Marketing Tips - Talk With The People Who Are Listening

Advertising has become such a big part of our day to day lives. We are inundated with it, which is why we have all got so good at ignoring it. The other reason we've got so good at ignoring advertising is because we have become on-demand people. Internet marketing guru Rich Schefren calls this the Attention Age. Basically, people don't have time to do just in case learning because by the time they get around to applying what they've learned, they'll probably have to go back and re-learn it. That's a big time waste. With the Internet, people know that they don't have to pay attention to any mass media advertising because when they actually need information it will be available to them online and on demand.

Don't Spam!

It's amazing to me how many businesses have a marketing strategy that just shoves promotional material down the throats of potential customers. Let me explain.

The other day my wife and I were at a movie. When we came out there was a team of three or four people putting flyers under the windshield wipers of the cars in the movie theatre parking lot. You could see person after person approaching their car, grabbing the flyer, and throwing it on the ground. Some people glanced at it, but most just threw it out.

Spam is a word that we think of when we're talking about unsolicited emails, but it also applies in a number of other situations. Putting flyers on vehicles is a form of spam. Calling me at home to see if I want to apply for a line of credit is spam. Generic messages in Facebook groups are spam. Doorhangers are spam. Posting unrelated comments on blogs is spam.

Businesses have to remember that the delivery is just as important as the message. There are proper channels to go through if you want your message to be received by your target audience. Don't just load a bunch of marketing material into a shotgun and let it fly.

Your customers are smarter than that.

Advertising Isn’t What Brings People To Your Business

In my post on Friday I talked about how advertising isn’t bringing people to Saskatchewan. Well the same goes for your small business. Advertising doesn’t create customers for you, it can only remind people about what they already know or attempt to inform them about what they don’t know.

You see franchise advertising all the time telling you how great their service is or how well they do this or that. You can’t just tell people that you do something well, you actually have to do it.

When McDonald’s ads tell me smiles are free, and show a smiling 25 year old man with 3% body fat serving someone in a commercial, I don’t buy that for a second. That’s because there’s a disconnect for me between the guy in the commercial and the 5’2” 240 pound girl with a permanent scowl on her face working the drive-thru at the local McDonald’s restaurant. She doesn’t offer free smiles. She only mumbles something about ketchup and napkins.

My intent isn’t to make fun of McDonald’s employees (I haven’t actually eaten there in a long time) or the fast food industry. It’s just an example that most people can picture. The point is that you can’t create something in advertising and expect it to work because I won’t remember your ads, but I will remember what happens in real life.

The trick to marketing is actually in having something good to market in the first place. Coke and Pepsi aren’t different at all so they have to rely on polar bears and generation next to position their products. You don’t want to be in that position with your small business because you don’t have the budget. Instead, build a business that truly is better than anything else out there and then creatively tell people about it as often and cost effectively as you can. Sounds easy doesn’t it?

Differentiate Your Small Business

It’s summer time. Slow for some businesses, hectic for others. If you fall into the slow category, take the time to evaluate your marketing pieces.

Open up the Yellow Pages to your own ad and cover up your logo. Now read your ad out loud. Repeat this process with your competitors ads. Other than the logo or the name of the company, is there much difference in what all these different ads are saying?

This ad is probably the same as every other yellow page ad for movers in Milwaukee

“We accept Visa and Mastercard”, “We are #1 for service” and "Family owned since 1935" don’t differentiate your business from your competitors. Whether it’s the phone book, a billboard, or a radio ad you need to differentiate your business from your competition.

Don’t tell people things that would cause them to say “Well I would hope so!” Tell them something that will set you apart and prompt them to take action. Hit your customer’s hot buttons in your marketing pieces and you will outperform the business with the pretty ads every time.

Not sure what a hot button is? More on that in the next post.

Sean Stefan is a marketing consultant with LRS Consulting Inc. and is a regular contributor to the Regina Business Blog. Send your comments to sean@lrsconsulting.ca.