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More than half a million people have read the book, seen the video, or attended the seminar in which I say, “Involuntary long-term memory, or 'branding,' is dependent upon saliency (relevance of ad copy) and the ratio of ad repetition to listener sleep".

Sleep erases advertising.

A message of average saliency needs to be encountered by the same individual approximately 3 times within 7 nights' sleep, every 7 nights for at least a year if you plan to call it a branding campaign.

Then I go on to say, “The second most common cause of advertising failure is TRYING TO REACH MORE PEOPLE THAN YOUR BUDGET WILL ALLOW.” Attentive businesspeople immediately begin writing on notepads in front of them as they instinctively grasp the wisdom in reaching 10 percent of the people and convincing them 100 percent of the way rather than reaching 100 percent of the people and convincing them 10 percent of the way.

Hearing pencils on paper, I always wait expectantly for someone to finish writing, raise a hand, and ask, “But how can I know how many people my budget can reasonably reach?”

**Believe it or not, that question has never once been asked.**For those who are curious, the short answer is that you can correctly reach about the same number of people in a year as you have dollars in your ad budget; hence, “a dollar a person a year.” But like most short answers, this one is not to be fully trusted.

Here are the areas where you've got to be careful:

1. We're talking about reaching the exact same person approximately 156 times within 52 weeks for one dollar. Nothing less will do unless your ads carry an impact quotient that significantly exceeds the average, because
2. An increase in the saliency of your message reduces your need for repetition.
3. You've got to count everyone you reach. We're not talking about reaching a tightly targeted demographic 156 times for a dollar a person a year.
4. When made aware of this “dollar a person a year” guideline, most sellers of advertising will crunch the numbers and immediately tell you that it's impossible. These people are wrong.
5. Never agree to purchase a broad rotator (6A-11P, etc.) on television or radio. In calculating your reach and repetition, the computer will always assume much more advantageous scheduling than you're actually going to receive. In my experience, when you rerun the analysis based on actual, not theoretical, scheduling, you're reaching between 1/4 and 1/3 as many people as you were promised.

Even though this “dollar a person a year” guideline is my own invention and I trust it implicitly, any mathematical analysis of the human mind always reminds me a bit of what Terry Pratchett had to say about height, width, depth, and time – “It is now known to science that there are many more dimensions than the classical four.

Scientists say that these don't normally impinge on the world because the extra dimensions are very small and curve in on themselves and that since reality is fractal most of it is tucked inside itself. This means either that the universe is more full of wonders than we can hope to understand or, more probably, that scientists make things up as they go along.”

Pratchett goes on to say, “But the multiverse is full of little dimensionettes, playstreets of creation where creatures of the imagination can romp without being knocked down by serious actuality.”

I hope you're finding plenty of those playstreets of creation this summer.

Last week a client achieved 42 percent of his market potential. Never before had I seen a business break the 40 percent barrier. It was kind of like seeing someone run a four-minute mile. I knew it was possible in theory, but I never thought I'd actually see it. Ben had come to Austin for his annual marketing retreat. After the usual pleasantries, he said, “Traffic is flat, sales are flat, and I'm not happy.” “Ben, you've done everything that can be done. You've trained your staff, created a tantalizing compensation structure for them, advertised relentlessly, added every conceivable product line that might increase your attractiveness to your customer, refined your purchasing methods so that your prices are visibly better, built a fabulous new store for the comfort of your customers, and through it all, not one of your competitors has awakened.” “Are you saying that 3 and a half million is all that can be done in my town?” he bristled. Looking him calmly in the eyes, I carefully enunciated a single word: “Evidently.” Business owners, I tell Ben's story to give you a glimpse of the Realities of the Marketplace:

1. Impact Quotient. How powerful is your message compared to your competitors'? This is the Impact Quotient of your message, whether it's delivered through mass media, face-to-face by your salespeople, or word-of-mouth by your customers to their friends. Advertising is more effective when you have something to say.
2. Market Size/Ad Budget Ratio. How big is your town relative to your ad budget? The more populated the trade area, the more expensive it is to advertise. How able are you?
3. Competitive Environment. How good are you at what you do? More importantly, how good are your competitors, and how many of them are there? Each of them is going to retain some customers regardless of what you do.
4. Market Potential. What is the potential of your trade area? The total dollars spent in your product category is not a number you're likely to change. The question is, what percentage of that total will be yours?

