Advertising Media Money

This chart only measures where it is spent.

It does not measure which is the most effective. (All depends on the campaign, and other marketing).

It does not tell us who is spending all the big bucks either.

So be careful when you look at charts like this and then talk to a professional who understands how to use each form of media to get the results you want.

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Less Drinking & Driving?

According to this study, folks are not spending as much as they used to on drinking at bars and clubs. Could be the rising gas prices, rising prices overall, and perhaps people are staying home and drinking instead.

Here in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a few years ago our city council, introduced stricter and stricter rules against smoking including the most recent total ban on indoor smoking and within 20 or 30 feet from the door. That lead to slowdowns in many city taverns and increases in those outside the city limits.

Alcohol Purchases in Bars, Restaurants Hurt by Economic Downturn

Nearly 44% of bar managers, bar owners and bartenders report a decrease in consumer traffic at their establishments, according to a May 2008 study from The Nielsen Company and Bevinco.

Among the 500 bar operators surveyed, 25% note a decrease in the number of on-premise drinks ordered, and 22% say customers are ordering less-expensive drinks.

The bars were located in US nightclubs, hotels, casual restaurants and fine-dining restaurants. Among these types of establishments, the casual dining sector appears hardest hit, with 46% of respondents reporting a decline.

Consumers Going out Less

Consumers also report that they are cutting back. According to a May 2008 Nielsen consumer survey of 3,500 consumers, two-thirds (66%) of fine-dining patrons say they are going out less often than a year ago.

Their sentiments are echoed by 65% of those who visit nightclubs, 55% of bar patrons, 59% of casino and resort patrons and 52% of casual diners.

Regional Impact

Establishments on the East Coast and West Coast report the largest declines in on-premise alcohol consumption, with bar owners and operators in California (55%) and Florida (52%) citing significant decreases in traffic.

In addition, 43% of Florida operators say they’ve experienced a decrease in the number of drinks ordered. Only one-third of establishments in Florida and California claim there has been no overall impact.

In Texas, slightly more than half of operators report a decrease in consumer traffic, while nearly one-third say patrons are ordering less expensive drinks.

Beer Fares Best, Wine Sales Lag

Beer sales are affected the least by the economic downturn, with wine sales showing the most impact, according to Nielsen and Bevinco. Nearly half of total respondents rate beer as having the “best” sales trend of the three categories, followed by spirits at 40%. Only 11% cited wine as having the best sales trend of the three.

Operators also report the following minor price-related changes in consumer behavior:

• 14% report that customers are ordering more well or house drinks.
• 13% report greater sales of beer on draft rather than in bottles.
• 9% say wine drinkers are increasingly opting for house varieties.

“Wine is more likely to be consumed in dining establishments, which have been more heavily impacted by the economy than bars or nightclubs,” said Danny Brager, vice-president, Client Service, Beverage Alcohol, The Nielsen Company. “At the same time, beer and spirit companies vigorously market their product to bartenders, likely resulting in greater ’share of mind’ compared to wine among servers and bartenders.”

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Press Release Guide

We get lots of faxes and regular mail at our radio stations that are just wasted paper. Here's some tips on how to do it right:

The Weakest Link

How To Distribute A Press Release (click here for the full article)

Posted: 11 Jul 2008 12:41 PM CDT

Getting Your News Out There The most time consuming part of press release marketing is to build a media list. This is why the companies that distribute press releases charge so much to do it. They have built extensive databases with every possible piece of information they might need. You are not paying for the service [...]

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Trends in Advertising

From my email today:

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Internet Ad Growth Percentage High, But Traditional Ad Dollars Higher

The IDC Digital Marketplace Model and Forecast shows total worldwide Internet advertising to be $65.2 billion in 2008, growing to $106.6 billion in 2011.

John Gantz, chief research officer at IDC, explained "... (though) Internet advertising is growing at a phenomenal rate, ... (it) is still relatively new and growing from a much smaller base... By the end of the forecast period, spending for Internet advertising will trail direct mail... by more than $30 billion, while spending on TV and print ads will each be nearly twice as great as for online ads... The long-term opportunity for Internet advertising can be seen in the disparity in per capita spending: total advertising revenues... (are) more than $105 per inhabitant of the planet, while Internet advertising revenues are less than $50 per active Internet user."

