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Advertising
Top 10 Most Important Elements Of Advertising Success
Advertising awards reward creativity over effectiveness; ads that impress other creatives instead of actually growing clients’ businesses.
Advertising awards are often derided for rewarding creativity over effectiveness; for promoting ads that impress other creatives instead of ads that actually grow clients’ businesses.
To combat this, the Effies were created to recognize the most effective advertising campaigns for any given year. Effie contestants don’t just submit ads, they submit the numbers too — marketing spend, sales numbers, profit margins, etc. And for their 50th Anniversary, the Effie organization asked noted marketing expert, Mark Ritson, to analyze their data for useful “lessons learned.” Mark Ritson is a brand consultant and former marketing professor. He has a PhD in Marketing and taught on the MBA programs of London Business School and MIT. He is also one of the least full of shit marketing experts on the planet, and he boiled this research down into a ranked Top 10 list of factors determining advertising effectiveness. If you have a spare 90 minutes and want to watch his presentation of this list, you can do so here:
But if you just want to see the list, here it is:
10. Enough Research9. A Handful of Objectives8. Realistic Differentiation7. Multi-Channel Marketing6. Long & Short5. Mass & Targeted4. Sufficient ESOV3. Codes, Applied, Ridiculously2. Creativity1. Brand Size
Keep in mind, though, that this list is semi-logarithmic in scale. As in the number one factor — Brand Size — is 18 times more important than the 10th factor of research. So it helps to focus most intently on the last 5 elements, which I’ll explain in greater detail below. Also, the factors interact with each other, such that they are 10 great tastes that taste great together. With that said, here’s a brief explanation of the first five factors, followed by a more in-depth look at the most important factors.
10. Enough Research
There was a positive correlation between doing a medium amount of research, but also a point of diminishing returns.
- Do get yourself an adequate diagnosis of the problem to be solved.
- Do understand the consumer mindset and the competitive landscape
- But once you have that, move on.
9. A Handful of Objectives
It helps to have a strategic objective, rather than nothing but a grab-bag of tactics. And in general, the best correlation with success was to have 2-4 objectives rather than either only one or 5-6 or, God forbid, even more. Just make sure your objectives are based on sound strategy.
8. Realistic Differentiation
The days of having a true unique differentiator — a la, a Unique Selling Proposition — are over. You can lay a greater claim to some associations than other competitors, but you likely won’t be able to claim sole ownership of them. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying to claim them, and having differentiation does help (just note that it’s 8th on the list)
7. Multi-Channel Marketing
The answer to digital or mass media is “both.” And if you have the budget for multiple forms of mass media, that’s good too. So, for example, combining radio with billboards makes a lot of sense.
6. Long & Short
Long-term brand building is crucial. But most brands can’t get away with just doing brand building, they also have to engage in short-term sales activation. Campaigns that did both outperformed campaigns that only did one or the other.
5. Mass & Targeted
Targeting and segmentation have been vastly overstated in their importance as compared to effective mass media campaigns attempting to persuade all potential buyers. Really, is there anyone you don’t want to know about and think good things about your company? That said, like with digital vs. mass media and long-term branding vs. short-term sales activation, the answer for mass vs. targeted is “both.” You’ll want to run branding campaigns for the masses, and also more targeted campaigns for your most lucrative segments. At least that’s what the most successful Effie Contestants did.
4. Sufficient ESOV
ESOV stands for Excess Share Of Voice. In excess of what? Of market share. You want to buy a greater share of voice than your market share. So if you currently have 5% share of the market, you want more than 5% share of voice. In other words, don’t set your advertising budget based on how big you are, set it for how big you wish to grow to over the next year. The importance of ESOV is huge and it’s the reason why it's so important to work with a great media buyer when launching your mass media campaigns. But you’ll notice that as important as ESOV is, creativity is even more important. That’s because share of mind is more important than share of voice, and share of mind depends on creativity.
