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Monday, May 30, 2011

The Advertising Budget

This is a tricky one and honestly, there are a few ideas out there on how to best determine your advertising budget.  Frankly, at the end of the day you can’t spend what you don’t have, however, if you’ve planned correctly and/or are in the process of starting up a business, then you need to have enough working capital put aside to get you through, this includes your advertising budget.

The first thing to remember is that any calculations you make using Gross Sales must be based on the Gross Sales you WANT to achieve, your projected Gross Sales – not what you have achieved or may be currently achieving.  So if you did $100,000 gross sales last year but you want to reach $300,000 this year, you must base your calculations on the $300,000.

So what are the calculations?  Well the easy “rule-of-thumb” approach is to simply take 5%-6% of your projected Gross Sales.  So if you want to gross $500,000 your advertising budget should be $25,000 to $30,000… in theory.  Unfortunately, if you don’t have a very good location then in reality you should be spending more than this on your advertising.

What this tells us is that one thing that this method fails to take into consideration is your location.  The theory is that if you have a strong, high visibility location then you’re paying a higher rent, therefore you should need to advertise less.  If you’re saving money on rent with a less desirable location, then you’ll need to spend more on advertising.  The other thing the above calculation doesn’t take into consideration is your markup.  So, another means of calculating your advertising budget taking these two factors into consideration is:

1)      Estimate your Projected Annual Gross Sales
2)      Budget 10% to 12% of total sales for Cost of Exposure (which is rent + advertising)
3)      Multiple this budget by your store’s average mark up (for example 92%)
4)      From this total, deduct your annual rent
5)      The remaining balance is your advertising budget

In action:
1)      $500,000
2)      Multiple 1) by 10% and 12% = $50,000 to $60,000
3)      Multiple 2) by 92% = $46,000 to $55,200
4)      Subtract $18,000 from each of the numbers in 3)
5)      Advertising budget = $28,000 to $37,200 for the year

As I mentioned, there are several different ideas on the best way to calculate your advertising budget, but for the purpose of this article I am only going to cover one more.  This one is based on the cost of acquisition of a new customer.  There’s a couple of ways to look at this, but I’m going to go for a simplified method on a much smaller scale.  So for example purposes, let’s say that your average customer is worth about $300 per year to you in gross sales.  So in theory, to break even on your advertising you need to acquire one new customer for every $300 you spend in advertising, per year.  Unfortunately, that’s often as far as a business owner will take it and they will look at it only in terms of short term spending.  But in reality, advertising is a long term endeavour.  So a better way to look at it is on an annual budget.  $300 per month equals $3,600 per year which should then result in 12 new customers per year to break even.  The problem comes in when businesses expect to see the results of new customers on the same monthly schedule that their advertising expenses are on.  The other problem comes in when businesses only look at the direct response and not the residual response.  By this I mean, you place an ad and you get a new customer, you do a good job with that customer and they start referring other new customers.  So while your ad brought you the direct response of one new customer, the residual effect of your advertising was in fact several new customers.

Seeing it in action locally

A current client of the Gateway Gazette recently expressed her surprise at the effectiveness of long term advertising.  Donna Turner, a massage therapist in Black Diamond, commented that had I tried to tell her a year ago that she will see more results after 6 months or more she never would have believed me.  In fact, it was often her practice to run a small business card size ad for the duration of about 3 months and then stop the ad unimpressed with the lack of response – regardless of where she ran the ad.  However, in her last marketing plan she made the jump to run an 1/8 page ad plus a small Business Directory ad and committed to keep it going for a full year with no breaks.  As was the pattern from the past she was rather discouraged after the first 3 months.  However, once she passed the 6 month mark and now moving into around 9 months she is simply tickled pink.  She has been tracking the new clients that she has been getting from her advertising, specifically with the Gateway Gazette, and has been rather astounded at the number of new clients she is now getting on a continuous, consistent and regular basis, specifically from the Gateway Gazette.  During another conversation she also commented in passing that she has also been getting a fair number of new referral clients recently.  Forever in work mode, I asked her if she was also tracking which customers these new referrals were coming from.  As it turns out, yes she had been tracking who was giving the referrals, but she had not correlated them back to the customers that had come specifically from her Gazette advertising.  She is now in the process of working this out, but just from the conversation we already know that the total number of direct and indirect new customers she has attained via her advertising with the Gazette has far exceeded the cost of her advertising.

Donna is an excellent example of how many small businesses think in terms of their advertising.  She has also given me permission to offer her name up as a reference for the Gazette and I invite you to contact her to hold your own personal discussion and ask your own questions.  (May I also be so bold as to recommend booking a massage, she certainly knows what she’s doing and it’s a marvelous treat to ease our aging muscles – no matter what age we are!)

Monday, May 23, 2011

Don't get lost

Today I find myself contemplating the erroneous and irresponsible way many businesses approach their marketing.  It’s scary and even scarier is the number of small businesses who take a hap-hazard approach when at the end of the day they simply do not have the advertising budget to throw away like that.  For every business, but small businesses in particular, it is imperative to make every dollar count.  Most business owners will whole heartedly agree with that statement.  So why is it then that most small businesses are so entrenched in “media hopping”?

