|
|
Welcome to Servant Communications Bill Grant I was selling radio advertising in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in the early 1980's when I stopped into a shoe store on Main Street andbegan to pitch our latest promotion to the owner of the store.He listened politely, said "No thanks," and pointedto the door. I mentioned the three shoe stores at the mall across town and the new one at the K-Mart plaza and asked how he was going to stay in business if he didn't use my station to reach his customers. "I don't do any advertising," he answered. "None?" "None," he said. "See, I don't know anythingabout advertising. And if I can't do something right, I won'tdo it." I left his store with more respect for that man than most ofthe business owners I have discussed marketing and advertisingwith in the last 15 years. Was he right? Do you lose more money by not advertising atall, or by advertising unwisely? The truth is, the lose more moneyif you waste advertising dollars on misguided and inappropriateadvertising options. Most business owners believe it's betterto do some advertising and see if it sticks, but they are wrong.No advertising salesperson would admit it, but my personal experienceand statistical evidence proves retail owners without experiencein advertising or marketing are better off developing their businessthrough personal service, referrals, and others areas of expertise.I can't begin to tell you the number of business owners I spokento who have said, in effect: "I spent a lot of money on "X"(advertising option), and I didn't get anything out of it. I meannothing." The bottom line is that advertising salespeople believe intheir products and want you to think they represent your bestinterests, but they really represent the interests of their employerand the commission check they're going to earn if you buy theirproduct. Let me illustrate: If you are injured in an accident, you hirea lawyer. He or she is a professional in the field hired to representyour interests. The insurance company, or other driver, also hiresa lawyer to represent them. You wouldn't think of walking intothe courtroom on your own and leaning on the advice and directionof the other lawyer! And why not? Because you consider the stakeshigh enough that you need representation. If your business is your life-blood, and your marketing isdramatically responsible for the success of your business, aren'tthose stakes high enough to hire representation? Let's go back to Cheyenne, Wyoming, for a moment. I was consultingfor a Christian radio station with a handful of listeners anda zero Arbitron rating. In order to sell my product to potentialadvertisers, I needed to take the focus off the airsound and listenershipand generate interest another way. So I developed a trip promotioncalled "Dinner for Two, Anywhere in America." Merchantspaid $499 for 100 commercials and a registration box, people registeredat the stores and listed where they would go if they won. I hadthe d.j.s read registration slips every day - "Here's a dinnerfor two registration from Linda Smith of Cheyene. Linda says she'sgoing to St. Louis to visit her sister Ruth if she wins. Lindaregistered at Dave's hardware on the miracle mile;" "PeterGaines dropped his dinner for two registration off at Bonanza.Peter went to college at USC and says he's polishing up the surfboardfor a trip to Hawaii if he's are lucky winner." Cheyenne had never seen such a large promotion. I was bettingthat advertisers would be so excited about the promotion theywould want to be part of it. To hedge my bets, I made it exclusive.Knowing that fear of the competition drives many retail advertisers,I decided to have only one travel agency, one restaurant, departmentstore, etc. In an effort to tie it into the community, we invitedthe merchants and 30 finalists to dinner at Cheyenne's finestrestaurant, and we chose the winner live over the air after dinner. My assumptions were correct. I sold 30 packages in 20 days,and we earned over $13,000 profit for the station in 20 days,more than three-and-a-half times above normal. Our image with the citizens of Cheyenne went from non-existentto very positive, and we finished second that year (out of sevenradio stations) in a local poll of favorite radio stations. Remember,this was a Christian radio format. People didn't vote for us becausethey listened to us, but because they associated us with the dinnerpromotion, which they liked. The radio station was happy and the community was happy, butI wonder how many of those advertisers later said to someone:"We spent $500 on this dinner promotion and I didn't getanything out it. I mean nothing." We retained only 5 of the 30 merchants on our next promotion,so you could infer that over 80% of the merchants involved werenot satisfied with that advertising expense. Have you spent advertisingmoney, with some uncertainty, and later regretted it? You won'tdo it again if you hire Servant Communications to representyou. By now, you may be turning a little sour on advertising, butyou shouldn't, because appropriate advertising has tremendouspower. Here are some examples:
Intelligent Advertising Today, Coke and Pepsi dominate the soft drink market. Theyhave dominated for more than 20 years. Although "cola"has always been the leading flavor of soft drink, Coke and Pepsihad no where near their current market share until the mid-1970's,when Coke launched a massive marketing campaign to takeover thesoft-drink market. Pepsi soon took the plunge, and the rest ishistory. Quick, name another soft drink! You probably said Sprite.Sprite has been gaining market share ever since the brand waspurchased by Coca-Cola and given the fast track for national exposure.Coke executives correctly guessed that national advertising exposurefor Sprite would improve Sprite sales without cutting into Coke'sloyalty. An example closer to home illustrates the role marketing canplay in any business. In 1993, I was hired to manage Camp Holiday,a United Way summer day camp for special needs children basedin Keene. Although Camp Holiday had a long and proud traditionof service, a combination of factors caused the camp to lose halfits net worth the year prior to my hiring. Another similar yearwould bankrupt the camp. By using a careful, targeted marketingapproach, I was able to reduce the loss in income our first yearby over 80% (it is important to note, however, that we did losea significant amount of money that first year. Change takes time).During the second year, I launched an aggressive marketing andadvertising campaign. We doubled the number of campers, sold outthe camp, and broke even. Through appropriate marketing techniques,we improved the income of this organization by nearly $70,000in just two years. You may ask why we didn't launch the marketing campaign thefirst year. The answer is simple: we were surveying our clienteleand improving our product. The rules of successful sales are simple:know what people want, provide a superior product, and let peopleknow you have the product available at a fair price. The Fox software story is even more amazing. In the mid 1990's,Fox
software was a mom and pop business with about $125,000 insales
and a small takeover offer from Microsoft, which liked thecompany's
research and development team. Before selling, the ownershired
Hank Pawluk Communications for a marketing campaign. Pawluksurveyed
the market and found that Fox' DOS database was totallyout of
favor with the public, which had grown to expect WINDOWS-basedproducts.
So his company helped them develop a menu-based programfor databases. |
