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Run the Radio Marathon to Finish in the Lead

As we continue our discussion of how different advertising media work, we come to my personal favorite.

Radio – the Marathon runner.

No, I’m not a runner. But I am in business for the long run. My time horizon for Toy House extends beyond my children. So I like advertising that also has long term benefits. Radio is one of those. A well-crafted long term radio campaign gives you slow and steady increases in top-of-mind awareness that builds upon itself exponentially.

Advantages? Here are some of the best:

  • Intrusive in nature – You can’t turn off your ears. If the radio is on and you’re in the room, you’re listening. No mute buttons or fast forwarding like TV, no flipping pages like newspaper.
  • Can reach a lot of people inexpensively – Unlike newspaper circulations in decline and TV viewers fractured by hundreds of choices, radio listenership is going up.
  • Can get high frequency – Radio listeners stay fairly loyal to their stations and listen on a regular schedule
  • Words are powerful

Television allows the combination of words and visuals to create a powerful message, but words alone can stir the heart just as compellingly. Forget the old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

“In a thousand words I can have the Lord’s Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, the Hippocratic Oath, a sonnet by Shakespeare, the Preamble to the Constitution, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and almost all of the Boy Scout Oath. Now exactly what picture were you planning to trade for all that?” – unknown (anyone have a source for this quote?)

The key to Radio is repetition. You have to be on early and often, frequent and continuous. You also have to say something interesting. Like all advertising, boring ads never work.

Think about the average radio listener. She is probably doing something else while bopping along to her favorite song. Her mind is already half occupied. When the song stops and an ad comes on, her brain ignores the ad and fully engages the other activity until the music draws her partially back to the radio.

For your ad to be effective you have to say something more interesting than what she is currently thinking at the time. The biggest complaint from radio listeners is that there are too many ads. The solution is not to have fewer ads, but to have better ads, commercials that people want to hear.

That means stories. Yes, radio is about telling a story, painting a mental image, taking a listener to a new place in her own mind (your store).

If you want to do radio and be successful, follow these tips:

  • Commit to one full year – it takes a long time of continual repetition until a radio campaign gains traction. Commit to a full year and stick it out. (two years if your product cycle is extra long like flooring or real estate)
  • Run a Schedule with a minimum frequency of 3x per week – Sleep is the great eraser of the mind. It takes someone hearing your message three times in 7 days to have it sink into memory.
  • Change your ads (but not your message) every month – Keep the campaign fresh and exciting
  • Only make one point per ad – No one can remember more than one thing, so only say one thing
  • Your name is more important than your address – They’ll google you if they have to find you
  • Say something interesting – Stories are interesting. Unexpected is interesting.
  • Don’t sound like an ad – Ads and adspeak are not interesting. Find a creative writer who doesn’t write radio ads, just persuasive, compelling copy.

Here are some samples of radio ads that tell stories and don’t sound like ads. My personal favorite is Men’s Bathroom.

Radio is the long distance champion of branding because of the relatively low cost of reaching the same people repeatedly week after week with a powerful message when compared to TV and newspaper. The downside is the time commitment.

It’s like the old Chinese Proverb, “The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago, the second best time is today.” The best time to start a long term radio campaign is a year ago, the next best time is today.

If you’re a sprinter, looking for the quick hit, radio might not be your friend. It’s also not for the dabbler. It takes commitment and creativity to be successful. If you have the budget to run for a year, and a creative writer to convey your message powerfully through words, radio can be your best friend.

Do you agree or disagree?

PS You CAN be successful on the radio for short term events, too, but it takes a whole different way of scheduling. Send me an email and I’ll tell you how to run that campaign, too.

Television – the Super Bowl of Advertising

We’re discussing how ads work differently in different media.

Today the topic is Television – the Superbowl of advertising.

Just like the Super Bowl that everyone seems to watch, even if they are not a football fan, TV Ads get seen every day by people who are not fans of commercials (except, of course, the Super Bowl commercials. Ironic, isn’t it?)

The strength of television programming is it’s ability to tell a story. Whether a serial like a sitcom or drama, or a one-time event like a Hallmark movie or sports, television is the story teller of our age.

Therefore, the strength of television advertising is in the ability to tell your story.

Television allows you to combine powerful words and music with compelling visual images to create an amazing experience and tell a wonderful story in a short window of time.