You don’t have to be a marketing guru to do a quick google search that returns thousands of results from amateurs to experts all saying the same things: Repetition and consistency; frequency; the right headline; the right ‘copy’; your ad has to get noticed; you need to use the right words…  It goes on and on.  So why is it that so many small business owners feel compelled to take the position of “Well that’s all fine and dandy, but it won’t work for my business.”  or “But my industry is different.”  Really?!

I’m sorry but you have to face the fact, “your” industry and the basic premise of your business is not unique.  Again, a quick google search will tell you that.  So why fight it?  Rather than throwing good money after bad; rather than making excuses as to why each media vehicle doesn’t work for your business; why not focus on the true source of the problem… your message.  It’s not going to matter “where” you advertise if you’re not getting anyone’s attention.

The current buzz – online, Facebook, Twitter, Social Media, Viral marketing . . . THAT’S where the people are, THAT’S where media, news and information is and where marketing should be taking place!  What astounds me is that the same people who spout this advice are often the same people who complain about the quality of information, about the gossip and pettiness of the conversations (if they can be called that) taking place on the “have to be” places of Social Media.  For those of us who do or have partaken in Facebook and Twitter, we understand the overwhelming amount of information that is getting thrown at us and how we pick and choose what we are going to read and absorb based on what grabs our attention.  So at the end of day, it still comes back to the traditional concept of “what” your message says.

The moral of this story?  You need to place your focus on your message before you get sucked into the blackhole of Social Media that will have you marveling at your sudden loss of available time and productivity.  Don’t confuse my convictions about your marketing message as a siege against the Internet or Social Media – you NEED to do these things – but if you’re not doing them right they will waste your time.  But first you need to spend your time researching YOUR industry, and the messages you need in order to cut through pages and pages of textual information that are now flooding people by the hour (no longer by the week or day).  If anything, it is even more important than ever that you have the right message that will get your customers attention or quite frankly, you won’t stand a chance.  Don’t forget that in our economy EVERY business is your competitor, not just businesses that offer similar products or services.  Consumers are not just deciding “Do I go with provider A or B” – they are deciding “Do I go with product A to Z”, they have so many options available to them that you have no choice but to sell them on your industry as well as on yourself.  If your message isn’t getting through to them, it’s not going to matter where you put it, it will get lost. 

Tanya Thibodeau

Monday, May 16, 2011

To consult or not… that is the question!

Periodically there is a surge of popularity in hiring on “Business Consultants”.  It would appear the trend is on again, as in the last 2 weeks I have had several people reference to me the fact that they are planning to work with a Business Consultant.

Whenever someone makes this comment I involuntarily cringe. In truth, it’s an unfair reaction. It’s much like saying because Lawyers in general are stereotyped; all lawyers must be the same. Or because someone has a tattoo they must be a bad ass (I have two by the way). None-the-less, I get real nervous for small businesses when they announce their plans to work with a Business Consultant.

I understand the reasoning all too well – I’ve hired two different ones on different occasions with different businesses and have met with several over the years. Their fees were all well into the multiple thousands.  However, I had the benefit that most businesses don’t in that in both cases I had the opportunity to “trade” on the services and as such wasn’t out-of-pocket the “cash”. But even so, in both cases I swore I’d never do it again. Through my experiences I learned several things and I’d like to share some of that knowledge with you in the hopes of helping you make more thoroughly informed decisions.

Most important is to understand what exactly the role of a Business Consultant is.  There are many different types of Business Consultants and they do not all cover the same types of services.  So if you decide to take the step to work with a Business Consultant, it’s important that you have a clear idea of what you are wanting the Consultant to do for you. 

Because of the nature of my business and how broad based the Business Consultant industry is, let’s just have a look at it from the angle of advertising and marketing.

One of the biggest things to keep in mind if you go the route of a Business Consultant for help with your advertising and marketing is that their fees, in the majority of cases, will not include the development or placement of your advertising and marketing. So make sure that you specifically ask about this. Several thousands of dollars spent to have someone tell you that you should be developing a website, social media, print ads, radio ads, print materials etc is a lot of money that could be put into the development and implementation of those forms of advertising.

Now on the other hand, if the Business Consultant you are thinking of working with will be helping you to actually develop your marketing materials, then great, that is a much different story.  Or another avenue might be a Business Consultant whose service is to teach you “how” – again, terrific.  In my experience, these types of Business Consultants are the rare gems we all hope to find. 

So in these cases what you want is references. You want to see real live proof of what they have already achieved for other businesses and you want to hear what the opinions of those other business are. If you’re thinking of going with someone new in the industry who doesn’t have the references yet, that can be ok – just be sure you are paying a proportionately lower fee because of the lack of track record. Don’t forget, just because someone says they can help you develop your advertising, or just because they know the ingredients necessary for developing good advertising, doesn’t mean that they can actually do it for YOUR business.

We’ve covered this before in previous articles and if you’ve been reading my articles, you already know all the pieces needed for effective advertising (the grabber headline, the compelling offer, the customer benefits and the factual statistics). But does that mean that you know “how” to create these pieces? In my experience, the professionals that know how to create these pieces are primarily the “copy writers” – these are the people that know how to put the right words together to cause your ads to be truly effective… whether offline or online, in print or on air – words are words and at the end of the day having the right words is what matters most. 

Roy H. Williams, is a very reputable expert in the world of marketing and advertising. The following is an excerpt from one of his recent articles (in some cases there simply is no point in trying to reword something that is already perfectly worded):

I've never met a business owner whose advertising failed because they were reaching the wrong people.

