When I hear a statement like that I generally like to join the conversation. And I’m never disappointed in hearing some inane reason why that particular advertising is the best. Last night I chose to restrain myself and not join the conversation. After all, friends and I’d heard this particular friend’s “best” advertising many times, each time a different best. So why at 5:15 a.m. after a night of Valentine revelry did my mind decide to bring back the topic?

I don’t know but I wanted to sleep in.

I’ve hard all types of “the best advertising is” statements and mostly they are based on an isolated incident that brought notoriety to a business (read that as people saying “I saw/heard you on/in…..”) but never generated a measurable and sustained increase in revenue. And most of these expert opinions on the best advertising have come not from marketing and advertising experts but from people in other fields. In my youth I would immediately grab my sledge hammer and start bashing their argument deftly making my point as to why they were incorrect. And when asked what was the best advertising I would, depending on my level of maturity in my career either let them know that there is no best that advertising success depended on too many variables and was different for various businesses and industries, blah, blah, blah.

Yea, I was onel of those guys. I can be pretty goo d at spouting all of the marketing mumbo-jumbo and often catch myself reverting back.

This morning my mind gave me what I believe is the definitive answer to “What’s the best form of advertising?”

An elated customer.

Not just a happy customer or a satisfied customer or a long time customer because for the most part these will rarely praise you to their friends and strangers in the checkout line at the grocery store.

An elated customer can not control themselves and will look for an opportunity to tell someone, friend and stranger alike, how great your business is. An elated customer will spread the gospel of your product with such fervor that others will come to you in droves. The elated customer will not allow them to do anything but come to you.

The Elated Customer, that’s your answer. That’s the best form of advertising. Now that you know it go start your campaign.

Thanks for your time,
Jeff

©2010 The Buzz Forge. All Rights Reserved.

Online advertising has been the hottest thing for a decade, why not it’s new. Mobile is quickly replacing online ad the new glamor ad outlet but that’s another discussion. Online has seen huge surges in ad revenue, it’s new so why not, but for the most part those dollars have been flushed. We can chalk them up to research. Now it’s time to look at the data we have from 10 years of online ads and see where and how to best utilize our resources.

Let’s assume a web site is already in you arsenal and that you are properly utilizing data gathering, stickiness, frequent visits, all the things that make a web site “great”. Now you want to advertise and drive traffic to your site. “Let’s put up some banners.” you say to your crew. The question is what type, size, format, where…

Please make sure your choice is representative of your product and company. Viewer perception will mean the difference between success and failure. Consider how you feel when you see different size and style banners. If you are designing your ads in house look at your competitors banners, look at the big boys ads, notice what banners cause you to click. If you are hiring an agency to work on your interactive campaign ask them why they are doing things the way they are. If they don’t give an answer you are comfortable with find someone else.

The new mantra for online advertising is bigger is better. Pushdowns, XXL Boxes, Fixed Panels are seeing greater clicks. Interactive ads that engage the user having them click on flip art and play videos are more popular and show increased user favor. Of course these are more expensive to produce than a 728 x 90 leaderboard.

Interactive advertising can be a valuable and integral part of your media mix, just be careful, it could also be the commode you send your dollars and time down if you are not careful.

©2010 The Buzz Forge. All Rights Reserved.

Why do we forget? First advertisers like the idea and glamor of Broadcast TV. It’s a puff-out-your-chest moment when you can say I’m on TV or when someone says they saw you on TV.  Second, things we know often get pushed back in our mind. New information, more immediate information is laid upon foundational knowledge and we focus on the new.

It’s great to see research restating the known from time to time because we all need to re reminded.

Why is Magazine advertising more effective than online and TV? Think about the media. TV is a mass market outlet, expensive in nature with high production costs. Commercial are viewed by the user as interruptions, time to get a drink, go to the bathroom, change channels, skip with DVR, etc. Sure TV can be target by purchasing time in specific shows but you are still not pinpoint targeting and have to deal with the audience you purchased leaving while your ad is on. And, once your ad is done it’s gone.

Online is touted as the next great thing yet few have found profit in it. Ads are more annoying than Gary Trudeau infomercials and online trust is a major issue. I just battled a virus that infected my computer. The IT Security Specialist I hired to fix me up said I probably got the virus from a very well known site. It was not their doings that infected me by hackers, a common practice.

So all of those flashing noisy banners and things that float across my screen are a pain in my rear and I ignore them all I can. And I virtually never click on them.

Magazine ads are a bit different. Magazine ads are part of the content of the publication.  Products advertised are strongly associated with the subject matter found in the mag. Motorcycle parts are found in motorcycle mags not home decor pubs. The reader purchased the magazine knowing there are ads, they are not interruptions but overwhelmingly viewed as part of the information in the publication. And, each time a reader uses the mag they are exposed to the ads, that’s frequency.

