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I’ve been listening to a lot of radio recently. Especially talk radio. It’s a good way to keep your finger on the pulse of our culture. Flip between conservative, liberal, “middle way,” Christian and any other stations you can find on the dial, and in just a few hours you know how most of the country thinks.
Listening to the radio also has me listening to something else.
Radio advertising.
On the radio you find a lot of direct response marketing — a little hook to get you interested, along with an offer and a call to action. In fact, I think radio has a higher ratio of direct response to brand marketing than any medium other than the internet. Which alone is another good reason to listen to radio, if you’re in marketing and advertising. There’s a lot of great inspiration.
But that’s not the only reason I’m writing to you today.
I want to tell you about which type of radio advertising gets results!
It’s been known for a long time that editorial-looking advertising in newspapers and magazines get 5X higher readership. And when responses are tracked, the difference in response is similar and sometimes much greater.
So… Shouldn’t the same work for radio advertising?!
… (Dramatic music) …
It does!
Here’s two ways to take advantage of this.
1. Come up with a script for the host of the talk show to read during a commercial break (or better yet, record, send to you for approval, then play during multiple commercial breaks!). This script should go something like this:
“Hi, this is [host name] back with an interesting discovery I made recently. I don’t know if you’ve dealt with [insert problem here] recently, but it’s something I’ve had personal experience with. And I’ve found that [insert product name or solution description here] from [insert your company name here] was able to help me pull through. In fact, [give a very compelling statistic or other proof element here].”
“They’ve put together a 30-minute CD explaining how you too can overcome [problem], including a really important tip regarding [small but important part of solution] that you can apply to ["feel better"/"make more money"/"live a better life"] right away with very little effort.”
“You can get the CD by calling [insert your phone number here]. That’s [repeat phone number]. Again, this is [host name] telling you to call [your company name] to get a free 30-minute, content-rich CD on how to deal with [problem] — their number is [phone number] and you can call 24/7 to leave your name and address to get your free 30-minute CD.”
One huge benefit of this approach is you inherit the credibility of the show’s host, and all you have to do is ask (and usually commit to a certain amount of advertising budget — but be sure there’s a clause that says you can get out of this commitment the moment the advertisements stop working).
Another benefit is because the advertising is done in the voice of the host, most listeners will think the show is coming back on, and listen long enough to absorb the brunt of your advertisement. And those that are interested in the topic or need the problem solved will listen long enough to hear your offer. A high percentage will respond, too.
2. If the host is not available or will not agree to read your advertisement, all is not lost. You can get another recognized name (celebrity) to read the same basic script, with almost equal results. This borrows the celebrity’s credibility, and it’s often hard for the listener to identify up front if this celebrity is a guest on the show or if this is an advertisement. So you’ll get listeners and response.
3. If you’re not able to get or afford the host or another celebrity, one more choice is to make your advertisement sound like an urgent news broadcast. A low-price voice-over actor will work to read the script — as long as they’re convincing as a news announcer in the context of the surrounding program. Leave out the hype — you don’t want your advertisement to actually sound like an advertisement, it’s supposed to sound like news content.
4. Finally, treat yourself like a celebrity. By this I mean get on the radio yourself (meaning, record your own advertisement) and tell about your personal story of dealing with the problem and what you’ve done to create a solution… Because no solution out there was quite good enough for you. Again, invite listeners to call for more information in the form of a 30-minute content-rich CD.
The key to making any of these strategies work is to make them sound as much like helpful editorial as possible.
Advertisements have music in the background — important editorial is voice only. So pick voice only.
Advertisements sound excited — important editorial sounds serious with a need to communicate. So sound serious with a need to communicate.
Make all your decisions on the basis of…
“How can I make this sound more like an important editorial announcement up until the point we’re asking for action?”
Then make it easy and painless for listeners to raise their hand and express interest, by doing something such as requesting a free CD and information packet.
That’s how you’ll create effective radio advertising that sells!
There are three areas a business has to succeed to be healthy in the long term.
Managing people.
Managing product lines.
Marketing/sales/business development.
Managing people means keeping workers happy without letting them control the business decisions. Especially when it could be detrimental to the business. Organized labor has too much control over Detroit’s big three and have developed non-sustainable demands — they are literally choking to death the companies they rely on.