Advertising fails when people have

1.     no knowledge of the offer. The ad is easily ignored.
2.     no interest in the offer. The offer is (A.) irrelevant or (B.) misunderstood.
3.     no trust in the offer. The claims made in the ad are not credible.

These problems can be solved by

1.     getting the attention of the people with words and phrases that are new, surprising and different.
2.     offering the people what they want to buy (instead of trying to convince them to buy what you’d like to sell.)
3.     supporting your claims with examples that agree with the experiences of your prospective customers.

Target the ‘right customer’ through your ad copy, not your media selection. Reach as many people as your budget will let you reach repetitiously, regardless of their age, sex, or income bracket. Choose words, phrases and points-of-view that will resonate with them. Do this and you will be amazed at how many different people suddenly become 'your customer.'

Basically, if you do decide to go the route of a Business Consultant it’s because you want answers to questions and you want to see results. So when interviewing Consultants, make sure that they can clearly outline for you exactly what you are going to get for every dollar you spend, exactly what questions they are going to answer for you and what results they expect you to see.  I’ve just seen it happen so many times when businesses end up spending thousands of dollars on a Business Consultant and end up with more questions than answers.  Please understand that I am not saying all Business Consultants are bad or a waste of money – I am simply cautioning you to be extremely diligent in your research and interview process – and if something doesn’t “feel” quite right or if they take on a highly “sales” type approach with you, be extra careful.

If what you really need is someone to sit down with you and walk you through the steps you need to take to put your marketing together, the components you should be including and how to go about getting it all developed, give me a call. This is a service I’m happy to offer. I have the tools, background, experience, knowledge, resources and connections to bring it all together and I can guarantee that my fees will be 25% to 75% LESS than someone who has hung their shingle as a “Business Consultant”.  It’s not a service I widely promote because it is time consuming and many of the businesses I deal with are working with budgets of a few hundred dollars, not several thousand – but if it’s time to buckle down and get serious about your marketing, I can get you to where you want to be.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Quote

"The talent of success is nothing more 
than doing what you can do well, 
and doing well whatever you do 
without thought of fame.
If it comes at all it will come 
because it is deserved, 
not because it is sought after."

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ~

Sunday, May 8, 2011

The importance of your front line

I’m going to touch on a bit of a different topic today that many businesses often over look when they think in terms of their marketing.  This idea was spurred a bit by my last article with reference to choosing the right person to attend Trade Shows on behalf of your business.  This addresses staffing. 

Many businesses think of their staff more in terms of their experience/ability to do the tasks the job requires.   However, what they don’t often consider is the impact/influence their staff has with their customers.  But when you stop and think about it, in many businesses, it is the “staff” who actually deals with the customers far more than the owners.  This is especially true with retail or when there is an office setting with people answering the phone.

So you spend your time and money creating all kinds of different forms of marketing.  But how much time (in particular), and money, are you spending in training, monitoring, reviewing and following up on your staff?  You make the decision to track your marketing – are you 100% sure that your staff are carrying out your wishes?  More importantly, are they doing it accurately and the way you want them to?

Have you ever had a trusted stranger “spy” on your staff?  Also known as a “Secret Shopper”?  How’s your staff treating your customers?  Are they smiling every time someone walks in?  How about when they answer the phone?  May sound silly, but yes, a smile on your face when you answer a phone will come through in your tone and the person on the other end will “hear” your smile.  If your phones have call display there is always a possibility that the way your staff answers the phone when they know it’s you calling is very different to how they answer to a number they don’t recognize.

So how is this all relevant to your marketing?  Every person in your business is an extension of your business; they’re an extension of you; they’re an extension of your marketing – they are even a form of marketing in themselves.  How often have you eaten at a restaurant and had spectacular service? The kind of service that quite simply made the entire experience the best you’ve ever had.  Suddenly the food tastes a little better than it actually is; the atmosphere is a little nicer than it actually may be.  You eat with a smile, you leave with a smile, you tell everyone you know how wonderful it was (with a smile) and you return with a smile.  The flip side?  A horrible server that makes even the most exquisite food leave a bad after taste, followed by a miserable experience that you also tell everyone you know all about (without a smile) and you don’t return.

Your staff pretty much makes or breaks the promises you make in all your other marketing and they highly impact whether or not a customer will return.  Unless you’re the only gig in town or the offer they simply cannot refuse – your staff had best be playing the role you want and need to help your business grow or all of your other marketing efforts are going to be a huge waste of time and money.

Happy Mother's Day

Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My mother.

~Ann Taylor

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Quote

“We make a living by what we get, 
we make a life by what we give."
~ Winston Churchill ~

Monday, May 2, 2011

Trade Shows - worth it or not?

This weekend I managed to find some time to stop by the Okotoks Trade Show.  It was great to see such a terrific turn out by both the public and businesses and with so many professionally presented booths too!  Although I didn't have time to speak with every business, the ones  I did speak with offered some very positive feedback - which is great to hear!

Personally, I think for certain businesses/industries that Trade Shows, Business Expos, whatever name they go by, are a fantastic means of marketing a business.  You can really gain some wonderful exposure.  Actually, let me amend that - I think these shows are potentially beneficial for all businesses.  What I find unfortunate is that there are always some businesses who really aren't exactly sure what they should be using a Trade Show for or how to do it effectively.  Of course the answer to that is going to be different for almost every business, however, the basic concept and process to figure it out would pretty much be the same for every business.