Do you know your category's market potential in your trade area? Can you name the degree of your market penetration? Until a business achieves 4 to 6 percent of their market potential, they usually lack the financial steam to sustain a serious move on the marketplace. But when they've accumulated sufficient cash and courage, the ride to 25 percent is wooly and wonderful. Growing from 25 to 33 percent is much harder than the jump from 5 to 25. And creeping from 33 to 40 happens only when you're blessed with very weak competitors. Ben's total trade area contains 125,000 people. Statistically, they'll spend 67 dollars per person/per year in his product category. This gives Ben a market potential of 8,375,000 dollars. Growing from half a million to 2.1 million was fun and easy. Growing from 2.1 to 3.5 required Ben to stretch his comfort zone far beyond what most business owners would have been willing to consider. No stone has been left unturned in the 7 years we've been working together.“Ben, the way I see it, you've got four choices:

1. Fire us and hire an ad firm that will tell you what you want to hear.
2. Start a new business in an unrelated category in your town.
3. Launch your existing category in another town.
4. Shut up and be happy with what you've accomplished.”

I knew that Ben would never do number 4. I figured he'd go for number 2, or possibly even number 1. To my surprise, he immediately picked number 3. “Roy,” he said, _“You may not remember it, but you told me three years ago when I built the new store that I needed to be thinking about what I was going to do next. You said building that store was the final thing I might do to improve volume in my town. It looks like you were right.” We spent the rest of that day evaluating towns for an excited Ben to visit in 4 different states. He's on the road picking one now, and then we'll start climbing again. Business can be fun when you work with people of courage. Do you?

Ads are like houses. You can do a good job constructing a badly designed house, but when you're through, you've still got a badly designed house. It doesn't matter how good you are with a hammer and a saw when the blueprints themselves are faulty. Likewise, it doesn't matter how good you are with nouns and verbs when the core message itself is boring. There's no good way to tell a bad story. Ultimately, it is the core message of your campaign – the blueprint – that determines the success of your advertising.

• The core message of your ad matters more than how well it is written.
• The core message of your ad matters more than how well it is produced.
• The core message of your ad matters more than the spokesperson who delivers it for you.
• The core message of your ad matters more than your choice of media.
• The core message of your ad matters more than the target it reaches.

Give a powerful core message to an average writer and a mom'n'pop business can leap from Main Street, Mayberry, to the New York Stock Exchange. But give an average message to a powerful writer and you've got blah, blah, media filler. But you already knew that. One of my great failures as a human being is that I don't know how to make small talk. I'm being totally serious with you. I've never been able to master the art of talking without saying anything. I suppose it's why the people I meet in social situations often get the mistaken impression that I don't like them. My awkward inability to make small talk makes me a horrible party guest, but a better-than-average ad writer. Let me speak frankly: I've been extremely successful as an advertising consultant because I've been able to convince courageous businesspeople to throw caution to the wind and say something in their ads that actually matters. Do you remember a chapter in Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads called “John Young's Fortune?” John Young and his business partner, Jim Abrams, have been clients of mine for a number of years. Here's an ad they recently let me write for one of their franchises. It's a good example of what I'm talking about: You just sit there… waiting for the plumber to show up… watching the clock… waiting. Until he finally calls to say, 'We're going to have to reschedule for tomorrow.' Next time, call Benjamin Franklin, the Punctual Plumber. If he isn't there when he said he'd be, he pays you five dollars a minute. That's a dollar for every twelve seconds you have to wait. Heck, if Benjamin Franklin makes you wait as long as most plumbers do, you'll get your problem fixed for free and make a few hundred bucks. Dependable. Honest. Hardworking. Benjamin Franklin, the Punctual Plumber. He pays you if you have to wait.(Plumbers, don't steal that ad. It's copyrighted.)_Now let's be honest. The power of that ad isn't in the writing. It's in the message, “they pay you five dollars a minute. That's a dollar for every twelve seconds you have to wait.” There's just no way to say a thing like that without it being powerful.

