The Salespeople Your Customers Love
A few weeks ago we noticed two different recruiting ads for salespeople. The first ad described their ideal candidate as, “an aggressive, money-oriented closer.” The second ad described their ideal candidate as, “a knowledgeable, customer-service oriented professional.” Which of these two sales types would you prefer to do business with? The internet has killed aggressive [...]
Have Your Cake Marketing
To make a sale today, you have to stand out against a sea of competitors. Your prospects have to understand why they should buy from you instead of one of your look-alike, priced-alike, competitors. But before your prospects can understand why they should choose you, you have to have a clear understanding of why they [...]
Keys to Success
Sir Richard Branson knows how to succeed in business. At age 16 he started his first student magazine. By age 20 he started Virgin Records, and he now has a net worth of $4.2 billion and owns more than 400 companies worldwide including Virgin Atlantic airlines. There is an important lesson that small and medium [...]
Super Bowl Ad Lessons
The ads in this weekend’s Super Bowl XLVII will inevitably capture as much attention and post-game buzz as the game itself. In the past 10 years, nearly $2 billion has been invested in the Super Bowl network ads. And although your advertising budget can’t accommodate the rich $3 million plus spot rates, you can bet [...]
The Human Touch
We named these weekly tips to help grow your business, “SoundADvice” because of the double meaning of the word ‘sound’. ‘Sound’, as an adjective, is defined as sensible, secure, reliable and logically valid and of true premises. The common sense tips we send you about marketing, advertising, and sales do fit this definition. But as [...]
What’s your story?
At this time of year, everyone is making predictions. But you don’t need a crystal ball to predict that you will have more competition in 2013 and you will have more media choices than ever before. With more new media platforms and more competition clamouring for your prospect’s attention, your marketing “story” has never been more important. [...]
Reap What You Sow
The word ‘market’ has evolved to have many applications but it originated as a public gathering to buy and sell agricultural products, i.e.; farmer’s market. In the electronic age ‘market’ is the perfect word for a process that begins with planting seeds through advertising then harvesting demand with online search. Seth Godin, founder of Yoyodyne, [...]
Does Charlie Need the Money?
At age 71, famed Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has contracted a masseuse to help him deal with his back pain during the Stones’ upcoming live performances. And noted Rolling Stones guitarist, Keith Richards, after more than 50 years of playing guitar, says he’s still “learning” to play guitar. Wow…still learning after 50 years! Neither [...]
Gomer’s Birthday
Gomer wasn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. His family was steeped in rituals and traditions with nearly every event on their calendar. As Gomer was planning for his 21st birthday celebration he asked his mother, “Ma, can I walk ‘cross the lake on my 21st birthday like my father and his father before [...]
The Logical Consumer
Why is a Harley rider a ‘biker’, while a person on a Kawasaki is a ‘motorcyclist’? Why is a person who wears Nike running shoes an athlete, while those wearing other brands are joggers? And more importantly, why are Harley Davidson and Nike able to command higher profit margins than their competitors? It’s because these [...]
No News is Bad News
Aristotle’s theory that, “the whole is greater than the sum of its part” is especially true when it comes to the impact of using earned, owned and paid media in tandem. One of the ways to capture earned media is to issue media releases or valid news stories about your business. Many business owners don’t [...]
One plus One Plus One can Equal Six
There is a great deal of buzz amongst advertising and marketing types today about the synergies between paid media, owned media and earned media. ‘Paid’ media, of course are the commercials or space you pay for in various media ‘Owned’ media are your newsletters, emails, websites, or any of the marketing communications vehicles that you [...]
‘No” Doesn’t Mean No
If you have reviewed your suppliers co-operative advertising programs and thought they don’t fit your needs, think again. Many manufacturers and suppliers have co-operative advertising (co-op) programs that, at first glance, do not work for you. Begin by understanding why your suppliers might make co-op funds or marketing subsidies available to you in the first [...]
The Three Keys to Sustainable Success
If there is one thing businesses can count on today, it’s change; you’ll face changing economies, changing product lines, changing technologies, changing regulations, changing competitors, and changing customer demographics, to mention a few. But in spite of competing in an unprecedented era of unforeseeable change, there are three constants to every successful business that have [...]
Branding and Search Engines
When your prospects have a need for what you sell, would you rather them Google or search for a list of all of your competitors, or would you rather have them Google your business name? It is a virtual necessity for all businesses to have their own website in today’s marketplace. Once you have a [...]
Does Your Advertising Get Past the BS Meters?
Advertising does not work like it used to. Consumers now face fragmentation on two fronts; they have more places to buy from, and more media promoting those places. Depending on which surveys you believe, we are now exposed to somewhere between 2,500 and 5,600 advertising messages per day, including packaging, signage, radio, TV, internet, print [...]
It’s a ‘Free’ World
It seems the land of marketing is a ‘free’ country. When Kantar Group; an international research company specializing in analyzing advertising results, asked 2,500 people what encouraged them to buy online, the top two responses had something in common; the word ‘free.’. Free shipping and free returns were the top two responses. But the appeal [...]
Advertiser’s Biggest Question
Ever since department store magnate John Wanamaker quipped, “I know half of my advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half,” businesses have been trying to assess the results from their advertising. In a recent survey, more than 10,000 business owners and managers across North America were asked what question about marketing or advertising [...]
Congratulations!
You have made it through another year in an economy that’s struggling to rebound. You must be doing something right! And it’s not too late to plan for an even more successful 2012. Your competitors may be succumbing to anxiety created by the questionable future of the Euro and deadlocks created by politicians who seem [...]
The 2012 Crisis
To some, the uncertainty created by domestic political stalemates, the European debt crisis, a slow recovery from the last recession and high unemployment, creates a crisis in confidence. The Chinese spell ‘crisis’ with two symbols. The symbol on the left stands for danger, and certainly, with every crisis, comes danger. Interestingly, when the Chinese spell [...]
Beware of the Marketing Paradox
Your advertising has to walk the difficult tightrope of creating expectations that are high enough to attract your customers, yet low enough to allow you to provide an experience that over-delivers on those expectations. If your advertising creates unrealistically high expectations in your prospects’ minds, it will inevitably lead to disappointment. In fact, if your [...]
Year End Bonus!
Every year, literally millions of ‘free’ marketing dollars go unspent! Let me explain. Virtually all of your suppliers have some sort of vendor support or co-op marketing budgets. As they near year end, most of them have unspent amounts remaining n those budgets. And those companies’ sales managers do NOT want to see those dollars [...]