Toyota and Honda have fended off union control so far. (Keeping employees happy goes a long way.) That’s one reason they’re not in the same mess the others are.
If your business is good at managing people, you’ve succeeded at one of the three pillars of business success and are unlikely to need a bailout like Detroit’s big three.
Managing product lines means finding out what flush, hungry mobs want and giving it to them. In this green, energy-conscious world with gas prices spiraling out of control, there’s a new Hummer. Enough said there.
VW won with the ugly, cramped little Beetle when the cars of the 50s and 60s were mostly gas-guzzlers and people were looking for something different. And Honda and Toyota are mostly on target with their high gas mileage, environmentally friendlier cars. Small is big now, and if Detroit is slow to recognize that and react to the market it’s not taxpayer’s responsibility to bail them out for their poor product choices.
When’s the last time you looked at what flush, hungry mobs were asking for, and gave it to them? It’s a valuable thing to do…
Marketing, sales, and business development means taking a product that was created for a specific market, and introducing the market to that product. Then asking for the order. Not a fancy commercial produced to win advertising awards with pop-ish music and fancy graphics.
Sure, it makes you feel good when your ad agency takes you out for a $1,000 steak dinner because they won an award on your dime (and then charges it to your company in a transaction you’ll never see), but is this really growing your business?
How about a few commercials with a reason why I should prefer your product over every other one available in the marketplace, tied with benefits of buying your product and doing business with you, and finally tying in the commercial with something going on at the local dealership right now, such as an event I can go to? It’d be a start in the right direction.
I don’t have much sympathy for failing automakers. I feel sorry for people who feel they have no control, and who may lose their jobs when those companies go under. But we can’t get into the habit of propping up companies who fail on so many levels, just because the company is big. Then nobody learns and the cycle continues.
If you haven’t changed the way you speak with customers and potential customers in the past 6 weeks or so, you better.
Or this recession is going to turn into something much, much nastier for you. (This headline from yesterday is telling: “Soros says deep recession inevitable, depression possible.”)
Take this lead for a letter I’m writing for a product that has nothing to do with investing or the stock market:
It’s no joke. We’re in tough times.
As I write this, the Dow’s been pummeled — it’s down 59% off its 52-week high. Major tech player Cisco’s stock is down 54%, despite sales increases. Microsoft is doing worse than Cisco — down 56%.
The banks that aren’t bankrupt yet are too scared to lend. And all our houses seem to be losing value by the day.
And the economy’s biggest gurus are saying we’re either headed for recession or depression.
Is there any bright spot?
Listen.
All this crap going on with the economy is what’s on people’s minds. It’s on your mind. It’s on my mind. And it’s on our customer’s mind. It’s likely these last 6 weeks or so have been hard on your business. And the next few months aren’t going to be easy either.
(It’s a completely normal human reaction to cinch those purse strings tourniquet-tight when you’ve just lost 30% to 50+% of your nest egg. That’s real dollars, folks — most of your customers have lost between $10,000 and $100,000 in the past 6 weeks.)
But now is also a time of incredible opportunity for heads-up marketers and sales people.
Right now you can bring your tribe, your group, your teeming mob in close.
You can speak to them in the language they’re using. You can continue the conversation going on in their head right now.
And they will listen.
They will bond with you.
And they will, sooner or later, buy.
It may not happen in a flood once you connect with them. But building rapport by sharing in their sorrow now — saying “I understand you” without saying it directly — will lead to more sales sooner.
You’ll get the rebound purchases and “stretching the budget” buys that putz marketers still singing jingles like everything’s okay won’t get until things are actually okay again.
Sure, the great depression sucked.
Murderously high unemployment (yes, people died). Failing banks, businesses, and financial futures.
It changed the way an entire generation looked at jobs, money, employment. And then sent shockwaves through the generations as everyone adjusted and reacted to the norms the great depression created.
But even in the midst of the great depression smart companies were growing.
New companies exploded in new profits.
And there were many who actually lived well —
Still eating at fancy restaurants…
Still driving fancy cars…
Still buying fancy houses…
(And actually living within their means while buying these — but that’s another topic for another day.)