For example, you would start with a series of questions to ask yourself - and better yet, ask your partners, colleagues, staff and maybe even some customers too - brainstorming can be a superb way of gathering very valuable information and ideas.  I almost feel a bit bad posting this article after-the-fact, but in reality a review of what worked and didn't work after something is finished is often the best time for the review, while things are still fresh in our minds. The trick is to remember to implement some of the great ideas the next time it rolls around!

1) Why do you want to attend a Trade Show?

2) What is your goal? Basically, what exactly do you want to achieve to be able to walk away from the Trade Show saying "Wow, that was awesome and what a total success for us!"  Make your goal specific and realistic - "I want to book two free consultation appointments during this show."

3) Who will man your booth?  The answer to this should come from a combination of not only who has the most available time, but also of who is the best person most capable of handling such a public, face-to-face encounter? Some business owners really should understand when perhaps their particular skill set may not be in prospecting at a public event.

4) What are you going to track at the show, how are you going to track it and what are you going to do with the results?  Draws are great, everybody likes to win free stuff, especially if it's cool - and look out if it's geared towards kids!  But before taking that step it's probably a good idea to spend a bit of time thinking it through first.
a) Who are your customers?
b) Is your draw prize relevant to your customers? (or does it perhaps just make you stand out as the cool booth at the show? Kinda like the house at Halloween who gives out the awesome chocolate bars rather than those unidentified objects nobody likes.)  
c) Is your draw prize relevant to your business?
d) Does your draw prize leave room for potential up selling or repeat sales after the fact? (Isn't that tacky?!  Not at all, if it's done right!  Let's face it, the ultimate reason you're at the show in the first place is to get new customers,  so wouldn't it make more sense to give away something from your business that is perhaps a consumable,  or that possibly has some cool add-on features?  BUT make sure you're giving away the vacuum with encouragement to buy the bags from you too - that's you're consumable up sell.  Don't give away the bags hoping to up sell on the vacuum!)
e) What are you going to do with all of the other entries that you received?  Keeping in mind, that if you've picked your draw prize right, every single one of those entries is either an existing customer or a prospect for your business.  So it's probably a good idea to have a follow-up plan in place!

A bit more on the note of draws, I noticed a fair number of booths who actually had draws and give-aways geared specifically towards kids, yet their business was really in no way directly related to kids.  I understand the concept and reasoning behind this, unfortunately, many of these businesses are missing a key change in society (albeit a sad one) - it is no longer common practice that kids draw their parents to a booth. "Mommy look at that! Can I have one?.... Can I enter my name?...." etc - Oh sure the questions still get asked, however, you often hear one of two responses "No and if you ask me again we're leaving." or "Ya sure, go ahead." as the parent goes off in a different direction. In the first scenario you just became an evil force for the parent to now have to deal with. In the second scenario you've got 30 seconds of undivided attention from a 6 year old who can't even read your business name.  Hmmmm.....

Am I saying you should ignore the kids? Definitely not - but using them to draw the parents in isn't as effective as it used to be.  A far more effective approach is to get the parents attention, entice them and draw them in and THEN offer something cool to the kids like it's your little secret.  Kids love the attention and to be made to feel even just a wee bit special and parents can't help but notice the compassion and generosity - now they both think you're cool!  ;-)

On the flip side, it's amazing how many businesses also do the opposite and try to ignore the kids with the very clear body language screaming "Why the h*** did you bring your kids with you?!"  Sorry guys, but the days of "Children are meant to be seen and not heard" are long gone! *sigh* I know, it's depressing.  But, the good news is that they really are still a great tool to strengthen your relationship with their parents - if you do it right. (For those of you who don't know, I am the mother of two .... alright .... terrific kids .... although dreams of duct tape do often plague me, I have to admit that I am rather proud of them!)

When it comes to Trade Shows I think there really are only two other key points that spring to mind.

1) If you're going to put the money out to have a booth - make sure someone is there at all times!  The people who come to these shows are looking for information and when a booth is of interest to them, they want to be able to meet a person and discuss their questions.  A pretty display with some brochures and no people is almost as frustrating as those voice-activated customer service phone menus!

2) When you're choosing the right person to man your booth please do not think of it in terms of "who will cost me the least amount of money per hour" - because at the end of the show, that person will have cost you the most in lost prospecting and sales as they find sitting in the corner texting their friends a wee bit more interesting.  Don't kid yourself - it really does happen.  Come to think of it, I should take photos of it next time!  ;-)

Good grief, well apparently my whole goal of "I'm going to keep these articles short" is a lost cause! The harder I try to at least keep them under 1,000 words the more I go over! Ah well - if you've read to the end I guess it wasn't all bad! :-)

One more quick note that I'd like to make is that I'm starting a Forum geared towards small businesses in Alberta.  You guys are awfully quiet with comments on the blog, so we'll have to see how it goes but over time I hope you'll find it a useful tool to share ideas and get answers to specific questions.  You can access it here: http://forum.gatewaygazette.ca.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Quote

"The early bird gets the worm,
But the second mouse gets the cheese!"
~Unknown~

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

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Monday, April 25, 2011

How do I fix my bottom-line?