The downside? Money. It costs a lot of money to produce a quality ad that people might actually watch. It costs a lot of money to put that ad out there enough times to be seen and remembered. It costs a lot of money to run a television campaign and keep it fresh and in front of your customers over a long period of time until they are in the market for your product and are finally convinced to buy from you.

It can also be expensive when you do it wrong. And believe me, many advertisers get it wrong. Here are the three most common mistakes:

  • Using humor without reinforcing the brand (Quick, name the Super Bowl advertiser with all the monkeys at work. I’ll bet less than a third of you were right.)
  • Making the ad entertaining but not telling anything about your company (How many people thought GoDaddy was a softporn site for men thanks to those Danica Patrick ads?)
  • Trying to say too much (Most local ads do this, packing way more info into an ad than anyone could possibly remember)

If you’re going to advertise on TV, follow these tips:

  • Get professional production. Lousy looking ads with bad audio or video give the wrong image of your business.
  • Get people’s attention in the first 3 seconds (before they can grab the remote).
  • Make one point and only one point in your ad. Everything else is just clutter and another reason for someone to tune you out or forget what you say.
  • Use emotions. Emotions connect your brand better than humor or cleverness.
  • Only use humor or cleverness if it reinforces your brand, otherwise the humor will trump the message and the message will be lost.
  • Make your images move slowly across the screen. They will be seen even by people fast-forwarding their DVR’s.
  • Schedule your ads so that they get a good frequency (reaching the same people more than once). Frequency is just as important as reaching a lot of people.
  • Keep it up. Branding campaigns take time to get traction. It’s a long term commitment.

If you have the guts (and the money) television can be a powerful advertising tool, especially for building brand awareness. But beware. Your ads can just as quickly be ignored.

Thanks to remotes and DVR’s (and boring, unemotional commercials), television ads can become as invisible as non-relevant newspaper ads. It takes planning, dedication, time, and a producer who understands your message and knows how to portray it powerfully.

Do you agree or disagree?

Advertising in Newspapers the Right Way

Most advertising fails because it is the wrong type of advertising for the medium in which it is placed. As I mentioned before, I’m going to discuss a variety of advertising media and how they work best (and worst).

First up is Newspapers – the medium of Relevancy.

To start, let’s identify the elephant in the room. Yes, newspapers are shrinking in numbers, size and circulation. Yes, many are predicting the demise of the newspaper as we know it within a decade or less. But they still have a wide audience of dedicated readers today. I’m one of them. I read my local newspaper cover to cover every single day.

Yet, I cannot remember a single ad I saw in yesterday’s paper.

Why? None of the ads were relevant. (Half the stories weren’t relevant either, but that’s another discussion.)

Think about how people read newspapers. They scan the headlines looking for something of interest. (Newspapers have people who only write headlines – specialists at getting your attention.) And if the headline is successful, the reader might quickly skim the first paragraph to see if they are interested in reading further. (Journalists pack that first paragraph with the main point of the article, knowing that most won’t read a single sentence more.)

The newspaper is all about scanning and filtering, looking for something that is relevant to the reader.

Therefore, to have your ad work in a newspaper, it has to be relevant to the reader. Just mentioning your company’s name isn’t relevant. Sorry, you just aren’t that important. Relevancy comes from talking about a product or event. Are you having a huge furniture sale? That is relevant. Are you the new distributor for a well-known brand? Relevant.

If you run an ad with a big sofa pictured, you’ll attract everyone reading that page who is currently in the market for a sofa (and no one else). If you run an ad with the headline, “HUGE TOY SALE” you’ll attract everyone currently in the market for toys.

To be successful with newspaper ads follow this advice:

  • Make your ads Relevant by focusing on a product or event.
  • Understand that regardless of what the salesperson told you, only the people currently in the market for your product will even see your ad
  • Use a clear picture of a product or a catchy headline to grab the customer’s attention
  • White space is your friend – it makes it easier for customers to see your picture or headline
  • Don’t use a full page – most people don’t even look at it because there is no content on the page – a half page or less has the best chance of being seen
  • Don’t make the ad about you or your business. You aren’t that interesting or relevant.
  • Inserts work only if your market is the Transactional Customer

Newspaper advertising is for selling products and announcing events. It’s not very good at branding your company or mission.

Relevant wins in newspapers. Everything else is invisible. (The same is true for advertising in online papers.)

I challenge you to pick up today’s paper and carefully read every ad. See how many are about products or events. See how many use a catchy headline or picture to grab your attention. And see how many would have been invisible to you if not for this assignment.