The secret to successful marketing isn't copywriting, it's strategy.

Great ads aren't born in the hearts of great ad writers. They're born in the hearts of great businesspeople. Do you have the courage to stand apart from the crowd, to truly be different, and then to shout that message from the housetops? If you do, get ready to see your advertising begin to really pay off. If you don't, get ready for business as usual.

Old ideas are carried by old words.

New ideas are carried by new words.

Old words keep you inside the box.

New words help you escape it.

If you want to remain inside the box and fall behind the pack, just keep talking about target customers, demographics, gross impressions, and unique selling propositions.

Do you want to keep up with the times, and get ahead of the curve? Grasp the new ideas. Learn the new words.

These are the new ideas. These are the new words:

Felt need: A desire in the heart of the customer. To speak to an unfelt need is to answer a question that no one was asking.

Relevance: A message has relevance to the degree it speaks to a felt need.

Credibility: A message has credibility to the degree it is believed.

Impact quotient: Relevance + Credibility.

Competitive environment: an objective assessment of (A.) the market and (B.) your place in it. Your strengths and weaknesses compared to the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, including location, reputation, selection, product lines, unaided recall (brand awareness), etc.

Limiting factor: anything that’s holding you back.

Unleveraged asset: an ace you forgot you had up your sleeve.

Core competence: what you’re all about, really.

Market potential: the total dollars available in your business category in your marketplace. Easily measured if you know your NAICS code.

Share of voice: An advertiser’s percentage of all the advertising done in their category. Location visibility, signage, word-of-mouth, etc. are included in this metric.

Share of mind: The mental real estate an advertiser owns in the mind of the public. Share of voice x impact quotient = share of mind

Share of market: An advertiser’s percentage of the total business volume done in their category.

Authenticity: Being what you say you are.

Transparency: showing your dirty laundry; admitting a downside rather than ignoring it. Transparency increases credibility.

Personal Experience Factor: Buzz is triggered by personal experience. If the experience of your customer – the word on the street – does not line up with your message, your message has no credibility. Unscripted, unedited, unpolished testimonials have credibility because they carry the credentials of personal experience and the markings of authenticity.

Ad-speak: Cliché’s, empty phrases, unsubstantiated claims, and hyperbole – the language of yesterday’s advertising. Words without weight, having neither relevance nor credibility.

Curse of knowledge: The blinders that come with expertise.

Brandable chunks: vivid, recurring phrases used by an advertiser to help position and define the brand. Slogans and taglines are out. Brandable chunks are in.

Black words: empty words that fail to contribute to a colorful mental image. The objective of every good writer is to remove the black words so that the others shine more brightly.

Were you waiting for me to discuss metrics, unique visitors, page views, and the other jargon of digital media? No need. Those things are already being discussed as much as they need to be.

The 4 keys to a rainbow future are these:

1. Relevance
2. Credibility
3. Speak to a felt need
4. Be what you say

That’s it, really. The rest is just bookkeeping.

When marketers and business owners talk about Word-of-Mouth, they only_think_ they’re talking about the same thing. Marketers talk about WOM as “buzz” — i.e., newsworthiness. Therefore they measure WOM in terms of un-earned media coverage. Business owners talk about WOM as referred customers showing up at their door. Obviously buzz ≠ referrals.And from an owner's perspective referrals are far more valuable than buzz. So here’s the thing about referral-based WOM…Business owners often think “word-of-mouth is our best advertising” because:

1. They only see it when it works
2. They believe they spend no money to get these customers (i.e., WOM is “free”)
3. The customers they get from referrals show up mostly pre-convinced

And of those three reasons, only the last is an accurate perception.