In projecting advertising types, the report says:

• Keyword ads will remain the dominant type of Internet advertising throughout the forecast period, capturing more than a third of annual online ad spending worldwide
• Display ads will be the next largest type of Internet advertising, capturing more than 20% of worldwide spending annually through 2011
• Classified is next, with nearly 19% of all online ad spending per year
• Spending in both categories will be pressured by rich media ads, which are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 50% during the 2007-2011 forecast period

"Marketers already recognize that online advertising must be incorporated into any comprehensive ad strategy. This will continue to drive growth in online ad spending well beyond the forecast period," said Karsten Weide, program director, Digital Media and Entertainment. "However, there is still a lot of experimentation underway within the category as marketers seek the optimal mix of ad types to reach their target audience. This will fuel spending for all types of online ads."

Additional expenditure highlights from the study include the following:

• The United States will lead the world in both total advertising spending and online ad spending throughout the forecast period with expenditures of more than $265 billion and $45 billion respectively in 2011
• More than $5 billion will be spent worldwide in 2008 in each of the top four categories of online ads - adult content and gambling, information, electronics, and computing. These will continue to be the leading categories in 2011

For additional information from IDC, please visit here.

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Newspapers Fight Back

I noticed it yesterday.

A clickable ad in my email from Mediapost.

Today I clicked on it and zoomed thru cyberspace to this website.

Click here and check 'em out.

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Not Everyone likes Green

The media might have you believing that in order to survive, you have to "go green."

Not so fast...

Forget the Environment Say the 'Never Greens'

July 13, 2008

-By Jim Edwards

William Coverley has nine cars, including four Porsches, a pickup and a Ferrari. Last week, he bought a 10th—a 2008 GMC Yukon XL—because he needs something to tow his boat. The three-quarter-ton SUV gets a dismal 14 miles per gallon in traffic.

As consumers flee gigantic trucks for environmentally friendly small cars and hybrids, Coverley is an increasingly rare beast: He wants one of the biggest gas-guzzlers that $40,000 can buy. "Do I care that I'm wasting gas? No, I really don't," the Hudson, Ohio, resident said.

Coverley is part of a small but persistent new consumer demographic: The "Never Greens"— people who either don't care or are not interested in America's new passion for sustainable, green products.

It's a demo that's been overlooked by marketers as they rush to tout their carbon offsets, recycled content and eco-friendly manufacturing.

About 10% of the population are Never Greens, according to a survey by Mintel International in Chicago, a research firm.

The Never Greens don't buy green products, don't remember green advertising when they see it and are irritated by it even if they do, according to Mintel.

Never Greens also showed up in a survey by Shelton Group, an ad agency for BP Solar, the oil giant's renewable unit. About 26% of Americans are hardcore skeptics, according to Suzanne Shelton, the CEO of the Knoxville, Tenn., firm. They tend to be upper-income, middle-aged, conservative males, she said.

Coverley, a retired investment banker, fits the profile almost perfectly. He lives in the middle of the country, is highly educated, has lots of disposal income, and is a man who is not shy with his opinions about the economy and the price of oil.

"I don't care about the environmental reasons and I'll tell you why," Coverley said. "All this stuff about carbon emissions, no one really knows about the output of the sun and yet it's the single most important input behind global warming . . . Are the Chinese going to be environmentalists? Are the Indians going to be environmentalists? Are the Russians? I don't think so."

Although Never Greens are outliers—most Americans are raising their expectations of companies' green efforts—marketers would do well to pay attention to these naysayers. Why? Because several companies have stumbled as consumers have rejected green products even while ostensibly clamoring for more.

Click here for more

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Sales Funnels

If you've never seen a Sales Funnel, now's the time:

Daily Sales Tip: The Sales Funnel

The sales funnel is just like a funnel you might use to pour liquid from one container into another.

If you stop pouring the liquid into the top part of the funnel, fluid stops coming out the bottom. If you try to pour too much liquid in at one time, the funnel overflows and you lose some of it. You'll also lose liquid if the funnel has leaks. If you have some blockages in your funnel, the flow may stop or back up causing an overflow situation again.

So how does this work for sales? Simple. If you stop putting potential sales opportunities into the top part of the funnel, closed sales stop coming out the bottom.

If you try to put too many sales opportunities in at one time, the sales funnel overflows and you lose some potential sales. This can happen after a trade show where you simply have too many leads to follow-up in a timely manner.

You'll also lose sales if the sales funnel has leaks. Leaks are simply lost sales that probably weren't going to happen in the first place.

A blockage in your sales funnel could be something as simple as the inability to get a proposal out in a timely manner, the inability to deliver on a specific date, or indecision on the part of someone in the company.

