Marketing Wisdom

I’ve written about this before but feel that it is time for me to update the five legs of marketing.

There are five legs (I believe) in marketing that support your sales and brand. In no particular order, they are:

Advertising
Promotions
Social Media
Merchandising
Public Relations

Here is how I define each:

Advertising: TV, magazine, newspaper, web. This can be static ads or video ads, on TV or on the web.

Promotions: The easiest way to define this is “Buy two xx’s and get one x free”; “Test drive this car and get a $500 gift card”; or “Send in five box tops and get a free sample”. You want to promote your product or brand and usually this is done by couponing or free giveaways or whatever kind of promotion that you think will get someone to sample OR LEARN ABOUT your product.

Social Media: Funny – this is still being defined out there – is it advertising? No because we are not forced to go to your Facebook page and therefore are not advertised to. Is it Public Relations? Absolutely, but, the customers that go there aren’t looking to be “pitched”, they are going there to be informed about non-pitch subjects. Is it Promotions? It’s certainly going in that direction where Facebook pages are now giving out “free” samples. Is it Merchandising? You could say it kinda is, because of the video’s that can be watched about your product. Obviously, this still has a long way to go. [Which leads to blogs or blogzines or whatever name they're gong to be called this week. Are they part of Social Media or Public Relations? Some people think that blogs are with promotions because they "promote" your product.]

Merchandising: End caps, in-store signage, sampling stations and everything else that you see in brick-n-mortar stores. Is advertising on a web page merchandising, since web pages are become more and more our brick-n-mortar stores?

Public Relations: News releases, press tours, and everything else that is required to get someone else to write or talk about you on TV, Radio, magazine, newspaper, blog, etc.

These five legs should make up your marketing strategy on a consistent basis. Can your brand survive if you only do one or two legs? Of course it can. Some would say it is weaker because you aren’t doing all five legs, especially if you are an agency that does one of the legs that you are not doing.

Are some legs stronger then another? Absolutely. A 30 second spot during the Super Bowl blows away an end-cap at your local hardware store – for brand recognition, but, what about for sales?

Which leads you to: Do I need that Super Bowl ad? No, you don’t – that end-cap may be exactly what you need.

Just be sure to always research each of the legs when you are building your marketing plan and you will discover how important it is to do or not do that Super Bowl ad.

How can a company seriously use Twitter to build its brand?

I see TV advertisements that have the Twitter logo on the bottom of all their ads (good for you Twitter!), but, I have to ask the question, why?

Golden Corral – a restaurant chain in the U.S. has the Twitter logo on their advertisements – why?

But more importantly, what is it going to accomplish? That they offer a buffet everyday? That this Friday the fish is $2.00 off?

I guess there are followers for everything and people want to know when Dairy Queen is taking $1.00 off on a cone – but, to place their logo on your advertising? All you are doing is advertising for them.

The same has to be said for Facebook – if you are NOT on Facebook or Twitter, your market is not in the social realm – which is okay. But, if you are in the social realm and DO NOT ALREADY have a Facebook and Twitter account, you should and deserve to fail.

What I’m saying is that you don’t need to wast space in your marketing and advertising plans and budgets to advertise another company that everyone already knows you are a part of.

A lot of news out there that print advertising can be improved upon, that it isn’t dead, that all it needs is creative or a message or a brand.

I fall on one side of this argument and that is that Print Advertising is dead (okay, on life-support which it is hard to see a recovery from anytime soon – maybe a better description would be a Coma).

We all agree that the internet has done considerable damage (or impact) to print advertising. Why should I wait for my daily or monthlies of magazines or newspapers when I can find out what was written 24 hours or 30 days in advance?

Okay, I’ll give you the argument that you need a magazine on the beach or possibly on a plane (if you can’t afford or connect to their WiFi) or even the subway. But, what percentage of the market is that – 2%, maybe 3%?