I need to make something clear…Online and TV advertising are valuable and when done correctly can drive business. We just need to remember what we know, Magazines can target and generate sales, build brand awareness and give the most effective cost per person and dollar spent.

Thanks for your time,
Jeff

©2010 The Buzz Forge. All Rights Reserved.

No Shit!

Most companies still lack digital cunning or basic knowledge as to how to best utilize the internet to drive their business. One reason is the varying views as to what success looks like online. Another is that few success models are available and even fewer people want to look at what brought that success.

I was faced with multiple examples of this recently as I met with various clients. Invariably they told me how much of their budgets were going to interactive advertising and how well it was doing but when asked to qualify their success the answer was “We get a lot of hits.“

OK, I am learning to overlook the inaccurate use of hits understanding they are meaning click throughs and site traffic. However, non could go beyond the hits and convert that to conversions, actual sales. Why? If all your efforts are going to driving traffic fine but if you are selling books or games or shoes you want to know how those hits converted to dollars.

Why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on hits that bring in no sales? Why wouldn’t tracking be in place to give the conversion info so that you could see if your efforts were actually profitable?

Too often we see good ideas, especially in the digital realm, taken half way to a point where success and failure can not be determined. In these cases the definition of success and failure is changed to meet the outcome. “Hey, that banner got us a 30% increase in traffic! The campaign was a success.” Too bad the time spent on your site plummeted and your bounce rate skyrocketed. And it’s really too bad that your sales didn’t increase a a bit.

©2010 The Buzz Forge. All Rights Reserved.

Those who has worked in local advertising understands Social Media. They understand the importance of customer contact contact on a personal level and the importance of telling a story. They understand shaking hands and networking whether it’s at Chamber events or from a booth at a local expo or fair.

The ingredients that have gone into successful Social Marketing for generations are the ingredients that are being espoused as new tactics on Twitter, FaceBook, Linkedin and other social sites. Perhaps giant companies and agencies are so detached from the streets that they have forgotten. Or maybe they are so wrapped up in winning awards with their creativity that they lost sight that the 4Cs were always the important aspect of marketing.

“Long gone are the 4Ps of marketing, these are the days of the 4Cs, a customer centric approach that includes the customer’s wants and needs; the cost to satisfy the customer; the convenience; and communication.” Read the rest

If we haven’t been focusing on the customer all of these years what have we been? It comes down to your marketing If you want to win a street fight higher a Street Fighter. Look at who’s in your corner do they mind getting dirty, even bloody, for you? If not find someone who will tell your story ’till they drop.

©2010 The Buzz Forge. All Rights Reserved.

I’m talking about the presentation, the message offered to the audience. Of course we’ve seen advancement in the delivery methods and the number of ways to reach the public, I was faced with a 4’ x 5’ ad for Mt Dew in a frame zip tied to a fuel hose as I filled up my car the other day.  Is that an advancement?

We are each bombarded with 5,000+ ads each day it’s too bad they are mostly garbage.

What is it that makes ads garbage. On the larger stage, that of national and international campaigns we too often run into creative’s with clout. These are well known names, award winning teams, who value the awards and recognition but too often forget the purpose of the ads. On the local stage we run into uneducated sales reps who do what everyone else does, over worked copywriters and designers who crank out one stale ad after another. Both are often faced with know-it-all clients who dictate what is included in the ads and spreadsheet management that sees spending too much time on creative as counter bottom line.

An additional for better ads is the pressure for status quo. If their ad does not sound like, look like, feel like their competitors, and everyone else’s, the belief is that it is not good. Poop!

Ads can be creative but the creative can’t distract from the client message and not sell the product. Remember the “Dogs Love Trucks” campaign for Nissan, or was it Toyota, I don’t remember. It won awards. It was cute. But nobody cared and truck sales took a dive.

Ad development does not have to suck life out of a bottom line. When done well ads will increase the bottom line by keeping clients and gaining more.

If you are a local ad rep learn, read, write, design, practice.  Become the person known in your market for great creative and happy clients with growing businesses. The time you spend learning will pay off hugely.

If you were wondering about the stupid ad and didn’t follow the link here it is. It’s tasteless and insulting to New Yorkers and everyone in the US.

WWF stupid ad

©2010 The Buzz Forge. All Rights Reserved.

As a test we’ve been playing with Twitter and other social sites exploring aps and looking into who is utilizing them and who. We’ve seen professionals promoting their services well, Socially Fresh for one, and MANY spamming everyone with get-rich-quick programs.