It would be nice if every sales opportunity you put into the top of the sales funnel poured out the bottom as a closed sale. The percentage of sales opportunities that actually end up closed is called your "closing ratio." A 25 percent closing ratio means that you get (close) one out of every four sales you start.

Just like your regular funnel can't go out and find liquids to pour into its top end, the sales funnel can't actively find potential opportunities. That's your job. It's called prospecting. And part of your job, particularly in slower times, is to keep a flow of potential opportunities flowing down through your prospecting pipeline and into the sales funnel.

Developing your prospecting pipelines is important to your long-term survival in sales. If you just wait around for the company to supply you leads, chances are you'll slowly starve to death, in a metaphorical sense. Surprised? You shouldn't be. Experience shows that the best salespeople are also the best prospectors.


Source: Sales trainer/consultant Brian Jeffrey (salesforcetraining.com, 2008)

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Monday Night Marketing Headlines

From Mediapost today:

Anti-Tobacco Truth Campaign Eyes Viral Effort
by Karl Greenberg
[Packaged Goods] The American Legacy Foundation's "truth" campaign, aimed at preventing kids from lighting up, is taking a shot at viral marketing. - Read the whole story...

Visa Solicits User-Generated Content For Olympics Effort
by Aaron Baar
[Financial Services] With less than a month to go before the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Beijing, Visa is expecting consumers to start getting into the spirit, and hoping they're in a mood to share a little content. - Read the whole story...

Verizon Connects With Consumers Through Experience
by Laurie Sullivan
[Telecom] Verizon Wireless is relying on a mix of word of mouth, blog chatter and local newspaper and radio ads to attract attention to its newly opened retail store in Boston. - Read the whole story...

Suzuki Uses Small Vehicles To Help Push Larger Ones
by Karl Greenberg
[Automotive] American Suzuki has been featuring its motorcycles in its car and SUV commercials since 2006. The auto manufacturer is now counting on its next four-wheeled vehicle -- and its first pickup truck -- to have a more direct relationship to motorcycles, as well as ATVs and marine products. - Read the whole story...

Nutraceuticals May Be Nearing Tipping Point In U.S.
by Karlene Lukovitz
[Food and Beverage] Nutraceuticals -- food and beverages that claim to enhance appearance, revive mental acuity and increase resistance to disease -- have reached a tipping point in North America, according to new research from the Center for Culinary Development (CCD) and Packaged Facts. - Read the whole story...

TNS Unveils New In-Store Metrics For Grocers
by Sarah Mahoney
[Retail] TNS is unveiling a new way to measure grocery-store behavior, one it says will give both grocery retailers and packaged-goods marketers new insight into their marketing plans. - Read the whole story...

Executive Changes at La-Z-Boy

Go Daddy Goes To Canada

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Local Starbucks Closing

Just a quick update on the Starbucks news, this is from the afternoon email sent out by the Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly:

Starbucks Corp. said Friday it will close its store in Bluffton at 2133 N. Main St.
Starbucks previously had announced plans to close approximately 600 unprofitable company-operated stores in the United States beginning this month and continuing through the first half of the 2009 fiscal year.
On Friday, the company identified the first group of stores to be closed. Those stores, including the Bluffton location and one in Indianapolis, will close by the end of the month, Starbucks said.
Other closures will be detailed in the following months, the company said. The "determination of each store's closure date is dependent on several operational and contractual factors and events," Starbucks said in a statement.

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Establish Value with your Prices

Want a quick and easy way to make an impression?

Raise your prices.

Oh, sure, you'll get a reaction. If your regular customers notice that their favorite items are costing them a few cents or bucks more, it will be noticed.

So, give your regular customers a break if you want and give them a discount card that they can use for the next 6 to 12 months, that locks in their prices to what they paid before you raised them 10%.

But with new customers, make them pay. Here's more on the subject:

You Cost a Lot, So You're Precious

Let's face it: customers often equate price with quality. Many consumers think high prices mean high quality, while low prices signal lower quality. Sometimes they're right. But sometimes they're wrong—for instance, when a seller offers a discounted price to move inventory. So why do buyers still use price as their qualifier? Perhaps marketers are just talking too much.

A recent set of studies shows that consumers rely on price as an indicator of quality when they're exposed to a lot of product information. The sheer volume of info can make it difficult for customers to accurately assess product quality based on the information given—so they focus on price as a quality cue.

Researchers claim this behavior is spurred by the natural desire most of us have for closure. When presented with a large amount of information, customers focus on the quality element, and fill in the blanks themselves. Since price is one of the most apparent qualifiers, they repeatedly turn to it.

