Who Should Critique Your Ads?

The nice young man from the television station has patiently presented his ratings, shown you the qualitative studies on his viewers, and presented the package pricing. You’ve decided to run a television ad. .

Whazzat? He needs to know what you want your ad to say? Let him decide. He’s the advertising expert. You’ve got a business to run.

Oh, look. He’s back with the finished ad. Humm. Interesting idea. Maybe you should get another opinion. Let’s ask the salespeople who have to deal with our customers what they think of this ad.


Stop it.

Either accept the ad, or don’t. But stop gathering opinions of people who flat out don’t know. There’s never been a conclusive study to indicate why, but there are three things everyone believes they can do better than their fellow citizens: drive a car, make love, and create advertising.

We’ve all seen their driving, and seen entirely too many bad ads to believe that a substantial portion of the population can be good at either.


You can trust your spouse.

Yes, you can, but the issue isn’t trust. It’s difficult for any spouse to get past the “I don’t like it, and I can’t imagine anyone else liking it ether,” stage.

And your staff? Yes, they’re available. But an odd thing happens when you ask people for their opinion. They always have one.

Even when they don’t have one, they will have one. But take the spousal response, multiply it by the number of staff people being consulted, and recognize that as soon as you ask for an opinion EACH OF THEM WILL BE COMPELLED TO CREATE ONE… on the spot… with no training, no knowledge, no preparation.

You’re going to get bad advice.


So, you shouldn’t get staff input?

Well, that would be a mistake. Your salesfolk are probably pretty good at dealing with customers one-on-one. They will have some good suggestions of things to include, when you ask them in advance.

And that’s the key.

Ask for key points to include before the copy is written. Once it's done, you decide whether the ad leaves the correct impression in the minds of those watching it. Then, based on that impression only, either accept the ad as it is, or reject it outright.

But don’t ask anyone’s opinion after the fact.

---

Share This Article With A Friend.

Read more!

Borrowed Interest

Have you ever seen a poster from across the room that has the word “SEX” at the top in 72 point type? You walk across the room to read the smaller print, which says “Now that I have your attention, let me tell you about the advantages of….“

The first time this happens you probably feel foolish that you were drawn to this poster. The second time, you don’t bother walking close enough to read. Why is that?

Is it because you don’t want to be noticed reading the poster? You don’t want people laughing when they see that you’ve fallen for it, too?

Or is it because the information on this poster holds nothing of interest to you?

As an advertising tactic, this one is flawed. It tries to capture attention without ever qualifying the reader as a potential customer. It wastes the reader’s time and the advertiser’s resources.


What Value Is Attention?

Some advertisers believe that getting the reader / viewer / listener to notice their message is such an important step that they apply no common sense to their messaging. They attempt to piggyback their communication on to some other device, some other attention grabbing message.

Is Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? the hot television program this season? You can safely predict a slew of local advertisers (and probably a couple of national advertisers as well) will create ads playing off of the show.

These are the same people who jumped on the Where’s the Beef? bandwagon. They fell in line to ask Got Milk? Got Insurance? Got Teeth? Got Real Estate? They keep trying to catch the "next big thing" because they aren't saying anything of significance.

Less obviously, but equally as badly planned, are those that have no tie in at all.


Borrowed Interest

I spoke to a plumber a few years ago who wanted to incorporate the Superman character into his ads. Why? Because he thought it would be “cool.” Aside from the obvious copyright violations, what does Superman have to do with plumbing?

Don’t try to associate your business with things that aren’t relevant to your business.

Don’t show your kids, your grandkids, or your pets in your ads. They won’t help you sell anything.

Don’t talk about which church you attend, where you went to school, or which organizations you support. There are no significant numbers of customers who will choose you for those reasons. (I almost wrote none, but I toned it down to avoid the e-mails telling me that half of someone’s business comes from their support of the Chamber. It doesn’t).


Then There's The Superbowl

No, not the ads which run during the broadcast, but the "Superbowl of Savings" theme that the local car dealer will inevitably use in the days leading up to the game.

It's the furniture store employees in football jerseys telling you not to "go long" without the new sofa, to "huddle up" with a furniture store employee. That you'll get an immediate "signing bonus" if you take delivery this week.

Blech.

Isn't the objective to make your message stand out from the crowd? Then stop being non-memorable by looking like everyone else who's borrowing a theme.


How Do You Get Shoppers Interest?