There is a calm in the chaos, and opportunity in the desert. It just takes some thinking on your feet. Some adjusting. Some taking a moment to lift your head up, surveying the landscape, seeing where people are still hungry and ready to invest in a good, reliable way to satiate their hunger.
Don’t make the mistake of acting like nothing is happening. Because things are happening. And they’re huge.
Now you get to decide what impact it’ll have on you.
Most people know GoDaddy.com for their raunchy Super Bowl ads and don’t realize how much advertising it really takes to make them as successful as they are. And they’re no chumps when it comes to advertising either.
What I didn’t know about GoDaddy.com is how much CEO and founder Bob Parson’s philosophy of advertising lines up with mine.
Watch this video and learn his 9 rules for advertising that works (I’ve included my notes below):
GoDaddy.com CEO and Founder Bob Parsons’ 9 Secret Rules for Successful Advertising
Start small. Don’t blow a fortune on advertising that hasn’t proven itself in smaller tests first.
Exit strategy required. Don’t get yourself into a situation where you’re locked into an advertising contract when the advertising isn’t working. There are plenty of places to blow your budget. Take your advertising dollars elsewhere.
It works now or never. If your advertising isn’t bringing returns today, don’t believe the ad salesperson when they say, “Customers won’t respond until the 7th time they see it.” Sometimes customers will, sometimes they won’t. But if your ad works today it’s certainly worth running again.
Effective advertising pays for itself. If you can’t trace returns on advertising to prove it’s paying for itself within days or the first couple weeks, it’s not effective advertising. Even GoDaddy’s Super Bowl commercials play this out — I read once that each time GoDaddy has run a Super Bowl ad they’ve been able to attribute a significant long-term increase in business to their campaign.
Measure and test. This is critical for that last rule to work. If you’re not measuring you don’t know what’s effective and what’s not. And testing lets you compare what works and what doesn’t and apply your learnings for future success.
Effective advertising must be coupled with a good ordering process. Whether it’s your website, your sales call center, or customer service, the customer must feel comfortable responding to your advertising and placing an order. You can kill the order as soon as you thought you had it by failing here.
Make it stand out. To be effective your ads have to get noticed. And to get noticed they have to stand out. Whether you go the bikini-clad women route of GoDaddy.com or choose another method of standing out is a personal and business choice. But no matter what you choose, this rule is crucial.
Controversy is good. GoDaddy.com has found that about 15% of Super Bowl viewers are offended by their advertising. But that’s why I’m talking about past years’ commercials right now in mid-November. Because controversial draws attention and gets remembered. And… As Bob said… Controversy has translated for them into sales — the most important figure to track.
You can’t please everybody. Try to be all things to everybody and you’re nothing to anybody. Find your tribe, your raving fans, your teeming horde — and serve them well. They’ll serve you well in return.
Aside from the loaded half-truths, scientific irresponsibility, and one helluva sales job that went into Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” that movie moved America… and the world… to take action on global warming.
But now there’s an even bigger crisis facing us — a crisis that all sides now admit is nothing short of Earth-shattering.
It’s called debt.
A culture of unaccountable spending has put our National Debt above 10 trillion dollars. That means if we were to reduce the debt by $1 every second, it would take over 316,000 YEARS to pay off the national debt.
For 2 years in a row American’s savings rate was negative — meaning we spent more than we made. The last time that happened was the Great Depression (and at that time this piss-poor economic trend happened AFTER a stock-market crash). When the savings rate is negative, less is invested in long-term improvements of the quality of life, and more is invested in paying down debt. By living high on the hog this year we’re setting ourselves up for bread lines and soup kitchens in the years to come.
Social Security is currently running at a surplus — this means more money is being brought in than is going out to pay for the program. Unfortunately, that money is being spent elsewhere within the federal government. When that surplus becomes a deficit (when the brunt of baby boomers retire) by 2017, Social Security will start sucking funds away from other federal programs. Then, this culture of unaccountable, irresponsible spending will get really nasty.
And those are just the beginning.
For one, we’re borrowing that money from somewhere. And no, it’s not Americans, like we did with bonds during World War II and before.
Nope, we’re borrowing the money from China and other economic super powers who at some point may come knocking. And they won’t be nice when we’ve screwed ourselves into a position where paying is too difficult. (They could bury the value of every penny of our currency by maliciously off-loading our debt.)