And, since consumers are willing to purchase more expensive brands when they perceive a high price-quality correlation, these variables can influence quite a lot of purchase decisions.

So what's the lesson for marketers here? Unless you want to risk charging a high price to appeal to the price-quality crowd, it pays to keep your marketing messages short and sweet.

The Po!nt: Highlight your product's appeal in clear and simple language. Remember, consumers use price as a signal of quality when the product information exceeds their capacity to process it.

Source: "Selective Hypothesis Testing Perspective on Price-Quality Inference and Inference-Based Choice" by Maria L. Cronley, Steven S. Posavac, Tracy Meyer, Frank R. Kardes, and James J. Kellaris. Vol. 15 Issue 2. Journal of Consumer Psychology.

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Struggling Starbucks

Let's face it, Starbucks will need to adjust to the current economic conditions just like everyone else. Here's the latest from Advertising Age:

Starbucks Offers More Samples, Discounts

Tactics Hint at Deeper Troubles for Upscale Chain

By Emily Bryson York

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Starbucks said it is offering prolonged and far-flung sampling of summer beverages to assuage consumers and boost traffic through the season. The promotions, which vary by region, are focused in major cities. They're also targeted at faithful customers who have Starbucks cards or visit the stores more than once a day.

The promotion seems to confirm speculation that summer beverage sales have not been up to scratch.

Photo Credit: AP

The coffee giant, in the midst of an attempted turnaround, has in recent months undertaken sampling efforts primarily linked to its Pike Place Roast and its iced-coffee blend and mostly driven by newspaper advertising. The new round of promotions not only represents an expansion of the company's regional sampling efforts but also answers a flood of consumer requests on the company's "idea" website asking for a price break while they're feeling pinched.

Public wants low prices
"What we hear consistently is that you want Starbucks to find new ways to bring you everyday value, especially when money is tight," Brad Stevens, VP-customer relationship management, wrote in a posting at MyStarbucksIdea.com. "So we've been working to respond in a ways that are relevant to all of our customers."

Sampling events have been in progress for several weeks. Consumers in Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, Indianapolis, New York, Philadelphia and Washington are getting free small iced coffees on specific days with certain restrictions. Another promotion involves a cold grande beverage for $2 in the afternoon if you have a receipt from that morning. Different variations of that offer are available in Chicago, Milwaukee, Nashville, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Seattle, Miami, Jacksonville, Fla., and Spokane, Wash. The St. Louis market has a discounted Frappuccino promotion.

Not everyone is buying.

"It's a difficult thing for a premium brand to price-promote," said Robert Passikoff, founder of Brand Keys. "With those kinds of tactics, what generally happens is you end up with a short-term bump, but after the promotion is over, you lose the customer base."

Sales apparently lagging
The promotion additionally seems to confirm speculation that summer beverage sales have not been up to scratch.

"We believe Frappuccino sales have been sluggish again this summer, and believe this will lead to higher total food costs and some degree of labor deleverage in [the third quarter]," UBS analyst David Palmer wrote in a research note last month. "Finally, we believe [same-store sales] growth at new units has been significantly lagging past new store results -- suggesting a more material brand decline than we anticipated."

Starbucks has recently tried to boost sales with a number of sampling events, a strategy previously unheard-of at the upscale establishment. Yet the chain continues to struggle with sluggish sales. Last week, the coffee giant announced it would close 600 underperforming stores, most of which had been opened since early 2006.

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Seth's thoughts on Supply & Demand

Lot's of good, current ideas here from Seth Godin:

Scarcity

One day, you may be lucky enough to have a scarcity problem. A product or a service or even a job that's in such high demand that people are clamoring for more than you can make.

We can learn a lot from the abysmal performance of Apple this weekend. They took a hot product and totally botched the launch because of a misunderstanding of the benefits and uses of scarcity.

First, understand that scarcity is a choice. If you raise your price, scarcity goes away. If your product is going to be scarce, it's either because you benefit from that or because your organization is forbidden to use price as a demand-adjustment tool. I'm going to assume the former. (But I riff a bit on the latter toward the end)

Why be scarce?

• Scarcity creates fashion. People want something that others can't have.
• Lines create demand. People want something that others want.
• Scarcity also creates word of mouth, because people talk about lines and shortages and hot products.
• And finally, scarcity drives your product to the true believers, the ones most likely to spread the word and ignite the ideavirus. Because they expended effort to acquire your product or service, they're not only more likely to talk about it, but they've self-selected as the sort of person likely to talk about it.