3. Codes, Applied, Ridiculously
I wrote an article on advertising strategy that spoke of Limiting Factors and Unleveraged Assets. Limiting Factors dealt with research/diagnosis (see #10) and Objectives (see #9). But “Unleveraged Assets” usually turn out to be soft assets rather than hard assets. For example, un-leveraged soft assets might consist of stories that weren’t being told, or histories that weren’t being promoted, or possible brand associations that weren’t being advertised and strengthened. That’s what Codes (aka, “Distinctive Brand Assets”) are: elements in addition to the brand name and the logo that is highly associated with the brand, such that they will recall the brand in the mind of the customer when they are seen or heard. Think of the iconic shape of coke’s glass bottle or their distinctive red background with white script. Or think of Rice Krispies’ “snap, crackle, and pop.” And Tony the Tiger’s “Their Grrrr-eat!”…You’ll want your brand’s codes to become so well-known that they can be “altered” or played with in your advertising. A nice example of this would be the shape of Absolut Vodka’s bottle. They stopped showing the bottle and just showed the shape. The power of taking a known brand asset and playing with it is something Chris Maddock and Johnny Molson and I spoke about in a recent round-table discussion on Brandable Chunks.
2. Creativity
If your ads go unnoticed, everything else is academic. And creativity is an essential element to ensuring your ads don’t go unnoticed. The essential challenge for Branding Ads is that the vast majority of the audience isn’t in the market for what your ad is selling at the moment they experience the ad. Meaning that your branding ad is inherently irrelevant to their life. Entertainment is the coin that makes your ad relevant and attention-worthy. And entertainment requires creativity. Creativity can also make your point felt, rather than merely understood. And lastly, creativity can help speak to the heart/subconscious when a more baldly stated version of the message would be rejected by the mind.
1. Brand Size
The reason you want to build a brand in the first place is that it is an enduring asset that pays dividends well into the future. One that gives you an unfair advantage. So does it surprise anyone that large brands have a huge leg-up when it comes to advertising effectiveness? Unfortunately, the only way understanding this can help you to grow your brand is to give you motivation to do it. And perhaps also a realistic appraisal of how hard it is to challenge an established brand. To paraphrase the Chinese proverb: best time to start building a brand is 20 years ago. Second best time is today. Want to redouble your efforts at brand-building with someone who understands how to apply all of these factors? An ad team who deeply understands strategy, mass media, ESOV, Codes, and Creativity? We might know someone...
Marketing
The 2 Best Social Media Strategies For Ugly Duckling Businesses
Not all businesses sell products that people like discussing or learning about, despite what social media experts claim.
Contrary to what social media experts espouse, not every business sells things that people like talking and learning about.
Now, if you DO sell wine or chocolate or ski equipment or whatever, then more power to you.
But what if you’re in what I call an Ugly Duckling Business?
What if you sell transmission repair or roofing or HVAC and such?
Well, let’s start with what NOT to do:
Don’t try to pull people into your social media circle of “friends” or followers in order to talk to them about the not-so-exciting world of transmission repair.
So with that out of the way, I’m just going to float two approaches that work for my clients, with the caveat that I am neither a digital marketing expert, and that the vast majority of my client growth is fueled through mass media.
#1 Take Maximum Advantage of your Bibbidy-Bobbidy-Boo moment
What this means is that you’re not cinderella. You don’t get center stage treatment — as in people consciously thinking about you — 99% of the time.
The part of cinderella is played by your customers.
YOU get to play the part of the Fairy Godmother.
- You swoop in and share the stage with Cinderella for a few moments
- During which time you work your magic and save the day
- And then you ext stage left
What this means is that no customer will ever love your business more than at the moment just after you’ve worked your magic to save their day and fix their problem.
That’s your Bibbidy-Bobbidy-Boo moment.
And unfortunately, most ugly duckling businesses utterly WASTE that moment.
They don’t get pictures of the client and the tech (or client and magically fixed whatever)
They don’t do video testimonials.
And they don’t get the client’s permission to post the picture or video to social media and tag them in it.
People may not find your business particularly interesting, but they DO find their friends interesting — it’s why their connected to them on social media in the first place.
So when you tag their friends, while those friends are giving you a solid recommendation, they’ll see it — especially if you pay to “boost” that post.