Why Your Word-of-Mouth Isn’t Working As Well As You Think

The first reason — only seeing it when it works — inevitably leads to skewed perceptions. Here’s what business owners don’t see:

• You don’t see when a customer could have recommended you, but didn’t.
• You don’t see when a customer’s mediocre endorsement failed to persuade

Because those failure points are invisible, you feel like you’re batting a thousand. But if you could see them, you’d reassess just how well your WOM is working.

Why “Over-Serving” the Customer Is Bad Strategy

Many business owners harbor an unexamined notion that customer service directly equates to customer experience. In their minds, the better the service, the better the experience. And the better the experience, the better the recommendations and referrals. Unfortunately, all of these connections are indirect at best, non-existent at worst.**First, service isn’t experience. Memory is experience.**So unless a service touchpoint has been intentionally crafted to be remarkable and memorable, it likely won’t improve the remembered customer experience. People remember beginnings, endings, emotional highlights and lowlights, sensory “tangibles,” and interesting stories. They don’t necessarily remember service at all.**Second, service costs.**So over-serving the customer becomes an expensive proposition with a rather dicey, perhaps even non-existent, ROI. Now, there are things you can do to improve WOM, but you must first accept that WOM ain’t free. You can make it a more effective and efficient investment by using smarter strategies than “over serving” the customer, but it’s still an investment. Third, everyone’s definition of superior customer service differs. Advertising great customer service almost never attracts customers and always results in unmet expectations and increased complaints.

How to Effectively & Efficiently Improve Your WOM Batting Average

To improve referral-based WOM, you must address the failure points. That means: a) giving customers greater confidence to refer you, and b) providing customers with the tools to give more persuasive referrals. And the best tools for both aims are:

• Perspective-shaping vocabulary, and
• Story-based talking points and descriptions.

Perspective-Shaping Vocabulary

Two of the more blatant examples of perspective-shaping vocabulary are naming the diseaseandDeBeers use of the 4-Cs.When whisk gave a name to “ring around the collar,” that name shaped the perceptions of millions of housewives, who then wanted the new tool — liquid detergent — to solve that problem. When DeBeers wanted to increase the amount Americans spent on engagement rings — by buying higher quality stones — they gave them the vocabulary necessary to conceptualize diamond quality. This power of vocabulary to shape perception and improve memory and experience was explored by Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. In one experiment, Vygotsky had young children draw butterfly wings. Sometimes the kids drew while looking at the wings, and sometimes they drew from memory. Curiously, only some kids drawing quality dropped significantly when they had to draw from memory. Others drew about as well from memory as they did while looking at the wings.**What separated them was their vocabulary.**Children who had words for the shapes they saw within the wings — “dot,” “triangle,” “slash,” etc. — were able to draw the wings from memory. But children without that vocabulary struggled. Vygotsky then took some of those struggling children and — in a different context — taught them the words for the shapes. When he retested those newly-taught kids, they too were able to draw the wings well, even from memory. While those who still lacked the vocabulary showed no improvement. It’s the same with adults: the right words shape and sharpen perception and memory. And memory becomes experience. If you wish to improve your customer's ability to recall WHY your provided experience was top-notch — and then articulate that powerfully to a friend months or years later — you must give them the vocabulary to do that.

Story-Based Talking Points and Descriptions

A compelling story can be memorized and retold from one exposure, as exemplified by most any urban myths you’ve ever heard. For example, the one about the Las Vegas tourist who woke up in a bathtub full of ice with a note on his chest informing him that he’s missing a kidney and needs to dial 911. You hear that story once, you can remember and repeat it forever. And that’s what you want — for customers to remember and retell stories that will make their recommendations and referrals more persuasive. And keep in mind: you likely won’t be able to tell customers the story yourself; your people have to know and tell these stories. That makes ease of memory and transference that much more important. If you want your staff to promote word of mouth, give them stories to tell highlighting key components of your customer experience. There’s a world of difference a waiter saying:

“Yeah, we’ve got really great house wine here — especially the white wine — it’s super-premium stuff.”