The danger is that you can kill long-term loyalty. You can annoy your best customers. You can spread negative word of mouth. You can train people to hate your scarcity strategy (Apple did all four this weekend).

Take a look at the guy in the photo. That's the goal. He feels great. He's a hero, at least for a moment, all because he stood in line all night. He gets to talk about it and others (not everyone, but enough) aspire to be him next time. You reward the tribe and you build the tribe at the same time.

The problem is that our kneejerk way of dealing with scarcity is to treat everyone the same and to have people 'pay' by spending time to indicate their desire.

Waiting in line is a very old-school way of dealing with scarcity. And treating new customers like old customers, treating unknown customers the same as high-value customers is painful and unnecessary.

Principle 1: Use the internet to form a queue. If you have a scarce product, you almost certainly know it's scarce in advance. Instead of taxing customers by wasting their time, reward the early shoppers by taking orders online. A month before sale date, for example, tell them it's coming. If you sell out before ship date, that's great, because next time people will be even quicker to order when they hear about what you've got. (And you can do this in the real world, too--postcards with numbers or even playing cards work just fine.)

A hot band that regularly sells out on the road, for example, could put a VIP serial number inside every CD or t-shirt they sell. Use that to pre-order your tix.

Principle 2: Give the early adopters a reward. In the case of Apple, I would have made the first 100,000 phones a different color. Then, instead of the buyer being a hero for ten seconds, he gets to be a hero for a year.

Principle 3: Treat different customers differently. Apple, for example, knows how to contact every single existing customer. Why not offer VIP status to big spenders? Or to those that make a lot of calls? Let them cut the line. It's not fair? What's fair mean? I can't think of anything more fair than treating the people who treat you well, better.

Principle 4: When things happen in real time, you're way more likely to screw up. One of the giant advantages of the Net is that you can fix things before the whole world notices. Try to do your rollout in small sections, so you can fix mistakes before you hurt the very people you're trying to embrace.

Principle 5: Give your early adopters a forum to celebrate. A place to brag or demonstrate or show off or share insights and ideas. Amplify the heroes, which is far better than amplifying the pain of standing in line.

Imagine what the Apple and AT&T stores would have been like this weekend if they were filled with happy customers who had pre-paid, pre-registered and were just dropping in for three minutes to pick up their (very coveted) phones, walking up the VIP line, past all the others just waiting for a chance to buy one...

Hot restaurants in New York violate all five of these principles on a regular basis. So do sports teams and stores that have lines out front in the middle of winter. What a waste.

Even colleges do it. They pretend they've got a meritocracy, but in practice, it's a high-pressure lottery with enormous financial and stress overhead involved.

Yes, there are times when scarcity is mandated (the TSA at airports, for example, or food rations at an emergency site). I know that there are plenty of ways to deal with this scarcity as well. Ways to treat your customers (and yes, they are customers) with more respect, to communicate the situation more clearly and to architect the environment so that people are grateful, not stressed out.

Smart marketers understand that scarcity (intentional or not) is a tool, one that can be used to enhance the story, not detract from it.

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Radio vs Newspaper

This is an exact copy of an email I received recently. Read it twice. Then two more times.

Then if you want help with either of these, contact me at Scott@ScLoHo.net.

You can also buy one of the Wizard of Ads books listed on the right side of this page direct from Amazon by clicking on it. If you read it and follow the advice, you will get better results from all your advertising.