Think of this as a digitally super-empowered version of a restaurant posting pictures of famous people who’ve eaten there on the walls.
Social Proof in action.
And that’s how you take advantage of your Bibbidy-Bobbidy-Boo moment.
Focus on Human Interest Stories
Your business or industry may not be inherently interesting, but you and your employees are.
Your story about why you do what you do is interesting.
Insight into your company culture is interesting.
Not many people are that interested in the day in the life of a hotel chamber maid.
But lot’s of people love the story about how The Ritz-Carlton’s hotel staff are each empowered to spend up-to $2000 to make a guest happy, using nothing other than their own good judgement.
And while this strategy works great for social media, you’ll also find that it bleeds over very well for use in your Mass Media campaigns and internal efforts at strengthening your culture.
Because when you focus in on the stories that define your culture — the stories you want to tell your people, you want your people to tell you clients, and your clients telling each other in reviews — that fuels ALL of your marketing, and not just your social media efforts.
And that’s it — my two best Social Media strategies for Ugly Duckling Businesses.
Best of luck to you.
Storytelling
Advanced Branding To Help Your Ugly Duckling Business Look Beautiful
Origin Stories tackle the toughest and thorniest problems facing advertisers — particularly Ugly Duckling Businesses.
Sometimes it feels like most advertising and advertising advice is aimed at “sexy” products. Stuff people want to buy and like talking about. Fashion, beer, cars, technology, food, sports equipment, etc.
And that leaves Ugly Duckling Businesses — those selling unsexy stuff people have to buy and never want to talk about — wondering how to brand. One go-to solution is to brand you, the owner. Your industry might not be inherently interesting to customers, but you are. Yes, even if you wouldn’t consider yourself to be “interesting.” There is a catch, though. The catch is vulnerability. You have to come off as real and genuine in your ads, and the key to that is self-disclosure. Disclosure about your human vulnerabilities involving sacrifices, losses, dashed hopes, painful lessons, struggles, embarrassing moments of clarity or disillusionment. And I’m about to show you the best way to pull that off in your advertising.
Self-Disclosure and Origin Stories
I’m a huge proponent of Origin Stories. I’ve never seen them fail to work magic for clients. Also, they tackle the toughest and thorniest problems facing advertisers — especially Ugly Duckling Businesses:
- Getting people to want to listen to your ad
- Getting people to believe in you and your mission, and
- Differentiating and decomodifying your business when it’s impossible to make unique claims.
So, yes, I often feel that Origin Stories are the answer. Heck, I’m even teaching an online course on how to write your origin story.[Fun Fact: readers of this post can get 30% off the course. Note that it can’t combine with alumni discounts. Just use the coupon code: jeffsentme]But back to the relationship between Origin Stories and self-disclosure…In looking at what makes Origin Stories as powerful as they are, a few themes pop-up, and one of them is self-disclosure about vulnerable and deeply meaningful moments. A good origin story will reveal three crucial things about you:
- Who you are as a person
- Your superpowers and how you got them
- What mission you’re on and why your committed to it
Most people focus on superpowers since they believe it’s superpowers that define a superhero and it is business superpowers that’ll convince someone to hire you instead of someone else. But those people are wrong. Superpowers are important, of course. But they’re not what defines a superhero. Supervillains have powers too. Mission defines heroes, not powers. So does that make mission the most important element of an Origin Story? I used to think so. And in many moments I still do. But the best missions are inextricably linked to character. They can’t be separated from who you are as a person. And that makes the “humanity” element of the Origin Story the most important part. This is why commitment to mission almost always comes from a moment of vulnerability rather than a moment of strength. A moment of vulnerability that inevitably defines you as a person as a well as a business owner.