I hope everyone managed to find some quiet time this weekend to spend with their family – whether Easter is an occasion you personally celebrate or not, the long weekends are always a great excuse to step away from our businesses and put in a little concentrated family time to rejuvenate.  Personally I find that a break away from directly thinking about my business and my clients’ businesses often gives my brain some subconscious power to ponder the vast amount information I absorb each day.  Tonight I find myself reflecting on the many challenges small business owners face with their marketing, which has of course been the focus behind these articles since I started them.  What is the answer?  What can fix the constant struggle to obtain your piece of market share?  I wish there was a magic solution, the “here’s the one thing you need to do to fix it all”.  But as I’ve said before, it really isn’t quite that simple.  However, I do think that many business owners make it far more difficult than it needs to be.  There are some proven strategies that when applied consistently and with thought and planning really will make a notable difference that, to many, will seem like magic.

  1.  Know where your customers hang out when it comes to media – I really can’t stress this enough.  It’s human nature that if an ad isn’t working for a business they automatically blame the media of choice.  If you’re ad isn’t working, then you probably need to fix your ad… “media hopping” won’t make a bad ad better.
  2. Make sure your ads contain the key ingredients:
    a.       An outstanding headline that grabs attention and evokes an emotion.
    b.      Imagery that tells a story.
    c.       Less is more – cut back on the words and get to the point, generally speaking, people won’t read a cluttered ad.
    d.      IF your headline and imagery gets their attention then they will stay with your ad and continue reading.
    e.      Make an offer that’s worth your customer’s time.
    f.        With the right headline, imagery and offer in place, now you can consider the “body” of your ad copy – the information/detail.  But remember, interest them first, without the interest, the body won’t even get read.
  3. Make sure you give your ads enough time to actually work.   Every form of media has it’s “tricks” to optimize usage of that media and the representatives of each media will (or should) know what those tricks are – so ask for guidance and then figure out how to adjust your planning and budget to work within that guidance.
  4. Don’t forget that all marketing is a building block process.  There is no “fast food” recipe for effective marketing and as any good chef will tell you, good food takes time to prepare – the same holds true for your marketing.  Be consistent, be repetitive, be patient – it’s worth it in the long run. 
  5. Track it – test, measure, repeat.  Be cautious and don’t do your marketing blindly without tracking, measuring and following up.  But don’t forget, simply asking your customers “where did you hear about us” is not effective tracking – put simply, the answers to that question cannot be trusted.
  6. Remember the purpose behind marketing.  Your ad – regardless of the media you choose – is not a “sales person”.  An ad is not intended to “close” a sale.  An ad is a “lead generator”.  The only purpose behind an ad is to generate traffic, to generate interest, to solicit a response.  If one person contacts you because they saw your ad – your ad is working.  It’s up to you to build on it from there, to tweak and improve it to encourage more people to contact you.  Then it’s up to you (or your staff) to turn that contact into a sale and hopefully a repeat customer.

At the end of the day, creating effective ads is a profession within itself.  There are people who are very good at creating effective ads that will work.  Unfortunately, many small business owners make the assumption that the people who work for a particular media (radio, TV, print, online) are the people who should know how to do this.  99.9% of the time that is not the case.  The staff of most media are trained to offer a vehicle for your ad, a place for your ad to be seen or heard publically.  Even in-house “designers” or “creators” are often simply people who are capable of operating the programs required to achieve a desired concept envisioned by someone else.  Coming up with the right combination of words, images and/or sounds that are built to really “sell” should be done by the professionals trained to do this.  If you don’t possess the necessary skills to develop your own effective marketing then you’re going to have to be prepared to pay for the service - developing a marketing plan and strategy that will actually work for your business and then developing effective ads to implement with those plans takes a great deal of time and research.  So think of it like this, your fridge breaks down so you call a repairman, you don’t expect him to fix your fridge for free, so don’t expect someone to fix your marketing for free.

But it’s a difficult expense for many small business owners to justify.  They simply don’t put enough emphasis on their marketing to understand the importance of paying that bill.  But at the end of the day it’s an investment, not an expense item, which should take a higher priority than payroll and rent.  You need to market to generate leads, without leads you can’t have conversions, without conversions you won’t have sales, without sales you can’t pay the rent or payroll.

Don’t underestimate the power of your marketing – it’s the front line of your sales and it’s the most effective means of fixing your bottom-line.

Canadian residents:

Sunday, April 17, 2011

What are the ingredients of an effective ad?

There really is no question that print media absolutely MUST take its place in your marketing plans.  To overlook print media as one of your marketing mediums would be like trying to operate as a “we accept cash only” business in today’s world of plastic and credit.  It’s simply not realistic if you want to grow your business. 

If your market reach happens to be the south end of Calgary and the rural communities south of Calgary down to Claresholm, then you are fortunate to have access to one of the upcoming leaders in the New Print Multi-Media era – the Gateway Gazette Grande.  If this does not happen to be your target area, then you’ll have some homework to do and you may have to become a little bit persuasive with the print media providers in your area. 

Some of the things that you’ll want to consider when choosing your print media are:
  • Nature of content (you want positive things, if the print media available to you doesn’t include much in the positive arena, see if they will accept submissions)
  • Circulation versus price (the price per unit of space is not nearly as important as the price per thousand distributed on your size of choice)
  • Online presence (do they offer free access to an e-Edition that displays in original print format which includes your ad…. Better yet, does their online e-Edition instantly link your ad to your website with a single click?)