Dear Scott, Q: What's the biggest mistake businesses make in their advertising? A: They don't live up to their promises. The customer comes in with expectations set by the ads, and leaves disappointed. Not only did the advertiser waste his money, he's actually damaged his image in the minds of people who are now much less likely to become customers. No amount of advertising will overcome a bad customer experience. - Wizard Partner, Mike Dandridge Now take a look at your ads. Are you over promising? In this issue: 1. Radio/Newspaper Smackdown Newspaper and Radio were given an identical message with an identical budget spread over an identical amount of time. Who won? Read the study to find out. PS. As a side benefit to this story you'll learn how to lose weight. 2. The Importance of Frequency and How Advertising Creates Word of Mouth Two tips from this story. 1. Buy smart advertising that will get you the most Frequency. 2. Re-invest your growing revenue into an expansion of advertising. Read the full story... Your goals are your own business. Helping you reach them is ours. Craig Arthur - Wizard of Ads Australia PS. Have you booked your seat to Boom Your Business, Nashville? (Aug 1st & 2nd) 1. Radio/Newspaper Smackdown Note: this article is longer than normal but well worth your time. By Roy H. Williams If I told you our experiment was constructed specifically to test radio versus newspaper, I’d be lying. Like most discoveries, we stumbled on this one by accident. Here’s how it happened: Lifestyle Centers of America is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to lead you and me to a healthier, happier life through better nutrition, physical activity, and helpful new habits. My team was recruited to give them marketing advice. We accepted the challenge. Our first assignment was to craft a message that would drive interested persons to a brand new website. We decided to test our messages using a series of quarter-page newspaper ads. (Article continued after newspaper ad below.) The first thing we did was locate a newspaper that would deliver a quarter-page display ad to 89,000 subscribers for only $900. Total circulation would be much higher, of course, due to newsstand sales and pass-along readership, but we were looking strictly at paid circulation for the Sunday edition. If you’ve ever looked at newspaper rates, you’ll recognize this to be an extremely efficient, low-budget buy. The second thing we did was craft a message for our client. My secret hope was to see 300 to 400 unique visitors show up within 48 hours at PlantFiberDiet.org, our virgin website. We got 71 visitors. I didn’t blame the newspaper. I blamed my message. “Tweaking” wasn’t going to get me where I needed to go, so I scrapped the whole concept of the ad and created a new message from scratch. Two weeks later, that second message got us 217 unique visitors within 48 hours; a definite improvement, but not enough to make us happy. But I knew my message was stronger than the results were indicating. That’s when I said to one of my media buyers, “Find me a radio station that will let us air 36 sixty-second ads in one day – two spots per hour, 6A to midnight – for 900 dollars. If the program director limits us to only one spot per hour, hang up and call someone else. When you’re driving traffic with a 1-day schedule, there’s no such thing as too much frequency.” No surprises so far, right? Now pay attention because this next part is where most people would screw up an otherwise valid media test. To be reliable, the test has to be dollar for dollar, message for message, time for time. If we spent 900 dollars in one day with one newspaper, we needed to spend 900 dollars in one day with one radio station. “Dollar for dollar, time for time.” Too often, advertisers want to take a one-day newspaper budget and spread it out over several days on the radio, or worse, spread it out over several radio stations. To be a fair test, we had to spend all the money in one day on one station. But radio needs repetition, so I refused to buy stations that would have delivered huge reach but with lower frequency. My 36-ad schedule was non-negotiable. Call me nuts if you want. I’ll tell you how it ended in a minute. Take a look at the newspaper ad. Listen to the radio ad by clicking the audio bar at the top of the page. (A new page will open when you click the link. Once the ad is finished click the back button to return to the story on this page.) You’ll notice the messages are identical. We created the radio ad by asking Joe Hamilton to read the newspaper ad into a microphone. Joe’s not a professional voice talent. He’s just the guy whose photo was in the newspaper ad. We had a better-than-average newspaper layout and below-average radio production. Newspaper was given every advantage. We even waited 2 weeks for the newspaper traffic on our website to die down to zero visitors per day before launching our radio schedule. We didn’t want to radio to have the benefit of residual traffic generated by the newspaper campaign. The result of spending $900 in one day on one radio station? Our first test yielded 4,308 unique visitors within 48 hours. This seemed too good to be true, so I told my media buyers I was worried they’d gotten a radio buy that wasn’t typical. “Find me a deal the average buyer could buy, any day of the week, for the same price we’re paying.” We then waited another 2 weeks until residual traffic died down to about 150 unique visitors per day, then ran the second radio campaign in a town 1000 miles from the first campaign. As I had expected, our net result from the second test was lower