The Psychology of Self-Disclosure and Relationships
The sense of relationship — of shared ties, liking, and trust — is dramatically accelerated by self-disclosure. There are other things you can do to create a sense of relationship, of course. Shared hardships or struggles along with shared accomplishments, come to mind as go-to means of forging stronger, closer relationships. But since you can’t gather up your audience and take a ropes course or hike the Camino de Santiago together, or become war buddies, self-disclosure remains your best bet when it comes to advertising. Instinctively we know that self-disclosure — sharing — creates closeness. But it took science to quantify just how powerful self-disclosure is in relation to other factors such as length of relationship, shared values, etc. Ever heard of **Art Aron and his 36 Questions?**Those 36 Questions have become famous over the last 20 or so years. Arthur Aron is a psychologist at the Interpersonal Relationships Lab at Stony Brook University. And the 36 questions were part of his experiment, titled “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness,” first published back in 1997. In the study, college students taking a psychology class volunteered to be paired up with another student and to ask each other 36 intimacy-building questions. The questions were divided into three sections, with each section increasing the amount of self-disclosure required, moving from:
- “For what in your life do you feel most grateful?” to
- “What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?” to
- “When did you last cry in front of another person?” to
- “If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?”
Following these questions, the students were asked to rate their closeness with their partner, and the results were shocking. These students started out as strangers or people of the barest acquaintance, and by the end of the questions, they rated their relationship with their survey partner as among the most intimate of their social circle. Since then, even the New York Times has covered these questions twice, calling them: “The 36 Questions that Lead to Love” That’s the power of self-disclosure.
You don’t have to outrun the bear
Think about the kind of things you’d normally reveal in an Origin Story, such as formative moments, struggles and sacrifice, your emotional mission in life, etc. All of these things can help establish your mission and superpower in the minds of the audience. But more importantly, they help draw you into relationship with the audience based on your shared humanity. After all, which do you think would bond an audience to you more? The kind of self-disclosure required of an Origin Story, or the kind of chest-thumping claims, or weasel words usually found in ads? Because when it comes to bonding with customers, you don’t have to equal their closest relationships. You just have to have more of a bond with them than your competitors. As with the proverbial guys in the woods being chased by a bear, you don’t have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun the other guy. This is especially true with service-based business.
Why Connection Matters More for Service Businesses
Think about the amount of times you chose a service provider — insurance salesman, realtor, lawyer, massage therapist, auto mechanic, plumber — based on the merest puff of a connection. You knew them from the gym, or your brother coached little league with them, or a mutual acquaintance recommended them. Why would we weigh that connection so heavily in our choice? Because some connection always beats no connection when it comes to services. We might not care so much who we buy packaged goods from. “Crazy Eddie” has amazing deals on furniture? Cool! Let’s check it out. But we care very much who delivers services and who we let into our homes. There are no “Crazy Eddie” Lasik services, law firms, or AC companies. So if you’ve got an Ugly Duckling Business, consider Origin Stories and strategic self-disclosure a form of Advanced Branding capable of supercharging your results.
Advertising
The Important Difference Between Direct Response Ads And Branding Ads
WHO are you talking to, and WHEN are you talking to them? That’s the essential difference between Direct Response and Branding.
WHO are you talking to, and WHEN are you talking to them? That’s the essential difference between Direct Response (DR) and Branding.
Direct Response
If an ad is ONLY talking to people who are in the market to buy right now, with the aim of closing the sale right now, then that ad is a direct response ad. And from this flows most of what we typically associate with DR ads:
1 Making An Offer and Call-To-Action
In order to close the sale, you have to make an offer and provide a way for the buyer to take the action you want (typically to place the order and give you money). The people that your DR ads are speaking to are already looking to buy what’s on offer. But they can’t say “yes” unless and until you make a specific offer. And they can’t give you money unless you have a way to take the order, whether that’s through an online store, a 1-800 number, or a “come on down” Call-to-Action. Makes sense, right?
2 More Pitch, Less Need for “Creativity”
All ads require high relevance and credibility to work. Irrelevant ads get tuned out — either psychologically or physically. Most ads have to create relevance. But since DR ads are talking to people already in “buying mode,” the ad’s offer is (or ought to be) inherently relevant to that audience. So the ad can skip the shenanigans and get down to selling, a large part of which involves creating credibility for the offer. Where this issue gets fuzzier is for Direct Response ads that are aimed at persuading people to buy today, rather than talking to people already intending to buy today. For example, I doubt anyone has ever consciously been in the market for a Slap Chop prior to seeing an infomercial for it.