Do you agree or disagree?

Which Medium Works Best for Your Ads?

You’re not sure where to spend your ad dollars. It is hard-earned money and you need to make the most of it. You ask all your buddies in the industry where they get the best results. Unfortunately, twenty questions garner twenty responses, all different. You’re still confused and unsure.

Which medium will work best for your ads?

Three of your colleagues really like TV, but three hate it. Four swear by direct mail, but five call it a waste of money. Radio, newspaper, and yellow pages also receive mixed reviews. Add in the lukewarm repsonses to websites, email, and social media and there is no clear cut answer… until you change the question.

How does each medium work best (and worst)?

Why so many answers to the first question? Most businesses don’t understand how ads work. Every form of advertising has its pros and cons. When used properly any one of them can be made to work. When used wrong, it is just a waste of money. To be successful with your ads you have to know two things:

  1. What are my objectives?
  2. How does each medium work best?

The first question is up to you. I’ll help you with the second question. And when you know these two things it will be easy for you to choose the right medium and tailor your message to work best.

Over the next few weeks I’ll discuss the different media and how they work, including:

  • Newspaper
  • Television
  • Radio
  • Magazines
  • Yellow Pages
  • Direct Mail
  • Email
  • Websites
  • Social Media

(Is there another medium you’re considering that is not on the list? Send me a comment and I’ll add it.)

Stay with me on this. There is some eye-opening information coming.

Are You Saying Something Remarkable? (Would You Like to?)

What do your ads say?

Wait, let me rephrase that.

What do your ads say that is truly worth remembering?

I know what you say about your advertising.

“We’ve tried that and it didn’t work.”
“We don’t have that in our budget.”
“We only believe in word-of-mouth.”
“We only do ‘event-advertising’.”
“We had to cut advertising because of the economy.”

The reason your ads didn’t work is because they weren’t remarkable. No one heard them, let alone remembered them.

A 1978 Yankelovich study showed that the average American received 2,000 advertising messages a day. In a revised study in 2008 that number is now 5,000. Without a remarkable, memorable message, you’ll never stand out in a crowd of 5,000.

Chances are, you have a remarkable, memorable message. You just haven’t been telling it.

You’ve been saying your name over and over under the false belief that just repeating your name thousands of times will give it top-of-mind salience. But what if people don’t know what your name means? Or worse yet, they have a negative association with that name, or an indifferent one?

There are ways to make your marketing stand out, to make it memorable. And it all starts with the message. Finding your truly remarkable, memorable message is the single most important element of your success in advertising. Yet, it is the most common mistake.

As you worry over demographics, reach, circulation, viewership, listenership; who is hearing or seeing your ad, you neglect to think about what you are telling them. As you worry about cost-per-ad, cost-per-click, cost-per-inch, cost-per-viewer; you neglect the cost of not saying anything worth remembering.

The result? Blah, blah, blah. Don’t you think that with 5,000 ad messages a day we learn to filter out the vast majority of it? If it isn’t interesting, we aren’t paying attention. If it isn’t remarkable, we aren’t remembering.

The message is king. A remarkable, memorable message works well no matter what medium you use to deliver it. A remarkable, memorable message works well no matter how many people hear or see it. A remarkable, memorable message can even buy you that coveted word-of-mouth.

I still have customers talking about our Men’s Bathroom radio ad even though it hasn’t been on the air for over 10 months!

Here’s the hard part. Finding your message means digging deep into the heart of your business, brushing away all the secondary messages until you find the one core thing worth saying. It means uncovering the real you inside your business, the unvarnished and genuine you. And it means having the guts to tell the world about the real you.

Do you have the guts?

Good! Here’s the first step. Go to Freebies on my website and download the ebook Understanding Your Brand. Follow those directions. When you get done, send me your results. I’ll help you find something worth saying.

I know there’s a message in there. Together we can pull it out and make your marketing truly remarkable.

Helping the Independent Retailer Succeed

“An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.” – Neils Bohr

Whenever I make a mistake, I am usually the first to admit it. Probably makes me unique. But if you’ve been near me when I goof, you’ve heard me say, “Not the first time I made a mistake, certainly won’t be the last.”

After growing up in a retail family and spending 16 years running a top level independent retailer, I’m now the guy Neils Bohr was talking about. Yes, a bona fide expert in independent retailing. And I’m here to share my experiences with you.

