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Two Classic Election Ad Mistakes

I hate politician advertising! I turn off the radio, change the channel, or flip the page.

It isn’t so much the politicians and the political process that bothers me. I love a good political debate and discourse. It’s the horrible advertising that drives me crazy.

Most political ads make the same classic mistake – they make claims without evidence to back them up.

Sometimes they do it because they can’t back up their claims with facts. Sometimes they do it because they don’t give themselves enough time in their ad because they are being too clever. Sometimes they think the evidence is obvious enough to not need to be included.

To Tell the Truth
We currently have a hotly contested US Congress Race and one candidate parades out a whole bunch of seniors telling the other candidate not to mess with their Social Security and Medicaid. One after another we hear old people chiding the other candidate saying he will ruin their benefits. But not one of them tells us what he did, said or proposed that will ruin their benefits. No evidence means no credibility. I’m not buying it. (In fact, the truth of the two candidates’ actions is that the one being chided has done more to protect SS & Medicaid than the one running the ad, which makes the first candidate either completely ignorant or a bald-faced liar – neither of which I want representing me in Congress).

Tell Me Why
Another ad in a state race included a candidate telling me all about his endorsements. Endorsements are apparently great, yet I see many candidates win without them. Those endorsements would mean a lot more to me if I knew why he got them.

Did he give favors?
Did he promote one of their projects?
Did they give him the endorsement in exchange for publicity?
Are they backing him because he’s a surefire winner and they want to curry favor?

I could surmise all of those reasons for the endorsement, none of which are positive, because he never gave me evidence to tell me why these endorsements make him the better candidate.

Would you like your audience to make up their own (probably false) conclusions about a claim you make?

Give Us Reason to Believe
If you make a claim in your ads such as “We’re the best (insert claim here)…” back it up with evidence. Your ad becomes more credible and your claim more believable when you tell me why. If you don’t have time, don’t make the claim. A claim no one believes will make people doubt everything else you say.

Down and Dirty
The second mistake most politicians make is the dirty, negative attack ads. You can’t play in the mud with getting dirt on yourself. Sure, the mud-slinging might win you a few votes now, but the stink stays with you and ruins your credibility long term.

Politicians might not care. But independent retailers can’t afford to have 45% of the population hating their guts and everyone else feeling kinda uneasy about them, too. If you’re going to mention your competitors, keep it to the facts. Point out what they do, then tell everyone why what you do is better – and back it up with evidence.

A Winning Formula
Be honest, be ethical, be positive. Back up all your claims with evidence. Do those two things and the credibility and effectiveness of your ads will make you a winner this fall.

-Phil

PS To make your ads more believable, I highly recommend the book Currencies That Buy Credibility by Tom Wanek (no, this is not an affiliate link – I make no money promoting this book, I just like it. A lot.)

Would You Attend This Workshop?

The Jackson Retail Success Academy is now signing up retailers for our 2011 class that starts in January. This 8-week program has been a huge help for new retailers to get the foundation they need to be successful.

Some have asked if we could run this academy in their community so I put together a 2-Day Workshop format.

Would you sign up for this workshop if it was offered in your town?

Retail Success Academy 2-Day Format

Day 1:
8:00am Meet & Greet – goal setting, expectations
8:30am Understanding Your Brand – definition of branding, character diamond workshop

9:30am (break)

10:00am Character Diamonds Revealed
10:45am Traditional Advertising – Creating an ad budget, How Ads Work, Advertising ROI, Ads with Impact

12:00pm (lunch)

1:00pm Marketing on a Shoestring Budget – Word of Mouth, Social Media, Cause Marketing, Networking, Public Relations

2:30pm (break)

3:00pm Understanding Your Financials – Balance Sheets, Income Statements, Ratios & other important numbers
4:00pm Cash Flow Sheet

5:00pm (break for evening)

6:00pm Dinner/Drinks someplace fun in your town

Day 2:
8:00am Resources Breakfast – meet the local Chamber, DDA, Buy Local groups
8:45am Inventory Management – GMROI, Pricing for Profit, Turn Ratios, Open-to-Buy, Cash Flow

10:45am (break)

11:00am Customer Service – The Basics, The Best Practices, The Wow! Service

12:00pm (lunch)

1:00pm Hiring & Training – Identifying the Perfect Employee, interview questions that work, developing a training program

2:15pm (break)

2:30pm Staff Meetings/Training Sessions – hands-on workshop to learn how to plan and run successful meetings & training sessions
4:15pm Final Q&A
4:45pm Evaluations

5:00pm Go be successful!!