Scammers, gray and black hat users are often new adopters. They learn the boundaries of a service by pushing ’till they get punished then walk the line.

If companies want to become more social, at least in their online marketing, it’s time to look at those who are playing in the social arena not just assign a cubical dweller to learn on the go.

©2010 The Buzz Forge. All Rights Reserved.

Here’s a key point for up and coming managers to remember…Great managers are rarely excellent at the things they manage.

My first management opportunity came at 30. I stunk. By age 32 I was above average. At age 35 I had become a decent manager, at least I believe so. The key came when I accepted the fact that I could not do everything. I was not good at everything and was not the best at most things.

I am far better handling 10 things at a time than one. There are too many details to deal with in the one. I learned and accepted that my detail abilities were not my greatest talent. One of my soccer coaches once told me “You’re not the best player we have but you see the field and how the game is developing quickly and can put the ball where it needs to be better than the others.”

Once I accepted my limitations and focused on my talents it all came together. I surround myself with detail people, those who love to handle the i dotting and t crossing.

If you are the star seller in an organization and have aspirations for management think about your skills and your managers skills. Look at what your manager deals with day to day. Are they the things you enjoy?

We often see VP of Marketing or VP of Finance people elevated to President or CEO only to crash. We forget that they are the VP of Marketing because they are excellent at Marketing and relating to the people in the Marketing department. They don’t relate to penny pinchers. They don’t handle HR or company PR well.

Great coaches, great managers, generally are not star players. They have broad talents rather than highly focused ones. They have high assist numbers and low scoring stats. They relate to teammates better than cameras.

Great managers are rarely excellent at the things they manage.

©2010 The Buzz Forge. All Rights Reserved.

Does that surprise anyone?

According to the survey results, 55% of women expect to spend less in the next 60 days, vs. 37% of men. And 41% of women expect to spend less on household essentials in that time period, up from 34% in April.

The recent survey by Performics I believe states something we all recognize. As marketers we often want to spend money on surveys to justify our positions to clients or make our point more prominent when all we have to do is look at out own household and that of our friends. It’s the same way many of us go about marketing our clients products, telling the public that they need more-bigger-better when in actuality we, as consumers, as a nation, need less.

That will surely piss a few people off, perhaps some of my clients, but it’s true. The consumer economy we have experienced has brought us to a point of drastically needed change. We won’t become the industrial giant that built the country but the consumer economy has run it’s course and the times they are a changing. Marketers and clients alike must realize this and adapt now or die.

What are we looking at here? As I see it we have begun a consumerism reversal. People are less secure in their jobs and are cutting back. They drive less, are more interested in fuel efficient vehicles, are spending more economically in their food choices, clothing travel and accessories.  Businesses who realize this and start providing goods and services that help people save will prosper. Those who continue to offer Keep Up With The Jones products will find themselves wondering what happened (the exception is ultra lavish targeted to the ultra wealthy. We’ll address that another day).

The marketers who speak to consumers in a truthful manor presenting a valuable product, will find themselves inundated with client request.

The fog is lifting  and consumers are now recognizing the difference between a want and need. And even though wants will exist they have changed.

Consumer confidence will change. It is changing but it’s leading us down a new path…an old path, one we’ve seen recycled over and over in history. Be aware of that direction and lead the way. This will not only produce a profitable company but a stronger economy.

©2010 The Buzz Forge. All Rights Reserved.

It’s one of those questions every business owner and manager should know the answer to and a question every advertising and marketing professional should ask.

Few had and answer other than “What do you mean…I’m not sure.” or “ $58.76, pointing to the last cash register receipt.

Wrongo! Think long term. Think a life time of doing business with that customer. If your typical customer spends $58.76 with you each month he’s worth $681.12 per year. If you keep that customer for 10 years that’s $6811.20 if he spends the same every month and you never up sell him.

Here’s your assignment:

What is your average monthly ticket per month? (months total sales / # of sales)

Ex: $63,836 / 1542 = $41.40

What is the average life of a customer? Do you have customers return often over a long period of time or do they come and go like the wind? For our example let’s use 3 years and they visit once each month.

Ex: 36 months x $41.40 = $1490

Each customer is worth $1490 to you.

Ah but what if that person tells just one other person about you. That person’s value just increased. And what if that customer stayed 51 months or spent an extra $2 each month?

Or what if you upset that customer and they leave after 23 months or tell others not to shop with you?

You can see the variables that can effect the value of a single customer and the prosperity of your business.

For now start simple and do the math. What is a customer worth to your business?

We’ll delve into this deeper in the near future.

©2010 The Buzz Forge. All Rights Reserved.