I’m launching a new website just for the independent retailer – http://www.philsforum.com/. There is so much a business owner needs to know to run a successful retail operation.

You have to be great in four categories.

Great Products – having the right products in the right amounts merchandised the right way at the right prices to make your customers happy and make the registers sing
Great Customer Service – providing a top notch experience for your customers through a fabulous, well-trained, friendly and caring staff with customer-friendly services and attitude.
Great Marketing – getting the word out about your business in a consistent and well-planned manner with a powerful message that connects deeply and drives traffic through the doors
Great Financials – knowing where your money is and what it is doing to help you succeed

Rare is the independent retailer who is strong in all four categories.
Few have mastered even three.
Most independent retail owners are strong in only one or two.
All think they know more than they do (except for the smart ones among you)

The truth is we all need to keep learning.

Even a guy like me is still learning. I’m constantly trying to become better in every category above. And, having made and learned from a bunch of my own mistakes (not to mention the mistakes of others), I can say I’m pretty close to becoming one of the Few.

No, I’m not a financials kind of guy. Talk to your accountant on that. But I do know about Marketing, Merchandising and Customer Service. Stuff that has elevated Toy House and Baby Too to be recognized as one of the 25 best independent retailers in America.

Now I’m going to share our secrets.

The website is loaded with freebies – ebooks and articles you can download and start using right away. This blog is there, too. I’ll be writing to give you insights and new perspectives on the world of retail and how to grow your business.

I’m also looking for your feedback. What hot button issues are graying your hairs? In which category do you need the most help? What topics do you want me to cover?

Your success is the goal. I already have a successful business. My purpose is to help you get there, too.

What I Learned in Louisville

The All Baby & Child Spring Conference just wrapped up. It is a conference for stores who sell baby products. Over 3 plus days we had speakers, presentations and a mini trade show. I was asked to be a presenter when the conference was scheduled but got bumped for a presentation on the new CPSIA law and how it affects baby products.

Twenty of the four hundred plus attendees dragged themselves into a room set up for 300 to hear the latest interpretations of this expensively pointless law. But since I wasn’t presenting, I chose to carefully observe the other presenters to see what I could learn. Here are the Do’s and Don’ts from Louisville.

Don’t give a presentation where all you do is read the ample text on your wordy slides. Give me the handout and quit wasting my time. I’m not two any more. I can read. Yes, one presenter put up slides full of text and then read them to us, often poorly because he couldn’t decide whether to read his laptop with reading glasses or turn his back and read the screen without. It’s been a long time since I rated a presentation poor. I pray it will be another long time before I do it again.

Don’t plan a 90 minute presentation when you only have 60 minutes scheduled. As much as I like the information, I also want to get to the next presentation on time.

Don’t start your presentation until you know the audio is working. Twenty minutes into a talk is way too late to find out half the room can’t hear you.

Don’t talk too fast. Yeah it may be your style, but I was out of breath just trying to keep up with you. I haven’t learned shorthand and taking notes was useless.

Don’t promote your book until the end. I’m not interested in buying until I know what you’re selling.

Do something surprising to get my interest. Rick Segel giving away a copy of his book to the first person willing to go against the crowd was a brilliant idea (and I’m not just saying that because he gave the book to me). It got everyone to pay attention and realize that dissenting voices exist and are not always wrong.

Do give me action steps. Paint me a picture of what to do next. Mike Rayburn taught me to say, “What if..?” whenever I am presented with a challenge. It was our buzzword fr the rest of the evening. George Whalin gave me a list of traits of a great manager, things I need to develop in myself or hire & train in my employees. I like concrete stuff that helps me plot a course of action.

Do something unique. The most fascinating presentation was by Mike Rayburn. He’s a guitar virtuoso, a comedian, and a motivational speaker. One of my colleagues asked me after the presentation if he was a musician who did comedy or a speaker who did music, or a comedian who did motivation. I asked what was the point. You see, there are plenty of guitar virtuosos, tons of motivational speakers, and a plethora of comedians. But there is only one Mike Rayburn who can combine all three seamlessly. If there had been a box above Excellent, I would have checked it for his presentation.

Do something fun. Rick Segel told great jokes that made us laugh out loud and helped get his points across. George Whalin put up a slide of a crazy guy in a superhero outfit that got a lot of buzz afterwards. Mike used humor and music, two of my favorites.