than the first city where we’d gotten far too good a deal. After deducting 150 visitors per day, the first 48 hours yielded only 3,033 unique visitors for $900. This was 30 percent less than our first test, but still 14 times more visitors than our best newspaper results. Newspaper and Radio were given an identical message with an identical budget spread over an identical amount of time. Radio delivered 14 times the results. Radio beat newspaper. We're continuing the test in additional cities, pitting the local newspaper against against a radio station in the same town. Dollar for dollar, message for message, time for time. I'll keep you informed. Maybe. From the Editor: At Wizard of Ads we use all forms of media. We have no affiliation to any media providers. We do not get paid by how much our clients spend on advertising. We do not receive any money from media. We get paid by how much their businesses grow. So when we select a media to deliver a clients message it is the one that is the highest and best use of our clients money. No bias. Your Marketing..."Just because something seems to be working doesn't mean that it's optimal."- William Gaus 2. The Importance of Frequency and How Advertising Creates Word of Mouth By Michele Miller, Wizard Partner 1. Buy smart advertising that will get you the most Frequency. 2. Re-invest your growing revenue into an expansion of advertising. 3. If people think your ads are annoying, that’s not a bad thing. Chapters 44, 58, and 59 in Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads discuss in great detail what it takes to create an effective long-term branding campaign on radio and/or TV. In essence, sleep is the great eraser of memory – in order for yours to be the business that customers think of first and foremost when needing your product or service, they must come in contact with your ad approximately *three times per week. In the advertising business, it’s called a “Frequency” of 3. *From the Editor: We are assuming the ad is of average relevance. An ad we rate as a 1.0. The higher the relevance or stickiness of an ad, the less frequency is required. This is where a strong core message and good writing makes up for lack of ad budget. As a Wizard of Ads partner, I work day-in and day-out using this principle with my own clients, to great success. Yet it was only recently that I became the puppet rather than the puppeteer: In the last ten years, the population of greater metropolitan Phoenix (AZ) has grown from 1.3 million to 3.8 million. There are literally thousands of realtors, but only one who has had the smarts to make a valley-wide impact. As an independent realtor, Russell Shaw started advertising approximately five years ago with what had to have been the most miniscule of budgets. Instead of pouring his money into newspaper advertising (the traditional media of realtors nationwide), he chose television, which can be expensive. But Russell was smart. He figured out that the best use of his budget was to buy one ad per night during the 5 o’clock news hour. Every single night, that one ad would air at the same time. And since folks tend to have a favorite local news network, he was repeatedly planting that seed in the same minds. The message in Russell’s ads is acceptable; Russell himself is annoying. I’m talking a syrupy delivery with a nasal voice quality that has caused me to dash for the remote more times than I can count. I can hurry all I want to and switch channels, but guess what? Over the last five years, Russell has slowly re-invested his profit into buying the same ad on all the other networks. Apparently I can run, but I can’t hide. I’ve come to hate the Russell Shaw ads. So the other day I was talking with a friend who’s thinking of moving to Phoenix. At one point during the conversation she said, “What I really need is a good realtor.” My response? “Well, there’s Russell Shaw…” Points to remember: 1. Buy smart advertising that will get you the most Frequency. Even if all you can afford is a monthly postcard, make the message smart and keep sending the regular postcard out to the same group of people. Embed your message into their brain then wait for their moment of need. 2. Re-invest your growing revenue into an expansion of advertising. If you’ve achieved maximum impact with your current mode of advertising, don’t abandon it – add on to it. Russell Shaw is the perfect example of giving a small ad budget the power of a jackhammer. 3. If people think your ads are annoying, that’s not a bad thing. If you get calls and emails saying that your ad is annoying (ads in poor taste are another matter altogether), it means you’re making an impact. And that ain’t bad. Would you rather have an ad that leaves people remembering who you are and what you do, or a middle-of-the-road ad that the brain ignores altogether? I’ll take annoying any day. When you have advertising constraints, go for Frequency – done right, it hits the mark every time. Closing Thought... “We must keep in mind the story of the statistician who drowned while trying to wade across a river with an average depth of four feet. That is to say, in a culture that reveres statistics, we can never be sure what sort of nonsense will lodge in people's heads.” - Neil Postman See you next week. Craig Arthur - Wizard of Ads Australia Your goals are your own business. Helping you reach them is ours. Call or email to book a FREE alignment meeting. No obligation. No pressure. It is at this meeting we both decide if there is a fit between our 2 companies. It is only then can we explore your options. We will never try to sell you. Call (07) 4728 4866.