Once you have chosen your print media, you need an ad to place.  This is probably one of the biggest questions I get asked – What should my ad say?  Or, How do I make my ad work?  At the end of the day, most people don’t mind paying for advertising, but it sure is a hard bill to swallow if you’re not seeing any results from the ads.  For the sake of space and time, I am simply going to outline some key points here, however, if this is an area that interests you please note that I have linked a fair number of articles under the Business Resource section of our website that will go into much more detail on this topic for you:  http://resources.gatewaygazette.ca.

So without further adieu:

With printed advertisements, people will normally read the headline and look at the graphics first. If they are interested, they will read the subheads, captions, and any pricing information, and only then will they go back and read your sales copy.

Remember, people read for information.  They expect you to educate them and to help solve a problem.

The number one most important element of your ad is your Headline.  Period.  Bad headline = no customers.  It really is that simple.  Your headline should do one of the following or a combination of the following:
  1. Appeal to the readers self-interest
  2. Announce something as a news headline
  3. Offer to give people information
Some other thoughts to consider:
  • Don’t make people “guess” at the meaning in your headline
  • Target your headlines at your best prospects – don’t try to appeal to everyone all at once
  • Be specific – it makes your ad believable
  • Suggest that your product or service makes life easier
  • Clearly capture your entire message in your headline – a longer headline that clearly defines your message will sell better than a short message that doesn’t get the point across
  • Your headline is the most important part of your ad!

Your headline is what will get your customers attention, draw them in and keep them reading.  Only when you have achieved this can you think about where you want to lead them to next.  And only then will you be able to move on to your objective of getting people to respond.

At the end of the day “how” you say something isn’t nearly as important as “what” you say.  So take the time to figure out what the absolute best, most appealing offer to your customers is and use that.  It will make all the difference in the world on the effectiveness of your advertising.

How do you know “what” to say? You want to tap into the emotions of your prospects through the benefits to them – not the features of your product or service.  The stronger the emotional reaction, the stronger the response.  It’s a science and the formula is to use facts to prove the benefits that will trigger an emotional reaction.  But you don’t have much time, so start with the climax and then build on it – this is not a fictional piece of work that you need to set the stage for.  The idea is to build trust with your facts, but create warmth with your ideas. Let them picture themselves enjoying a perfect life and don’t let go.

If this is completely out of your realm, you may want to seriously consider outsourcing the creation of your ads to the professionals that are equipped to handle this - but recognize the expertise, training and talent that is required to do this for you and accept that it is a service you will have to pay for if you truly want a good job done with effective ads being the result.  Even getting a professional copywriter to review your ad copy is an investment worth making.  Thirty minutes worth of editing could double the effectiveness of your ad.  Nothing is more important than the words you use.

Copywriting: Successful Writing for Design, Advertising and Marketing 



Sunday, April 10, 2011

The dawning of a new era . . .

Are you REALLY in the export business?  Hoping to draw customers from all around the globe?  If you’re like most small, local businesses – no you’re not.  So that leads to the question “Is SEO (search engine optimization) really the thing that should be the larger focus of your marketing budget and/or time?” 

Roughly 77.7% of Canadians are tapped in “online”, 81.7% of Albertans!  Wow! Do you fully understand what exactly this means?

These days “multi-media” is primarily used as a term to reference the inclusion of video and audio with computer text – that’s because the people writing the definitions are all techies.    In reality “multi” means many – “multi-media” means “Using more than one medium of expression or communication”….

Does a search engine really know better than you do what you are looking for? Google seems to think so….

Evolution has a long-term effect that no amount of razzle and dazzle can argue with….

This white paper breaks down the reach of your website, explores the manipulability of statistics that wow you and offers some advice on what you should be doing to maximize the effectiveness of your website and your marketing in general.

It also introduces the NEW print multi-media era….

Click Here to read this insightful white paper.

The early bird gets the worm and the second mouse gets the cheese…. There are times when you’ll want to be the bird and times when you’ll want to be the mouse.  This is definitely a time for the birds!



Monday, April 4, 2011

Are you working "ON" your business?

As a business owner myself, I am more than aware of how precious time is, but there are certain things that you simply MUST make time for.

The obvious are yourself and your family. This is a point that is driven into everyone day in and day out. We see it on TV, in magazines, in newspapers, hear it on radios…. “If you don’t take care of yourself, you’re not going to be in any position to take care of ANYTHING else!” “Your family is the central core of your existence – whether you’re in the midst of good times or bad times – family will massively impact the productivity of your day one way or another.” “Take time to smell the roses!” For this article, I’m going to assume that you’ve gotten that particular message loud and clear because it is extremely important to understand, believe and take action on this advice. But once you at least understand the importance and concept of balance between personal and business duties, you need to turn your attention to the balance within each of these realms. For this article I am focusing on the really important stuff in your business realm.

You may (or may not) have heard reference to the concept of “working ON your business rather than IN your business”. Either way it is a concept that is well worth visiting and revisiting over and over again. If you’ve ever been to a business building or motivational seminar of any kind you know the feeling you get from all the great ideas and advice you are exposed to. You are pumped, excited and energized to take your business to the next level or even to just get a new business started. In the days that follow your brain is teaming with ideas. But as time goes on and the reality of daily business, schedules, responsibilities and priorities constantly interrupt your creative mind that energy and excitement starts to dissipate, stress and worry start to kick in again and before you know it you’ve got a drawer full of great ideas partially thought through, partially researched, partially planned and partially forgotten. Know that you are not the only one that goes through this cycle – it is one of the most common characteristics of business owners / entrepreneurs around the globe. The trick is that you need to find a way to constantly revitalize that energy and excitement. You need to find a way to get yourself on a schedule, to get organized, to make a plan and then stick to it!

