Step 2: mention your own name in every post
  • Step 3: set up a free Google Alert for your name
  • Step 4: post regularly

I set my alert up a few weeks ago. Every day, Google’s spider sweeps through the Internet, spots my name, and sends me an email telling me that Phil Bernstein has made another appearance in cyberspace. The alert links to the new post. As a special bonus, when I click on the link, it counts as a pageview in my blog stats.

I’m just livin’ the dream.

___________________________________________________________________________________

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.


Recruiters Use Radio Advertising To Reach Passive Candidates

I’m working with a Portland insurance company on a radio-and-internet campaign that hit the airwaves this week. The recruiter needs salespeople, and this is what he told me:

  • Each year, he hires roughly 100 sales agents
  • 50 of those agents will be gone before the end of their first year 
  • Of the 50 who remain, 25 will leave the company before the end of Year 2. 
  • In other words, 75% of the people he hires don’t last two years

He doesn’t have any trouble filling his openings. But he has trouble filling them with people who are good enough to make it work. That’s where radio can help. 

Most of the traditional recruiting avenues – classified ads, job boards, etc – target people who are already actively searching for a job. They may already be unemployed, or failing at their current position.

There’s another, more desirable category of candidate – the person who has a job, isn’t thrilled with it, but would be open to another opportunity. Radio can reach that person in the car on the way to work, at their workstation, and in the car on the way home after a bad day.

The radio-and-internet campaign will give this recruiter access to people who may not have considered financial services as a career – and people who may have considered it, but may not be thinking about his company.

Does this mean that, as a human resources person or recruiter, you should stop all your traditional activity and do nothing but radio? No. You’ll still get some good people through those old methods. But if you’re not getting enough high-quality candidates with your current methods, it may be time to give radio a try.

___________________________________________________________________________________

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.

Advertising Post-Election

Disclosure first: I sell advertising for a living. It’s in my best interest to believe everything I’m about to write — and to convince you.

At 6am on Wednesday, November 5, I believe it anyway.

Last night on CNN, I watched John McCain deliver a gracious and respectful concession speech. I saw Barack Obama deliver an address that hit all the right notes, to 200,000 happy people in Chicago. I saw crowds dancing in the streets of Harlem… Times Square… and outside the White House. I heard fireworks going off outside my house. I talked to a lifelong Republican who told me that the guy who won deserved to win.

And for the first time in a long time, I felt optimism, and sensed it in other people.

For the last few months, and especially the last few weeks, consumers have been sitting on their wallets. If you’re in the car business… the real estate business… if you sell furniture, gutters, or windows, you’ve felt the effects. For the last few months, all the news has been bad news.

  • This morning, there’s a sense that the system worked. A winner was declared quickly and decisively, with no hanging chads or Supreme Court challenges.
  • President Bush announced that he would assist in the transition, and would leave office as scheduled on January 20. A grateful nation offered to help him pack.
  • Whether we agree or disagree with the result, we now know who’s going to be in charge, and can begin to move forward.
  • The political advertising — so ridiculous and angry that it may have caused listeners and viewers to tune everything out — is gone.
  • The possibility exists this morning that maybe… just maybe… the new guy is smart enough to lead us out of this mess.

All of this may very well cause consumers to start shopping again. Not in 2006-2007 numbers: the economic problems are too deep for that. But a significant number of people who’ve put purchases off may be ready to spend again.

Which may make this a great time for you to get your message back on the air.

Maybe I’m wrong — if you think so, feel free to leave a comment below and tell me so.

But if you’re in the Portland area and think I’m right, and you see the opportunity I see, give me a call at 503-323-6553, and let’s talk strategy.

___________________________________________________________________________________

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.

Turn on Your Radio Tomorrow

Wednesday, November 5 is the first full day without political advertising.

  • No more “Gordon Smith voted to confiscate money from widows and orphans nine times!”
  • No more “Jeff Merkley likes to drown kittens! And he hates our troops!”

I’m paraphrasing from memory, of course. It may be Smith who drowns kittens, and Merkley who rips off widows — it’s all a blur today.

Which illustrates the reason political advertising makes my profession look bad. It violates everything I try to teach my customers — starting with the fact that while you’re allowed to put the truth in the best possible light, it’s really bad form to lie. About your own company, or about your competitors.

The day after Election Day is my favorite day of the year.

___________________________________________________________________________________

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.