Wizard of Ads Australia. Call Us: (07) 4728 4866

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Ideas and even More ideas

Because we get inspired by ideas of others, here's the latest from Springwise:

It's time for your weekly fix of entrepreneurial ideas! The latest Springwise newsletter is
now online. Here's a quick run-down of the promising new businesses featured this week:

Fashion brand launches its own secondhand store
Retail / Fashion & beauty

Swedish fashion label Filippa K is promoting a longer life for its
products by letting customers sell them in its very own secondhand
store, which just opened in Stockholm.

Bicycle trailers on loan at Danish IKEA
Transportation / Retail / Eco & sustainability

Shoppers at IKEA furniture stores in Denmark now have a new option
for bringing their large, bulky purchases home: a fleet of Velorbis
bikes with trailers that are available for loan at (virtually) no charge.

Prepaid card locks in gas prices for US drivers
Automotive / Financial services

A new service from MyGallons.com lets consumers prepurchase gas
and lock in today's gas prices for the future, betting that today's high
prices won't look so steep in a few years.

Green school with an entrepreneurial bent in Bali
Education / Eco & sustainability

There are plenty of schools out there with green practices among
their goals, but a new school opening this fall in Bali will be
entrepreneurially green from top to bottom.

French ride-sharing for package transport
Transportation

We've written about ride-sharing sites that help match up people in
need of a ride with drivers heading in the same direction. Now Colis-
Voiturage is bringing a similar service to the transport of packages.

Used Danish bikes help African poor
Transportation / Non-profit & social cause

A new initiative from Copenhagen-based Baisikeli aims to reclaim
discarded bicycles to help the disadvantaged both in Africa and at
home.

Being spaces for seniors in Chicago
Lifestyle & leisure

We've written about supermarkets, wellness stores and driving
services for seniors, but it wasn't until recently that we came across
a chain of cafés for senior citizens.

Launched in the UK: online auction for experiences
Lifestyle & leisure

Online auctions for goods are plentiful, thanks to eBay and all the
others it has inspired. It was only a matter of time before experiences
got an auction of their very own.

Ad agency launches green mailing service
Marketing & advertising / Eco & sustainability

A few weeks ago we wrote about Pubeco, a French effort to tame
mass-mailing clutter, and now another French initiative aims to make
those mailings greener to begin with.

Dance-powered eco nightclub opens in London
Entertainment / Eco & sustainability

Dance energy has popped up again in the form of an eco nightclub
that's slated to open in London tomorrow, featuring a dance floor that
captures enough energy to supply 60% of the club's power needs.

More street clean-vertising
Marketing & advertising

Much like UK-based Street Advertising Services, which we wrote about
last year, GreenGraffiti creates advertising on dirty city streets and
walls using the clean, green power of plain water.

please check out our daily posts.

Warm regards,

Liesbeth den Toom
Senior Editor
liesbeth@springwise.com

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SalesDog Sunday Tip 3

Here's this weeks tip:

Disarming the Price-Squeezing Customer
Paul Cherry on Price Objections

What's a salesperson to do when customers are more concerned with getting a low price than getting the best value for their money? Find out how to get customers to look past the price tag by uncovering what they value most.

You've been prospecting this company for ages, and finally got your foot in the door. You're apprehensive because you're meeting with the purchasing agent - not the big boss, but it's a start - and you know you'll get hammered on price!

The agent shakes your hand. "Tell me what you can do for me - and how much it'll cost me." Already, he's squeezing you on price! You want to make him recognize the value of your business solution. He only wants to dance around it, singing, "Sure, value's important. But how will you save me money?" To land this sale, flip the record and hear what he's really singing. Here are six techniques to build rapport with mid-level decision-makers and prevent them from getting hung up on price. Continue

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Creative Ads to Inspire

This past week I found these on the web at SmashingApps.com Perhaps they will inspire you too!

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Partnership Marketing

Starting our Sunday are these words of wisdom from MarketingProfs.com:

Who Are You, and Why Should I Care What You Say?

Companies are becoming increasingly involved with sponsoring social causes, such as encouraging consumers not to drink and drive. These do-good practices are laudable. They also support socially redeeming causes, which are in the best interest of the community at large.

But does involvement with social causes benefit the companies themselves? The answer may depend on each company. Results from two recent experiments suggest that consumers view socially oriented messages differently based on the identity of the sponsor. For example:

• Participants who viewed an anti-drinking and driving message sponsored by the non-profit organization, MADD, inferred more positive, society-serving motives to the sponsor.
• Participants who viewed the same ad sponsored by Budweiser inferred more negative, self-serving motives to the sponsor.

The study also demonstrated that attributions telling why the marketers were participating in the cause-related marketing did not change consumer attitudes toward the sponsoring company. If the company had a perceived "bad" or otherwise "negative" reputation, their altruism was viewed as self-serving.

The message here for marketers? Prior corporate reputation affects public perceptions about corporate philanthropic messages.

The Po!nt: Match your history to your cause. Your reputation will proceed you when you engage in cause-related marketing.

Source: "Does Corporate Sponsorship of a Socially-Oriented Message Make a Difference? An Investigation of the Effects of Sponsorship Identity on Responses to an Anti-Drinking and Driving Message" by Lisa R. Szykman, Paul N. Bloom and Jennifer Blazing. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2004.

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