Tell me whether you think it would be worth two days to you to attend a business-altering event like this and how much you would expect to pay. (You’ll be surprised when I reveal what it would actually cost.)

-Phil

PS All those links take you to free eBooks I’ve already written on those topics. The eBooks are extremely helpful but not nearly as much fun and motivating as the live presentation.

Sleep is the Great Eraser of the Mind

Note: Most of the stuff in this post I learned from Roy H. Williams. Please forgive me for stealing.

Okay, you’ve made one point, spoke to the heart, made it relevant, and didn’t look or sound like an ad. Yet, the needle isn’t moving. No one is remembering your message, let alone acting upon it. Why not?

Sleep.

Three Levels of Memory
Everything that happens throughout your day is put into electrical or Working Memory (think RAM like a computer). At the end of the day all of your Working Memory that wasn’t relevant or impactful is erased by sleep, including stuff only slightly relevant or impactful.

Declarative and Procedural Memory are chemical memories. These are stored in your brain (think hard drive). They come from repetition. Declarative is the memory of things you can recall if asked (your cousin’s phone number). Procedural is memory that comes without thinking (slamming your brake when a deer crosses the road)

Frequency is Key
With repetition, electrical Working Memory is converted to chemical Declarative memory, and as repetition continues, from Declarative to Procedural.

The amateur practices enough to get it right (declarative). The professional practices until he cannot do it wrong (procedural).

Hitting the Nail on the Head
Another way to think about it is the hammer and nail. If you hit a nail one time, it will make an impression in the wood. But then the big claw called sleep rips that nail out, leaving just a hole. If you put that nail in the same hole, however, and hit it again, the hole gets deeper. Keep putting the nail into the same hole and hit it over and over and eventually sleep will not be able to rip that nail out.

Some of you might argue that you can pound a nail in one stroke. Sure you can. How many of you know exactly where you were when you heard about 9/11? That happened only once, but the impact was big enough to push it directly into declarative memory (plus there was the added frequency of it being talked about for months on end).

Your ads will not be as impactful as a terrorist attack or space shuttle explosion.

The Magic Number
In advertising, the magic number is three. It takes the average person hearing/seeing an ad three times in seven days before it gets stored as Declarative Memory. And they must hear it three times every week until they need the product or service. And when I say “hear” I’m talking about actively engaged in the ad, not the subliminal effect of background noise.

To get that kind of frequency you need to put your message out there as often as possible. Whether you use TV, newspaper, radio, Facebook or Twitter, your success will be tied to the consistent and constant use of the medium every single day. Otherwise, you are just spending your advertising time and money foolishly.

-Phil

Don’t Look Like an Ad

My radio ads were roundly criticized when I first started doing them the way Roy H. Williams taught me. The biggest criticism was, “They don’t even sound like an ad!”

Good.

That was my goal.

Filters In Play
We are bombarded with advertising – over 5,000 advertising impressions a day! Our brains can’t handle all that info. Our brains don’t want all that info. Our brains realize most of it is useless and irrelevant. So our brains filter as much of it out of our lives as they can. If it looks or sounds like an ad, the brain shuts off and says don’t look, don’t listen.

The more your ads look or sound like everyone else’s ads, the less likely you’ll get the attention of your target audience. (Not to mention the less you’ll stand out in the crowd.)

Here is the script of the most successful radio ad we’ve ever run…

I couldn’t believe it. They were taking customers into the men’s bathroom. Yes, my staff was taking men and women, young and old into our men’s bathroom. And the customers were coming out laughing and giggling, oh yeah, and buying, too. I guess when you find a product that cool, you just have to show it off however and wherever you can. The men’s bathroom, gotta love it. Toy House in downtown Jackson. We’re here to make you smile.

I ran that ad in August 2008. I still have customers asking about the men’s bathroom two years later. It doesn’t sound like an ad. There was no music or jingle behind it. Just my voice plain and unvarnished.