Trust me, I KNOW how much easier that is to say and even think than it is to actually DO – but if you want to keep your business moving forward, to keep it growing and to really turn it into a BUSINESS rather than just a JOB, then this is critical. With entrepreneurial blood running through my veins from every possible ancestor, I have been reading about and researching business in general since I was in my teens. One particular book that has always stuck with me (and that I do in fact re-read regularly) is The E-Myth Revisited – if you haven’t read this book, I highly recommend it. This book does a phenomenal job of expressing the difference between working “ON” your business rather than “IN” your business. It also very clearly explains how many “business owners” aren’t in fact running a “business” – really what they have done is little more than create a “job” for themselves. If you’re not spending regular, consistent time working “ON” your business, then you are not running a “business”. Sorry, that may sound harsh, but it’s reality. Just because you are capable of doing the necessary work “IN” your business does not necessarily mean that being a “business owner” is the right choice for you. In fact, if you are not willing to learn what needs to be learned and take the necessary action to work “ON” your business, chances are you are going to cause much more grief in your life by trying to “own your own business” than if you were to just suck it up and deal with bosses you may not particularly like.

Many small businesses that are launched are done so because Mr. (or Mrs.) Technician have a talent or skill in a particular area, they become tired and frustrated of working “for someone else”, of making money “for someone else”, they may not agree with the way a particular boss runs their business, so one day they get a brilliant idea….. “I don’t need this company, I can do this on my own!” Perhaps in theory this is true…. when it comes to their “JOB” absolutely, they may be the best of the best in their industry. So off they go. But as time goes by some key realities start to kick in – they start having difficulties in different areas, areas that they were never trained in, areas where they are NOT the “best of the best”. This will be different for every individual, but it could be in bookkeeping / account; or advertising and marketing; or sales; or customer relations; or worse it could be in several of these areas all at once. This is also a large turning point for many small businesses and becomes a major contributing factor to the failure of many small businesses.

At this point, I’m going to assume that you are not Mr. (or Mrs.) Technician simply trying to create a “job” for yourself. I am going to assume that you really do WANT to own your own BUSINESS and that you want it to succeed. Defining “success” is often different for each individual, but overall, a pretty good indicator is the less and less you are NEEDED to work IN your business the more successful it likely is. That doesn’t mean that you AREN’T working IN your business – because frankly, you may simply enjoy doing so, but the difference is that you don’t NEED to. The only way to get to that stage is to put the hours in – when you have the least amount of time available to do so – to work ON your business. It’s frustrating, but it seems to be the pattern of life from every angle: you need money to make money; you need time to make time; you need experience to gain experience…. it’s all quite backwards if you ask me – but it’s also life, so rather than fight it, work with it. So take the time you need to take to work ON your business and I guarantee that in the long run it WILL pay off.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Is Advertising Scalable?

Most people believe advertising is scalable.
These people are right. And they are wrong.

SCALABILITY: How well a solution to some problem will work when the size of the problem increases.
Egg-zample: The small-scale solution: you want 24 eggs per week and you have 6 chickens, therefore you need each chicken to produce 4 eggs per week...  This solution is scalable simply because on a larger scale the same principal applies: you want 240 eggs per week and you have 40 chickens, therefore you need each chicken to produce 6 eggs per week.

Direct Response ads are scalable.  These are those high-impact ads created to hit a target with maximum impact and trigger a purchase with a single exposure – The scalability of Direct Response ads is easy to measure: Reach 10 times as many targets and you’ll make 10 times as many sales.

Unfortunately, most ads are not scalable, primarily due to the unpredictable or erratic nature of time, relevance and sleep. Non-scalable ads must be repeated until you reach a threshold called “breakthrough”.

Breakthrough is that moment when the rules of the equation change dramatically.

BREAKTHROUGH: The best way to understand breakthrough and how it differs from scalability is to consider the following statistic: Exactly 9 tractor-trailer units will tip on their side for each 30 that attempt to take a certain corner at 60 km/hr. The data has been collected, it is conclusive. Numbers don’t lie. However, if you apply scalability to this data, you will wrongly predict that 3 units will tip for each 30 units that take the corner at 20 km/hr.

Q: “So how long will it take my advertising to reach breakthrough? How many repetitions will my ad need before a customer finally takes action?”

A: Your moment of breakthrough will be determined by 2 factors. The first factor is relevance.

RELEVANCE: Does the customer need the product or can a desire be created for it? Direct response ads perform poorly when a “moment of need” is well defined. You'll agree it's a bit difficult to sell a baby carriage to a person who has no desire to have a baby. Similarly, how do you talk a person into buying a new hard drive for their computer when their computer really doesn't need a new hard drive; or a new furnace when the old one is working fine? When your product or service doesn’t have what is necessary for direct response marketing, your best option is to become the solution-provider the customer thinks of immediately when their “moment of need” finally arises.

“Sounds great. But how much time is that going to take?”