And

“Our house white wine is Gavi dei Gavi from Italy and it’s probably the most full bodied white wine you’ve ever tasted. In fact, to measure a wine’s body, you measure the quantity of suspended or dissolved solid substances in the liquid — “dry extract” that’s left after the water and alcohol have been evaporated. As you might guess, most reds have twice the body of white wine. Except for THIS white wine. This particular Gavi Dei Gavi has as much body as most reds. Would you like to try some?”

Which one’s more likely to sell a carafe or two of white wine? Which one is more likely to shape the experience of drinking and appreciating the wine? And which one is likely to get at least partially repeated during a review or recommendation?

Improving Word-of-Mouth Motivation & Efficacy

Here’s the thing: customers don’t make referrals because they want to help your business. Not primarily, at least. Customers refer you in order to help themselves first, their friend/acquaintance second, and you third. Customers make referrals to help themselves look smart, in-the-know, connected, and generous. So by giving them the vocabulary and stories to help them look smart and in-the-know, you dramatically increase their motivation to recommend you. And those same tools also make their recommendations much more persuasive.

Amplifying Your WOM Once You’ve Improved It

So here’s the good news: once you’ve created your vocabulary and collected your WOM stories, you’ve actually done all the hard work to create amazing mass media ads. The same stories that would make a recommendation or referral more powerful coming from a friend will also make your radio ads more persuasively powerful when coming from a spokesperson that is perceived as a friend. And the more people already know about you and your stories, the more confident your customers will be in recommending you in the first place. So if the previous steps for improving your WOM seemed daunting, there is a done-for-you shortcut: hire a savvy ad consultant to create a WOM-based mass media campaign. Or you can do the work yourself and grow your business to the point where you can afford mass media. Either way works, if you work it. And anything is better than keeping your blinders on while thinking your not-so-great WOM is “crushing it.”

Wizard of Ads™ Partners cannot apply to become a partner. They have to demonstrate a certain disposition and curiosity that far exceeds that of a normal copywriter. When I see this special kind of genius, I invite them to join our tribe of writing elite. Here is a tiny glimpse into the magical mind of a Wizard of Ads™ creative writer: The Neuroscience of Behavior Change is a great explanation of what Dr. Alan Baddeley calls “Procedural Memory.” This is taught at The Magical Worlds Communications Workshop at Wizard Academy®.

1. Working Memory is consciousness, imagination, the thought you are thinking NOW.
2. Semantic Declarative Memory contains things you can remember, but you cannot remember how or when you learned them.
3. Episodic Declarative Memory is like Semantic Declarative Memory, except that you can remember the episode; the how and when of the learning.
4. Procedural Memory is long-term, involuntary, automatic recall. It is electrical memory aided by chemical traces along the neural pathway. A perfect golf swing, the movement of fingers by a typist or a concert pianist, or the automatic recall of an advertiser’s name; all these are positive expressions of Procedural Memory.

**Procedural Memory = Salience (impact or relevance) x Repetition.**The greater the impact of the message, the less repetition is required. And keep in mind, repetition costs money. The Short-Term Goal of the Direct Response Ad Writer is to speak to an immediately-felt need of the customer who is currently, actively in need of the product or service in question. The Short-Term Goal of the Future Needs Ad Writer is to create Episodic declarative memory by saying or doing something new, surprising, or different so that future recall of the episode might be established. To do this, the ad writer must make the reader/listener/viewer smile, laugh, cry, become nostalgic, become fearful, or get angry. This is because emotion triggers adrenaline and adrenaline is the biochemical adhesive that creates those chemical traces along the neural pathway. Information without emotion is of limited value. The Long-Term Goal of the Future Needs Ad Writer is to deliver a series of salient messages with enough repetition over time to create Procedural Memory, but without any of the negative associations that come with anger, sorrow and fear. So now you understand PTSD. It is simply a negative expression of the long-term, involuntary, automatic recall known by neuroscientists as Procedural Memory, a product of Salience (importance, relevance, or surprise) times Repetition. With enough salience, a repetition of only one is sufficient to create Procedural Memory. Aren't these rabbit holes wonderful?