It Really Works
It didn’t look or sound like anything else on the radio, so people heard it. And people responded. We have now sold over 2200 of the product hinted at in the ad, mostly because of trips to the men’s bathroom. That ad had legs because we were willing to be different from all the other advertisements on the air, which got us past the filter and into the minds of our customers.

One of the benefits of such an ad is that we also generated a lot of word-of-mouth from it. Everyone was talking about our ad, the local deejays, the newspaper, the local TV, and oh yeah, a whole bunch of customers.

The Wrong Way
But none of that would have happened if it looked and sounded like an ad. I could have written an ad like this…

It fills up your room with a starry night and puts your mind at ease. The greatest new sleep aids, the Twilight Turtle and Twilight Ladybug, are helping parents get their children happily to sleep. If your kids are struggling with bedtime, make sure you get them a Twilight Turtle or Ladybug for their room and watch the transformation. Bedtime becomes fun time when you have the Twilight Turtle or Ladybug in your child’s room. Available at the Toy House.

Sales would be in the dozens, not thousands with an ad like that. And I can guarantee no one would be talking about it.

Your message is good. You just need to deliver it more powerfully. When your ads don’t look or sound like ads, more people will pay attention.

-Phil

PS For more examples of radio ads I have used, click here.

Not Relevant Equals Not Seen

Are you a newspaper reader? Quick, tell me all the ads you remember from yesterday’s paper. No fair peaking at the recycle pile. And don’t just guess the big furniture chain or tire store. They might have been in yesterday’s paper, or was it last Monday’s?

The Invisible Truth
The truth is, the only ads you see and remember in a newspaper are ads for products in which you currently are in the market. If you need a new couch, all the furniture store ads pop out at you. If you need a new car, every auto dealer suddenly becomes visible. Every other ad is invisible. Heck, newspapers are designed to teach us to ignore the irrelevant. Headlines are written to get your attention. If you don’t care, you don’t read.

The only ads you see are the ones relevant to you.

Relevant: ˈre-lə-vənt
a : having significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand
b : affording evidence tending to prove or disprove the matter at issue or under discussion

If it isn’t important to us, if it doesn’t have significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand, we aren’t looking, we aren’t listening, we aren’t paying attention.

Three Roads to Relevancy
You can make your ads more relevant three different ways.

Make it about a product. Your store isn’t that important. It’s the products in your store that attract attention. If you sell widgets and your ad is all about widgets you will immediately attract the attention of all the people in the market for a widget.

Make it about a felt need. We all have felt needs such as the need for more money, security, prestige. When your message addresses that felt need it becomes relevant to all who share that feeling. If you are filling a specific need, speak to that need and your message becomes more relevant.

Make it about the customer. The most important person in your world is you. The most important person in your customer’s world, however, is her. She isn’t interested in hearing about you, but she loves to hear about herself. When you can tailor your message so that it puts the customer in the starring role, the relevancy of that ad skyrockets.

When you raise the Relevancy of your message, you get more people paying attention.

-Phil

Field of Dreams

“If you build it, he will come.” -Shoeless Joe Jackson, Field of Dreams

Great movie. Bad advice for business.

Yet too many independents start out that way, thinking all they have to do is build a wonderful little shop and people will climb all over themselves to get in and give them money.

Roy H. Williams said, “If making a profit were easy, everyone would be doing it.” But not everyone is making a profit. Those who aren’t making a profit are closing their doors. And the first complaint out of their mouth is that they didn’t get enough traffic, followed quickly by the blame…

  • The downtown doesn’t have enough parking.
  • The Buy Local campaign didn’t advertise me enough.
  • The city didn’t support me.
  • The newspaper wouldn’t write a story about our opening.
  • There just aren’t enough people in the area.
  • No one knew about me because of the sign ordinance.
  • Unemployment is too high.
  • People are too cheap.

You know somebody who has made one of these statements. Heck, you probably have thought one or two of them.

Yet there are businesses thriving in hard-hit downtowns, thriving in high unemployment locales, thriving in spite of a lack of support from government, the newspaper, or a Buy Local campaign, thriving without coupons, discounts or cheap products.