Even if the creative were outstanding and the brand was incredible and the ad said “If you can read this, you get a free car in the next hour”, the market penetration would still be minimal at best – even with email, text, twitter, and phone. The individual still has to “get to the location” of the free car so the damage would not be that great (don’t get me wrong, you would still have a riot at the location – but that’s the point, the brand would be built because of the riots, not because of the free car giveaway).

Print advertising will never be the same, because the market will never be the same. The market is the internet and mobile, not paper and rags. Sadly, we continue to see magazines and papers try and stay alive by believing that the people want this. They don’t.

In closing, it is going to be the countries that have never invested in magazine/print (like China, Eastern Asia, Africa, South America), where many lessons are going to be taught on how to gain the biggest bang for the buck – again, specifically in mobile.

Good luck.

There are so many different forms of advertising – tv, print, radio, web, billboard, etc.

We get asked which is the best for them and which one gives them the “biggest bang for the buck”.

There is no easy answer.  Advertising is a discipline. It takes money, and in some cases, doesn’t pay off, and in others, pays off tremendously.

Radio is cheap – hitting a large audience, but, very much a shotgun approach, not knowing if you are hitting your market or not.

Print is a little more expensive, but, can be very targeted to the market you are trying to capture (of course, direct mail can be very specific, but, can a) upset your market (who likes junkmail?) and b) go after a large audience that may still miss your market.

Television tells a story – much easier then print or radio – you get to use the eyes and ears of the audience, instead of just one of those senses. In some cases, if you are advertising locally, it is very cheap.  On the other hand, if you are going after a national audience, it can be very expensive – but, it can pay off, depending on the creative that your agency does.

Advertising can work wonders on your bottom line, increasing revenue and profits. It is also one of the first things that are cut when the bottom line needs to show more profit – which, sadly, in most cases, increasing in advertising (and more generally marketing) budgets can bring a company out of trouble much more quickly then a “wait and see” attitude.

Always be sure to put a complete marketing strategy together before spending any money on advertising. Make all your marketing programs work together to get an overall “biggest bang for the buck”.

The Basics of Advertising

Met with a client yesterday and walked away amazed.

First, the client has been in business for 10 years.

Second, they advertise the same way, month after month, year after year.

Third, they are a franchise, so their corp. headquarters provides them with all the ads, pre-made.

Fourth, they never thought of taking the ads that were provided to the next level.

Fifth, they were in the rut of “we have always done it that way”.

So, in this short meeting, here is what we discovered.

1) That the yellow pages, even though mandated by corporate, doesn’t mean that you have to take a 1/4 page ad (and yellow pages are still very very expensive).

2) That the two newspapers that she advertised in may or may not be the best means on her ROI. She has never measured their success rate through ad counters or promotions (like “bring this ad in and receive 10% off).  She has always done it this way and “knows” that it is successful because she has clients who say “I saw you guys in The New York Times” (but, even when she was telling me this, she didn’t know if it was true or not – since they run their ad every week in it – so they could have seen it three years previously).

3) That she could add copy to her existing corporate advertisements to “hone in” on the clients that she wants.

4) That she was more concerned with the other franchises in the area and what they may think then in making more money for herself (she wasn’t that confident in her successful business).

5) That the other franchises could also be friends for her – that they could all get together and “pool” their moneys and buy bigger and better advertising (like TV).

So, we scheduled another meeting to discuss the above and many more facets of pulling in the right ROI. That an outside perspective is good for the business.  That paying a few hundred dollers could bring in a few thousand dollars (you have to invest money to make money).

Think things through. Are you currently doing things the same because it is “easy”? Because you have always “done it that way”? Because you don’t have time to try something else? That maybe, putting in that extra two hours will save you 10 hours in the long run?

Look at what is in front of you – just because a local radio hits your target audience, does it bring in the clients? Should you change to something else? Direct mail? Newspaper? Internet?

Figure out your ROI on your current advertising – Run some promotions of “bring in this ad and get 10% off” in one newspaper and another promotion, in another newspaper, offering 20% off. See who brings in what?

If you do just these items, you may be surprised about how you are spending you money unwisely and that there may be better ways to use it.