Do give me something to take home. I have a book, a DVD, two CD’s, and three handouts of notes. Reading material for bedtime, listening material for the drive home, and training material for the next staff meeting. It’s the trifecta of a great conference.

If you are doing a presentation, whether for a handful of co-workers in a staff meeting or a crowd of conference attendees, keep these Do’s and Don’ts in mind. And if you’re not doing any public speaking soon, why don’t you come to my talk on Wednesday, May 20th. It’s at 7:30 am at Jackson Coffee Company. The topic is How Ads Work: Understanding Branding and the APE. Not only will you learn some really cool stuff for your business, you’ll get the chance to critique me on the stuff I’ve just posted and tell me how well I did.

See you there.

-Phil

Deep Versus Wide

In just about everything you do, you have a choice. Go Deep or go Wide.

In business that could mean a number of things…

  • Stock a few things Deeply or stock a Wide assortment.
  • Try to create Deep relationships with a few special customers or shallow relationships with as Wide a group as possible.
  • Advertise Deeply in one media or spread yourself thinly across a Wide variety of venues.

Obviously, the best choice is to do both. But it is rare that any independent business has the resources to go Deep and Wide at the same time.

So with limited resources which is better? Deep or Wide?

This is the question that came up last Monday at the Jackson Retail Success Academy. One of our panelists was asked about advertising and what he felt was most effective. He said mixing up the media, doing a little in a lot of areas worked best for him. At which point every head turned towards me.

Two weeks earlier I instructed the same group of students to go Deep with their advertising, not to mix it up too much. Pick one media, I told them, and do it to the best of your budget and ability.

Every eye was now staring at me to see what I had to say.

And here’s what I said…

Nothing.

First, I did not want to discount what a fellow local business person whom I respect had just said. Second, I already had my say on the matter. Third, it wasn’t the time or place since we were supposed to be talking Inventory Management at the time. And finally, none of the students in that group had the kind of advertising budget this retailer had.

But the question still begged to be answered. Is mixing up the media a viable option or is it better to focus on one media done right?

Okay, I cheated. I phrased the question with a serious slant. I used the words, “done right”.

You see, the key to successful advertising is not how much you do or where you do it so much as how well you do it. Do you have a powerful message? Do you craft that message to speak directly to the heart of your audience? Do you pound that message over and over and over until the customers are thinking of nothing else other than you?

When I talk about Deep in advertising, I’m talking connection. How deeply do you connect with your audience? How well do you move their who-gives-a-crap meter? If you can do that in more than one media, good for you. Some businesses don’t have the money. Most don’t know how to craft the right message.

Your customers are your business relationships. The deeper the relationship, the more business you’ll do. And that starts with a deep and long lasting connection through your ads. If you’re dabbling in a little radio here, a little TV there, with a little newsprint on the side, how can you make any lasting impressions? How can you stay with it long enough to move the meter?

With all due respect to my fellow retailer, mixed media is rarely the answer. While he runs a successful business, Roy Williams, who taught me about going Deep, has turned other businesses in his category into rock stars (for those who know, pun intended).

Would you like to learn to go Deep? Join me for an hour on Wednesday, May 20th at 7:30am. I’ll be holding court at Jackson Coffee Company upstairs in their conference room doing a presentation that will change the way you advertise for good (or better).

-Phil

What to Change, What to Keep the Same

Johnny’s Toys, a fixture of the Cincinnati toy market for decades is dropping out of the toy business. Their flagship store in Covington, KY, just across the river from Cinci is converting the sales floor into more space for birthday parties and events that they host in the back of their store, an area called Otterville. They’re keeping their electric train business, but cutting out the toys and baby products.

I had a chance to visit Johnny’s a few years ago. Johnny’s has been one of few remaining giant independents like us carrying a wide variety of toys, hobby & baby products. In the electric train world Johnny’s is legendary. While we have a nice train display, ours is only one fourth the size of theirs. A full 24×8 feet of trains, track, bridges, crossings, landscape and wide-eyed children.

It was awesome!

I just wish the rest of the store had been as exciting.

Talking to a sales rep, together we lamented their getting out of toys. But then he added, “Phil, you’ve been far more proactive in your business, staying current on products, marketing, etc. I’m not really surprised they’re doing this.”

Proactive? Staying Current? Aren’t those minimums for running a business? I mean, we’re not talking advanced retail. Shouldn’t every business be staying current? Unfortunately, it is too easy to fall into the trap of believing that what worked before will work again.