You Have To Market Yourself
One of the biggest things they are doing differently is Marketing. Just building a store is not enough. We are over-retailed as it is. The most successful businesses are making a conscious choice to actively and creatively market themselves to the public. They are creating marketing messages, marketing plans, and mapping out new and unique ways to attract customers.

You Can Afford It
And it doesn’t cost as much as you think. There are many ways to advertise your business spending primarily time, not money. You can learn seven of them by downloading my FREE eBook Main Street Marketing on a Shoestring Budget.

And if you have the money to spend, before you drop a dime get to know how the different advertising mediums work with two more FREE eBooks – How Ads Work Part 1 and How Ads Work Part 2.

The movie is wonderful. But it is just a movie. In real life the quote is:

If you Market it, they will come.

-Phil

Make Only One Point

Our attention spans are short. Our memory is faulty. Heck, I tell my staff that I am not responsible for anything they tell me. Write it down!

So how can we expect a customer to remember more than one point in any of our ads?

We can’t. And they won’t. So why bother?

Unclutter Your Ads
When you know exactly what your message is, make sure you don’t clutter that message with other messages or information that is unnecessary. You don’t have to include your exact address and phone in your ads. If you make your point powerful enough, they’ll find you. You don’t have to give your hours, unless they are the hours for the event you are marketing.

The reality is that the person receiving your message is likely to remember only one point at best. So the more points you try to make, the less likely she will remember any one of them, and the better the odds she’ll remember the least important of those points.

Make Only One Point
Here is an example of a print ad that makes only one point. See how uncluttered it is? And if that point resonates with you, you’ll remember that ad.

Another example is a bra shop called Bras That Fit. They advertise on the local sports radio program – yeah, advertising bras to guys. Their message?

“Hey guys, are you tired of hearing your wife complain about her bra not fitting? Send them to Bras That Fit to get the right size that makes them feel better.”

They don’t clutter their ad with their hours, or talk about swimsuits or other services they offer. It’s all about getting a bra that fits so your wife won’t complain.

You’d be surprised how many guys tell their wives where to go bra shopping.

Concentrate, Concentrate, Concentrate
Think of your marketing as a bottle of perfume. If you mix one perfume with another, you won’t notice either (and the result might be toxic). You can add water to your perfume to stretch it out and make it last, but that just dilutes it until the scent is gone. Everyone knows that the more concentrated it is, the more powerful the scent, and the less you need to use.

Your ads are like that bottle of perfume. Keep your marketing concentrated on one message and more people will see it, hear it and remember it.

-Phil

Say Something Interesting

Your message is fine. But how you are delivering it needs some work. No one is getting it for one simple reason – you do not have their attention. Sure, you could yell and scream, but that doesn’t really get you anywhere. We are bombarded with so many advertising messages that it is like trying to fill a teacup with a fire hose. But you can get your message safely into the cup as long as you remember to…

Make your message more interesting than whatever occupies your customer’s brain at that moment.

You can do that by telling a story.

Stories are Interesting
We all love stories. They hook us in and get us to listen. Facts are boring and dull, but stories are interesting and fun. Whether you are doing traditional ads like radio, newsprint or TV, or just coming up with a way to get your message across in networking or social media, turn your message into a story.

Here is a copyrighted (meaning don’t use it verbatim, copy the style, not the ad) example from Roy H. Williams’ book Wizard of Ads (pg 28-29)

Announcer: You are standing in the snow five and one-half miles above sea level, gazing at the horizon hundreds of miles away. Life here is very simple. You live, or you die. No compromises, no whining, no second chances. This is a place constantly ravaged by wind and storm, where every ragged breath is an accomplishment. You stand on the uppermost pinnacle of the earth. This is the mountain they call Everest. Yesterday it was considered unbeatable. But that was yesterday.

Client: As Edmund Hillary surveyed the horizon from the peak of Mount Everest, he monitored the time on a wristwatch that had been specifically designed to withstand the fury of the world’s most angry mountain. Rolex believed Sir Edmund would conquer the mountain, and especially for him they created the Rolex Explorer.