Listen, it’s your responsibility (and mine, and everyone else’s) to really start to think about whether or not we should be accountable for spending less than we make, and storing away the extra to keep ourselves solvent and our economy strong.
It’s also our responsibility to look at what goes on in Washington D.C. and decide if we want to continue to put up with politicians borrowing money from sources that may not have our best interests at heart, to pay for bloated programs that may be causing more harm than good.
That doesn’t even get into the businesses that take advantage of irresponsible borrowing (such as the banks and lenders that sold ARMs as ways for people with bad credit patterns to buy a home they couldn’t afford).
And the challenge is to do it all in a socially responsible way — that doesn’t just lop off support for those who need it.
We’re coming into some tough times here, folks. And we’re going to have to hunker down and maybe not get everything we want, when we want it.
But the end result will be a better life, a better country, and a better world.
I don’t have all the answers, but at least I’m asking some questions.
Which leads me back to the movie that started this rant — “I.O.U.S.A.”
By all measures I can come up with, it’s more important for Americans to see “I.O.U.S.A.” than it ever was for them to see “An Inconvenient Truth.” It’s more pertinent to our sustained health and that of our children. It will matter more in the short term… and if we can manage to really get its lessons and apply them in our life, it will matter more in the long term too.
It may not be available in theaters near you right now, but you can go to the website http://www.iousathemovie.com/ and watch a “Byte-Sized” 30-minute version. Do it now. For my sake, for your sake, and for the sake of our children.
If it feels like you’ve hit a brick wall when it comes to business development, you may want to read this carefully. It’s not a long message, but it’s a reliable way to increase sales and grow and expand your business.
The first time I leveraged this opportunity, I created over $40,000 in new business almost overnight — in a company doing $10-15,000 daily. Not a huge bump, but big enough to get noticed. And to tell me this opportunity is worth paying attention to.
And the best thing about it is that it doesn’t require any special skills. It’s just a matter of “start doing here what already works over there.”
Let me explain.
In business development, it’s easy to relax into the path of least resistance. We get good at doing our thing, in our area.
If we do direct mail, we do direct mail. If we market online and through email, we market online and through email. If we’re in a telemarketing operation, we’re telemarketers.
Sure, we can get incremental improvements by getting better at what we do.
Make our current direct mail efforts better. Optimize our landing pages. Write better subject lines. Create a better telemarketing script.
But we’ll get to a point where it’s hard to get better… Maybe you’re there already.
Your direct mail works well. Your emails get opened, and read, and responded to. You close a high percentage of telemarketing calls.
So what next?
Here’s the business development secret — the most reliable way to take any one of these operations and increase sales significantly, even after they’ve been optimized.
Sell through a new channel!
If you’re in a direct mail company, try driving your customers online where you can follow up through email. If you rely on telemarketing, why not prime the pump with a first-class letter a few days before your call? If your only contact with customers is through email, why not surprise them with a personal letter in their mailbox inviting them to try your more complete solution? (That’s where I “created” the $40,000 opportunity I mentioned above.)
All you have to do is take the message that works well in one medium, and translate it to the next. The fundamental persuasive message doesn’t need to change for you to grab attention — just the way you present it!
It’ll work remarkably well, I promise.
There are a couple reasons this works:
It catches your prospect off-guard, getting enough attention for your message that your prospect may catch and digest some of it. (Which is perhaps the most important consideration in this 21st Century marketing environment.)
None of your competitors are using this new channel yet. You’d be surprised how many business people will never test a different selling channel because “nobody in the industry does it that way.” Dufus! (Not you or I… Just those other business people that have fallen prey to this thinking at one time or another.) That’s why this new approach is going to be so successful. BECAUSE nobody else is doing it.
So… If in today’s environment you want a reliable business development opportunity… Get out of the old, and into the new. Test a new channel for selling your product or service.
Even if nothing else has worked to increase sales, this could double your business.
In search especially, people want what they want and they want it now. Google is constantly working to break their own speed records by giving users their search results even a fraction of a fraction of a second faster.
They tested networked PCs vs. powerhouse servers and found they could serve search results faster with the networked PCs. So they use networked PCs.
The old search algorithms were being pushed to their limits, so search couldn’t work any faster (or so said others). So Google re-wrote their search algorithms.