The real skill in retailing is figuring out what to keep the same and what to change. Isn’t that the real skill in all business?

What do you hold fast, what do you let go? What do you never change, what do you constantly change? Where do you stay old-fashioned, where do you modernize? Principle questions being asked by businesses of all shapes and sizes all across the world.

I have an answer to those questions and I think the answer applies to every type of business.

What do you keep the same? Your Core Values! The principles that guided you when you began your business. The traits that define you and your business. David Freeman calls this your Character Diamond. It is the three to five traits that consistently identify you and guide every decision you make. Because these traits are inherent in both you and your business, they never change. In fact, they should be the rock upon which everything else is built.

What do you change? Everything else!

The key is to know what are your Core Values, to know your Character Diamond. Once you identify these traits, change becomes easy. Just ask yourself if the change you are looking to make is consistent with your Character. If yes, make the change. And make changes, you should.

You need to be current on products and trends, changing to meet the needs of your customer base. You need to know marketing and accounting principles and the changes happening in those worlds so that you perform at your best in both categories. You need to be on top of the best hiring and training practices so that your staff regularly exceeds your customers’ changing expectations. Yes, you need to change everything else. But you already know that.

Do you know your Character Diamond? Join me on Wednesday, May 20th at Jackson Coffee Company for the Midtown Morning Breakfast and I’ll help you identify the Core Values that are the foundation of your path to greatness. We’ll get started at 7:30am with a free continental breakfast and some of the most valuable information you’ll learn all year.

And as a bonus, I’ll show you how to use your Character Diamond to attract new customers and new business in ways you never imagined.

It will take a little over an hour of your time, but I promise it will be worth every minute.

-Phil

PS The May 20th event is actually Part 2 of my How Ads Work presentation. I’m doing Part 1 on Wed., April 15th same time same place. Hopefully you’ll join me for both.

More on Word of Mouth

It’s pretty much a universally accepted truth. Word-of-Mouth is the best form of advertising. And most people add… “and best of all, it’s free!”

Really?

If you remember from an earlier post, Roy Williams said that word-of-mouth (WOM) comes from 3 things:

  • Over-the-top Design
  • Over-the-top Performance
  • Over-the-top Generosity

These all cost money. You either spent money on the design, on the hiring & training a superior staff, or on the stuff you gave away.

One thing that surprised me was that Roy didn’t mention the WOM you can get from Over-the-top Advertising. Last August I ran a radio ad that said:

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 they were coming out laughing and giggling. Oh yeah, and buying, too. I guess when you have a product this cool you just have to show it of whenever and wherever you can. The men’s bathroom… gotta love it. Toy House in downtown Jackson. We’re here to make you smile. (Listen to the ad)

The ad aired for one month and hasn’t been on the airwaves since. But when it first came out the response was incredible. One local DJ discussed it on the air with the local newspaper rep, wondering just what the product might be. Everywhere I went someone asked what was in the men’s bathroom. People even came up to my wife asking about the ad. And earlier today – seven months after the ad was off the air – we had a customer ask about what was in the men’s bathroom. She said she and her family had discussed it over Christmas speculating on what the product might be. She was wrong, but delighted, because she liked what it was well enough to buy one.

Yes, you can create WOM with your ads. Here’s another example I just love.

One of the sponsors of Greg O’Conner’s “The Nooner” sports talk show is a store called Bras That Fit. Yes, a store that sells bras to women is a sponsor of a daily sports talk show primarily listened to by men. Some old-school marketers are rolling in their graves. Those who lived (and died) by the mantra that you have to reach the right people must think this store owner is out of her mind. You can’t sell bras on a men’s sports talk show. Or can you?

Her message is quite simple…

“Hey guys, are you tired of hearing your wife complain about her bra? Send her to Bras That Fit…”

So let me ask you a question. Which would be more effective, a woman hearing a radio ad or a woman complaining about her bra, to which her husband replies, “Hey, why don’t you go to this store I heard about on Greenwood?”

Reaching the Right People is just one of the myths I’m going to bust at an upcoming workshop on How Ads Work. Part 1 takes place Wednesday, April 15th at 7:30am at Jackson Coffee Co., with Part 2 on May 20th. Best of all, it’s absolutely free!

And while you’re there, I’ll teach you how to design ads that get people talking about your business. Think of this as my Over-the-top Generosity to the business community. Spread the word and I’ll see you there.

-Phil