Announcer: In every life, there is a Mount Everest to be conquered. When you have conquered yours, you’ll find your Rolex waiting patiently for you to come pick it up at Justice Jewelers, your official Rolex jeweler, on Highway 65 at Battlefield Road.

Client: I’m Woody Justice, and I’ve got a Rolex for you.


Make Your Customer the Star
Not only does this ad tell a fabulous story, it stars the world’s most important person – “you”.

When you can tell a story and make the listener/reader the star of that story, they will listen and hear your message. They will become engaged with your brand. They will picture themselves doing exactly what you want them to do.

Here is another example of a story that speaks to the heart:

He left Detroit 9am Christmas Eve. Some store somewhere had to have the one toy his sweet little six-year old wanted. Six stores…seven hours later, he stood, travel-weary, across the counter from me. “I suppose you don’t have any Simon games either.” As I handed over the last of our Simon games he smiled and said, “God Bless You!” Believe me, He already has. Merry Christmas from the Toy House in Downtown Jackson. We’re here to make you smile.

This true story was from my first Christmas Eve as an official employee back in 1980. I was 14 years old and will never forget the look on that man’s face. We banked an entire Christmas ad campaign on this story. Results? Best Christmas ever. Yet we never mentioned our hours, our address, or our services. But everyone got the message… Looking for a toy? Save the hassle and try us first.

Figure out how to tell the story of your message and you’ll begin to see that message resonate a whole lot better.

-Phil

Definition of Insanity?

Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Never change your message, it is the key to your long term branding and growth.

Two truths. Yet, two seemingly opposite statements. How do we reconcile them? It would seem that if your advertising isn’t working, then doing the same thing won’t change that, therefore the message needs to be changed. But there is a flaw in that statement. Do you see it?

It isn’t the message that needs to change, it is the way you deliver that message. You can only change two things in your message delivery:

  • The audience to whom you deliver the message
  • The strength with which you deliver the message

The first one is easy. Just switch mediums or stations, or papers, or magazines. I can promise you that there is an advertising salesperson who has “exactly the right people for your business”. But you’ve already tried that and it didn’t move the needle. You have bounced around from newspaper to TV to radio with the same lousy results.

A Stronger Delivery
That leaves you one option. Strengthen the delivery of your message. Your message is good, but the delivery is weak. Common mistake we all make. We water down our message in hope of not offending anyone.

But if you calculated your market share, you already know that 95% of the population are currently choosing to not shop with you. Who are you afraid of offending?

Messages are like magnets. The stronger they attract, the stronger they repel. In fact, your message’s ability to attract new customers is in direct proportion to how much it repels others. You can’t get everyone to shop at your store, so quit worrying about the people you repel and start thinking about who you want to attract.

Then make your message delivery so powerful that those you want to attract can’t help but hear what you’re saying.

Insanity is thinking you can attract anyone with a weak delivery of your message.

-Phil

How Long is Your Shoestring?

The term “Shoestring Budget” dates back far enough that no one really knows who or how it got started. Some say it’s because shoestrings are so low to the ground and your budget is really low. Some say it’s because shoestrings are so cheap that they’re all you can afford. Some say it’s because broken shoelaces were used to tie together all your other belongings, meager that they were. One theory I liked was in reference to shoestring gamblers, gamblers without a lot of money who played low stakes games.

Regardless of it’s origin, most independent retailers have a Shoestring Budget when it comes to your marketing. And most of your marketing is a gamble, spending X hoping to get Y in return.

On Monday I did a presentation at the Michigan Downtown Conference called Main Street Marketing on a Shoestring Budget.

The notes for that presentation are now downloadable in the Freebies section of www.PhilsForum.com.

Those of you who want to learn the truth behind Word-of-Mouth Advertising, how to use Social Media properly, or would like a way to turn all those requests for donations into actual business for your store will download this document.

Those of you who want to learn an easy way to turn your customers into fans, a simple way to draw traffic at only $2.50 per new customer (guaranteed), or want to learn how to meet people that can make a difference in your business will download this document.

Those of you who want to learn two techniques that will strengthen all the businesses on your Main Street at once will download this document.

The rest of you can continue to gamble with your shoestrings. But I’m betting that a lot of you are going to download this document and pass it along to your friends (strongly encouraged).

Did I tell you it’s FREE?

-Phil