You get the genuine interest of qualified buyers by being relevant to those buyers. By talking to them about their needs, their concerns, their problems. By helping those people to solve the very real issues in their lives as they perceive them.

Are you a plumber? Don’t talk about the Jaycees. Talk about cleaning up to leave the bathroom spotless after your service call. Talk about your commitment to being on time. Talk about how you’ll affect the lives of your customers.

Good ads appeal to the people who want what you sell. It's not necessary to get the attention of any non-buyers.

Good ads are not about what you sell, they’re about the people you sell to.

You won't need to borrow any interest if you communicate the things that buyers are interested in hearing.

---

Share This Article With A Friend.

Read more!

Sperry, Hutchinson, and the Hotel, Part III

In Sperry, Hutchinson, and the Hotel Part I and Part II we looked at the history and common pitfalls of customer loyalty programs.

So far, I’ve been less than enthusiastic. Not about the concept, you understand, but about most of the programs in use as we commonly see them implemented. There are two customer loyalty programs, however, that I believe work well.

One is transactional in nature, and one is relational. They each take a major commitment to massive amounts of work. They each must be customized for your company, and once done will never fit any other company.


As you design your loyalty program. . .

The most important metric you need to track is customer retention. How many customers are defecting? How many keep coming back?

The second most important metric is profitability. Your program should never allow unprofitable customers to become eligible for rewards.

Remember the advice of Michael Leboeuf in The Greatest Management Principle in the World: behavior that gets rewarded, gets repeated.

If you want to retain customers, let them feel rewarded for doing business with you. If you want to retain customers, don’t merely talk retention while rewarding your salespeople for “prospecting.”


The Club Card – The Transactional Solution

Points systems worked well when one company had them and the others didn’t. When everyone has them, they’re just an expensive cost of doing business. But let’s take a second look at those magnetic club cards offered by many of the nation’s grocery chains.

The club member swipes the card through the stores’ credit card reader. This simple act not only identifies the bearer of the card, but also gives the store valuable information about the member’s purchase choices.

Consider the possibilities. The MegaLoMart discovers through data mining that Chuck has no particular preferences when choosing paper towels, or charcoal briquettes, or soft drinks, but he always buys Campbell’s Cream of Chicken soup. Do you suppose that a customized offer of Campbell’s Cream of Chicken at a savings of 30 cents a can might get Chuck back into the store? If I bought six cans under this offer, the store would have given up the profit on six cans of soup in order to get me to spend another $150 on other grocery items.

Would the soup offer work for everyone? No. Only those people who were brand loyal to this specific company are likely to respond. But a well programmed computer system, looking for such predictable choices could find, and customize, different offers for each of the store’s best customers.

And since a program such as this is fully customized, no competitor could offer it - at least, not in the same way.

How much would it cost to individualize offers to your best customers? Perhaps more importantly, how much will it cost to let your competitor do this if you don’t?


The Small Business Model – the Relational Solution.

True customer loyalty is to a differentiated brand. To inspire loyalty, you must stand out from the pack.

True customer loyalty is relational in nature. As relationships grow, we’re more comfortable, and less likely to do business with strangers.

Small businesses will always have an advantage in relationship building. The natural one-on-one help that entrepreneurs automatically offer their customers is difficult for large companies to duplicate.

Relational loyalty isn’t ensured by a rewards program. What ensures relational loyalty is everyday operational excellence.

Don’t stop at learning your customers’ preferences. Learn their names. Learn their children’s names. Learn their birthdays. Learn their sizes, their color preferences, and how often they purchase.

Then, treat them like the valuable people they are. Send them birthday cards. Ask their opinions. Yes, these things cost money. What will they spend with you over the next several years? Most customers not only tend to buy more over the years, they buy more expensive products. The longer they stay with you, the more profitable they become.

As markets mature, the smartest operators will shift their focus from new customer acquisition to building relationships with the good customers whose business we’ve already earned.


And one more thought.

The simplest and most direct way to earn customer loyalty is to recruit loyal customers. If you find the right customers to begin with, your retention rate will increase without spending any more money.

Some customers prefer you to your competitors. Some customers want long term relationships. Some customers are more profitable than others. Some customers spend more and require less service.

Look for customers that have one or more of these characteristics, then earn their business with superior service.

---

Share This Article With A Friend.

Read more!