That question can only be answered after answering this one: How memorable was your message? We’re back to that issue of relevance again.

Involuntary, automatic recall is known as procedural memory among cognitive neuroscientists and the rules of its creation are simple: Procedural Memory = Repetition x Relevance. In other words, the amount of repetition your message will need is determined by its relevance and one last thing…

SLEEP: the second factor.

Sleep erases advertising. This is why 12 repetitions spread over 12 months won’t have the same impact as 12 repetitions in 1 month.  Becoming a household word in the mind of your public is like climbing a muddy mountain. Gain three steps forward during the day and you slide 2 steps back during the night. Three steps forward, two steps back.

But don’t despair. Breakthrough is on the horizon. Can you see it shimmering in the distance? Cross that threshold and everything around you will come alive.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

How “good” is your website ACTUALLY performing?


So we’ve all been hearing more and more about how important it is for every business to have a website.  Absolutely, there is truth in this – although as I mentioned in a previous article, it is even more important to ensure that you have the right type of website for your particular business. However, the other component that is equally important when it comes to websites is commonly referred to as “Stats”.  Stats are the statistical information that is gathered on a website to basically “track” its progress, effectiveness and use.

When it comes to tracking these stats on a website, the process and information gets way more complicated, confusing and misleading than traditional media tracking ever was.

“Pfft, ya right! It’s way easier! My web designer gave me a site that I login to and it tells me everything I need to know about all of the traffic I’m getting on my website – bang, just like that! I don’t have to do a thing!”

If nothing else, my dedicated readers are certainly learning that I am not out here to dazzle you with bright lights and shiny objects. The information I bring to you is based on a combination of research, education and experience. This time I’m here to caution you on being “wowed” by “amazing” website “stats” – either yours or other sites.

  1. Average users and business owners have very limited knowledge (if any) of the terminology used in “stats”.
  2. They don’t know the definitions of the terminology and therefore also can’t determine when “common” use words are being used to replace actual representation terms.

Here are some websites that offer glossaries of the different “stats” terminology:
http://awstats.sourceforge.net/docs/awstats_glossary.html

The sites above contain a great deal of technical information, most of which the average user really doesn’t need to understand.  However, they all offer the same basic description of some of the key terms that every website owner should understand.

Hits – total number of file/graphic images requested as a result of a computer accessing your website
Visitors – number of computers that have accessed your website (includes multiple visits by the same computer)
Unique Visitors – counts each computer’s IP address that accesses your website only once
Page Views – the number of times pages within your website have been looked at
Traffic - On the web, traffic refers to the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a website.  However, most people think of “website traffic” in the same way that they think of people walking into their physical store.

“Hits are commonly misinterpreted as a metric for website success, however the number of hits rarely translates to the number of people visiting a website. Nor are the number of hits the same as the number of webpages viewed.”  (http://www.motive.co.nz/glossary/hits.php)

This statement pretty much says it all.  So what exactly do you need to pay attention to on your website stats?

  1. Unique visitors – this tells you more accurately how many sets of eyeballs are looking at your website. However, as with all statistics, take it with a grain of salt.  A family of 4 with one computer will count as 1 unique visitor for 4 sets of eyeballs. A business “network” that is setup to report the same IP address for every workstation could count as 1 unique visitor for hundreds of eyeballs.  On the other hand an individual with 2 laptops, a home pc and a work pc that accesses your website from all four computers will count as 4 unique visitors for one set of eyeballs.

  2. Visitors – this number tells you how many times computers access your website, including repeat visits by the same computer and/or the same person. Unfortunately it won’t separate out how many of those visits are by the same person or different people on the same computer. 

    However, a good “stat” package will tell you the comparison between “unique visitors” and “repeat visitors”, using these two numbers together will give you the best overall picture of the “walk-in traffic” your website is getting. (Having a new person visit your website is good – unique visitor; having that same new person come back is also good – visitor.)

  3. Page Views – this number can give you a good idea of how many pages within your website are getting eyeballs.  However, it may also include the bored (or excessively young) user that repeatedly hits refresh on your page because you have a cool image that changes every time the page reloads.

    Again, a good “stat” package will give you a breakdown of how many times “each” page is viewed, not just a total page count and better yet is pattern tracking that will tell you what path they took from when they first arrived at your site. For example: Home page to Services page to About Us page to Price List page to Services page to Contact Us page.
What you don’t want to rely on is whatever the “Hits” are being reported as. For a site to boast 80,000 hits a month, week or even day could mean nothing more than 1,600 pages that are loaded with 50 “hit points” per page (graphics, files, etc). Over the course of a month this could mean an average of 54 page views per day, which could be based on access by 9 computers averaging 6 page views per day. If it’s the same 9 computers every day and the same people using those computers, your 80,000 hits per month could actually only mean 9 sets of eyeballs per month.  Even if the 80,000 hits is based on per day traffic, if each unique visitor averages 6 page views per day this would still only calculate out to 267 unique visitors per day – a nice number for a local business, but a far cry for the 80,000 claimed. These are extreme examples, but they do illustrate the point of how easy it is to manipulate the information and dazzle average users who don’t fully understand the jargon.

If you really want to delve in deeper to understand the mechanics behind website statistics, this is a really good, easier to understand site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics.

At the end of the day, be very cautious about being “wowed” by website statistics – while some truly are impressive, most are simply over-inflated and misleading.