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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

Don’t Eat the Tea!

My friend, Joel, told an interesting story about Tea in England.

Apparently, it was quite expensive and only for the very rich at first.

As Joel tells it…
One woman in the south took a full pound of her expensive cache and sent it to her sister in the north, telling her how marvelous it was. Her sister boiled it, dumped the black liquid off and served it like a vegetable. She wrote back about how terrible it was.

She’d prepared it like a vegetable, which she understood, instead of seeing it for what it was: something entirely new.

Joel used this story to illustrate how some people are approaching the new social media tools with the same old ideas of what advertising is and are eating their tea.

How do you like your tea?
I would argue you can apply the same lesson to all types of advertising. For every advertising medium I show you, you can point to someone who told you how they used that medium and it didn’t work. Or maybe you used it and it didn’t work. All because you (or they) didn’t brew it properly.

That is the purpose behind the FREE eBook How Ads Work Part 1. I want to give you some insight into how to brew your advertising the right way. I’ve eaten the vegetables and brewed the tea, so I know what tastes better.

If you want your advertising to leave a better taste in your mouth, start with the eBook, then email me with your questions. When done right, it’s a sweet tea!

-Phil

Free or Priceless?

I’m going out on a limb with my next two Freebies – How Ads Work Part 1 and Part 2.

Pablo Picasso is credited with saying, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”

Much of the information in these two eBooks is stuff I stole from Roy H. Williams, aka The Wizard of Ads, especially the mind-blowing Advertising Performance Equation (APE) in Part 2. It will totally transform the way you look at advertising. (I hope he doesn’t mind.)

Part 1 guides you through some of the same discussions I’ve done here – showing you HOW the different mediums work – now all condensed in one single document. Most sales reps in advertising know how to sell their products, just not how to use them. This guide will help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of each medium so you’ll know more than your reps. Plus, as a bonus, I dispel some of the most common myths of advertising and share with you the Wizard’s definition of Transactional and Relational Customers – probably the single greatest business concept I learned at Wizard Academy.

Part 2 includes the APE, plus a bunch of ad examples that have a strong impact. Although the ads are copyrighted, the techniques they use are simple enough for you to steal for your own use.

Best of all, both eBooks are completely FREE! You are encouraged not only to download them, but to share them. Send them to all your friends in the industry. Copy them to your Shop Local campaigns. Distribute them to anyone you know who needs help in advertising. Believe me, we all benefit when advertising improves.

You know why most ads don’t work? Because most people don’t know how ads work. These eBooks are your starting point to making your ads work for you.

-Phil

PS Use these two in conjunction with Understanding Your Brand and you will be light years ahead of your competition in understanding advertising and making it work for you. Think of it as a Master’s Degree without the time or expense (or the outdated info most colleges still teach).

Which Would You Attend – Revisited

A few days ago I posted 4 potential classes and asked a bunch of my retailer friends if they could only attend one, which would they choose.

I had two purposes for this post. First, to see how people choose which sessions and trainings to attend. Second, to see if there was one over-riding topic in which everyone was thirsting for more info.

The answer to the first purpose was interesting. There were three basic reasons for choosing which class to attend.

  1. It is the class that you deem most important to your business success (regardless of your own skill level)
  2. It is the class in which you feel your skills are least competent
  3. It is the class that sounds the most fun (of highest interest to you)

Professionally, I would think reasons #1 & #2 make the most sense, but I can also see how #3 plays into the equation. If you aren’t enjoying yourself, you’ll have a harder time staying focused, thus have a harder time learning.

The answer to the second purpose was less clear. All four classes received interest. Including the email responses, there would have been at least two people in each class, but no more than three in any one class. So no clear cut topic emerged. Darn! I was hoping to get some more focus for future posts.

So, in lieu of a single topic, I’ll keep writing a variety of posts on all topics important to retail success. If you have a question, send it along and I’ll respond. Maybe by the 4th quarter you won’t have to attend any classes.

-Phil