Sperry, Hutchinson, and the Hotel, Part II

We ended Sperry, Hutchinson, and the Hotel, Part I with a promise of Chuck’s personal hotel story, and posed this question: Can you buy customer loyalty?


Let’s start with the hotel story.

I have business in Austin every few months. A couple of years ago I started staying at a hotel on South Interstate 35. It was convenient. The staff was always nice. And they had free, high speed wireless.

Now truthfully, their wireless had issues. At one point I had to explain to the night auditor how to re-initialize the router. But, as I said, the people were nice, and it was close to the places I needed to be.

As I checked out at the end of my third stay, the desk clerk handed me a punch card with three of twelve punches already marked for the three nights I’d been a guest this trip. He told me they were implementing a new loyalty program, and explained that after twelve paid nights, the thirteenth was free.

Remember, the card was not a factor when I decided to stay. I was satisfied with my previous visits, and would have chosen this hotel again anyway.


But, there is something powerful about the word “free.”

I kept the card.

Last month at the conclusion of another Austin trip, the manager on duty ran my Visa, printed the receipt, and informed me that since I’d booked this stay on-line they couldn’t punch my card.

I swear, until that very moment, the card had been of minor consequence, but she was taking away my punches. I got indignant. I informed her that I had booked online every time I stayed at her hotel. I wondered why this had never been an issue in the proceeding three years.

She told me it was “policy.”

I understand that I’m being petty. I know this is an emotional reaction, rather than a logical one. But truthfully, I feel that I’ve been wronged. And much as I’d like to think I’m above making purely emotional decisions, until I get an apology (and my three punches), there’s an excellent chance that I’ll be looking for a new hotel for my next trip to Austin.

Loyalty program? I had chosen the hotel before they even started their loyalty program. I made the choice without any additional incentives.

Hotel incentives are common. They range from free continental breakfast to refrigerators in the room. And once those incentives have been offered, they become part of the negotiation. They were what the hotel was willing to do offer in order to get your business, and what you can expect them to deliver when you accept their offer.


Consider a couple of this hotel’s competitors.

Motel 6 offers a clean, comfortable room, with free color TV and free local calls.

AmeriSuites promises that every room will be a suite. They commit to a microwave and refrigerator in each room, high speed Internet access, free hot breakfast, and available meeting rooms.

If you accept the Motel 6 offer, you won't expect a microwave and refrigerator, or high speed Internet, or hot breakfast. You won't even expect to find a hair dryer or clock radio. Will this disappoint you? Probably not. Motel 6 never promised these amenities.

But since they did promise television and telephone, you may justifiably feel that you didn’t receive all you had been promised if you check in and don't find them. (Translation: “I have been cheated.”)

Remember in Sperry, Hutchinson, and the Hotel, Part I we noted that since all major airlines now offer frequent flyer miles, and since none of those airlines dares to eliminate their frequent flyer program, they’ve effectively become trapped into a “keeping up with the Joneses” marketing program that doesn't promote loyalty.

Frequent flyer programs not only don't lead to additional future sales, they don't even induce additional current sales.


Do any loyalty programs work?

Perhaps. How should we define “loyalty?” By the time we’ve eliminated sentiment and devotion to family or sovereign, the dictionary leaves us with “faithfulness to commitments or obligations.”

Humm. Is a customer ever obligated to do business with us? Perhaps loyalty is the wrong term.

The original loyalty programs did what they should have. They rewarded the company’s best customers for continuing to do business with the company.

Sperry and Hutchinson’s Green Stamps rewarded cash payments. The bigger the payment, the bigger the reward. Frequent flyer programs originally rewarded the airline’s most profitable business travelers for flying that particular airline.

But as soon as programs like these become commonplace, they no longer differentiate your business. They no longer attract your most profitable customers. Instead, they allow your least profitable customers to sell out your least profitible services. They become just another cost of doing business. And make no mistake; loyalty programs cost a lot to maintain.

The hotel in my story discovered their loyalty program killed profitability when it was combined with other offers (in this case, on-line discounts). They solved for their poor planning by refusing to honor the agreement. I promise, this will cost them more than one free room night somewhere down the line. I can't be the only person who books online.


If we don't call it a loyalty program, can we still keep our best customers choosing to do business with us?

Yes, we can. Some are complicated and require committments to technology. Some are amazingly simple and you should be doing them anyway.

We’ll examine those solutions in the final installment of Sperry, Hutchinson, and the Hotel.

---

Share This Article With A Friend.

Read more!