They’ve shaved every bit and byte and computer decision away until they’ve become a lean, mean, search-serving machine. And arguably the fastest search engine on the planet.
But how does this apply to your business?
First — how fast do customers get product after they order it?
I recently was given the choice between a couple places to buy a book and my deciding factor was based on shipping time. One gave a free upgrade to priority shipping, while the other shipped ground when you paid for ground.
Guess which one I chose…
That’s right — the one that delivered my book faster.
Look for ways to deliver your product faster — even, I’d argue, if it cuts slightly into your profits. It will build customer loyalty and increase the lifetime value of your customer.
Maybe all it takes is adding an overnight delivery option, that the customer can optionally pay for. The customers that want instant gratification will pay for this premium and be happy about it.
Some service businesses may have trouble figuring out exactly how to do this.
But think of this. Some auto mechanics offer an “oil change while you wait” vs. you having to drop off your car in the morning and pick it up at lunch or at the end of the day. Some even change your oil without you having to get out of your car. Which is more convenient? If the price is the same, which do you choose?
If you’re providing business consulting services, maybe you offer an on-site intensive session early in your relationship with a client. That way, you can give them actionable strategies they can start applying right away, while you go back to your office to develop a more thorough plan for their business.
Just use a little creativity and look at ways you can give the client or customer the gratification they need sooner.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with Seth Godin yet. He’s not necessarily who I’d go to if I have something very specific that I need done, like writing a sales letter. But when it comes to an overarching strategy for your business, he has one piece of input that will help you slaughter your competition.
“Be remarkable.”
Do what you do so well, that everyone will want to talk about you. They’ll talk about you to their business associates. They’ll talk about you to their friends. They’ll talk about you over lunch. They’ll talk about you in that “filler” conversation before and after meetings. They’ll talk. And talk. And talk.
Being remarkable — doing things in a way that people want to make remarks about what you’re doing — is what creates word of mouth. And that’s free advertising. Powerful free advertising. Because usually the person who is talking about you has built-in credibility with whoever they’re remarking about you to. This is a credibility you’ll never have through your advertising. And one of the only ways I’ve ever found to leverage this credibility is through doing exactly what Seth recommends — be remarkable.
Taking it one step further, I’d recommend you become Irrationally Committed to being remarkable.
Learn to recognize when you’re wrong… but when you’re right stick it out longer than anyone else has the guts (or irrationality) to do. Often that extra few days — or weeks, months, or even years — is the extra time that means the difference between another failure and a smashing success. It took years for Amazon.com to become profitable. Now if something’s available on Amazon I will often buy it there before I’ll buy it from anywhere else. That’s because Jeff Bezos and crew were irrationally committed to creating the Amazon machine.
There’s an endless stream of stories of entrepreneurs who came up with a remarkable product that fit a specific need (a need backed up by a teeming mob of hungry buyers)… and then they irrationally committed themselves to making that idea successful… and then most struggled through hard times long before they got their business in the black… until one day — after all their resources (emotional, financial, otherwise) were exhausted, they crossed the line… and now they run incredibly successful companies and lead their industry.
It’s not an exact formula for success. At the tactical level it gives you nothing. But as something to inform your entrepreneurial strategy — becoming irrationally committed to being remarkable can pay off in spades.
I’ve been getting big into LinkedIn recently. And now I’ve created a group. It’s called Oregon Marketers Group, and it’s a way for marketers (particularly those interested in or practicing Direct Response) to connect.
If you’re in Oregon and into marketing (Direct Response or otherwise) I encourage you to join. It’s free. And as it grows I see quite a few opportunities developing.
Here’s the complete description of the group on LinkedIn:
This group is a way for marketing and advertising professionals in Oregon to connect. It can be used to share information and insights, plan meetings, and find seminar attendees — even to find new clients and build business partnerships. Although no attendees will be excluded, the bias will be toward direct response marketing, advertising, and sales. Other interests include direct mail, copywriting, internet marketing, database marketing, and other proven business development techniques. The area covered by this group includes the Willamette Valley, Eugene, Springfield, Portland, Salem, Bend, Albany, Corvallis, Roseburg, Medford, Ashland, Coos Bay, Florence, and Newport and surrounding areas.
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