But tons of suckers customers have purchased slap chops because the infomercials were entertaining enough to watch, and then persuasive enough to convince viewers, that, maybe it is worth $19.95 to dice veggies with a Slap Chop instead of a knife. And so it is with most infomercials — they’re aimed at convincing viewers they “need” a novel product rather than talking to people already in the market for one. So entertainment becomes necessary prior to making the pitch. Think of the infomercials for Poo Pourri or the Squatty Potty and whatnot.
Whereas infomercials for Proactive have less entertainment, because the felt need pre-exists the pitch, and thus the offer has instant relevance. And regardless of how much entertainment a DR spot has upfront, they’ll almost always switch to the urgency building, deal-sweetening, and risk-reversing techniques we’ve all come to know and sometimes loath, through the ever-present phrases of:
- “For a limited time only”
- “Only until supplies last”
- “Not sold in stores”
- “But wait, there’s more…”
- “Pay no money now…”
- “Money-Back Guarantee”
- “Try it risk-free”
Every DR ad is also a sales pitch, remember? Hence the need to create urgency and pressure to act, while eliminating objections, etc.
3 Targeted Ads
Depending on how mass-market your product is and the length of the buying cycle, you may elect to target your ads rather than using mass media. This gets into the math of mass media and buying cycles. If a typical American buys a new (to them) car every 5 years — and if they’re only in buying mode for that car over the space of 3 months — then only 5% of a mass media audience will be in buying mode for a new car. If you’re talking to a few hundred thousand people, five percent of the audience might well be enough. Which is why dealerships continue to advertise on radio and TV via direct offers. And in the case of most infomercials, like the aforementioned Poo Pouri or Squatty Potty — well, EVERYONE poops, and many people would like to not be embarrassed about the smell — so mass media makes sense. If, on the other hand, you are selling investment opportunities, industrial equipment, professional training for uncommon professions, etc — then mass media doesn’t make sense and you’ll want to use targeted ads. “The money is in the list,” as the DR marketers like to say. So send your investment pitch to people who are known investors. But keep in mind, targeted ads don’t HAVE to be DR ads. You can use targeted ads for a branding campaign, too. When I wrote that DR ads are only talking to people in the market today, I meant that the messaging was targeted, not necessarily the ads themselves. And that’s how things break down for DR ads. Now let’s look at…
Branding Ads
If an ad is intentionally talking to people who are NOT YET in the market to buy right now, with the aim of winning the sale before it starts, then it’s a branding ad. And from this flows most of what we typically associate with branding ads:
1 Entertainment and Creativity
Because the audience isn’t yet in the market, there is no pre-established relevance for an offer, so branding ads have to offer entertainment to gain and hold the audiences’ attention. A spoon full of entertainment helps the messaging go down. So in addition to Relevance and Credibility, branding ads also have to layer in Entertainment and Hope. If you give people entertainment, they’ll give you their time. If you give them hope, they’ll give you their money. Just note that the entertainment has to entertain right now, whereas the hope can be related to a future moment of need.
2 Memorability & Recall Cues
Taglines, jingles, and Brandable Chunks are all aimed at creating memorability and recall in the mind of the audience. Because the customer won’t be exposed to the ad at his or her moment of need, the ads need to make sure the customer recalls the messaging and the brand when that moment arises. The goal of branding is to be the company people think of first and feel the best about when they need what you sell. “Thinking of first” means using recall cues and memorable phrases. Winston wanted customers singing their little jingle when they went to purchase cigarettes. FedEx wants you to think “when it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight” when you’ve got an express package to send out.
3 Image and Value-Based Advertising
When an advertiser has to manufacture relevancy, there is one thing that will always be relevant to people — themselves. Just look at how many “What type of Disney / Star Wars / Marvel” character are you?” quizzes there are on Social Media and Buzzfeed. Well, image-based branding can be seen as a “what brand car best expresses your inner self” style appeal. The more you try to sell jeans based on functionality and specs, the more you tempt people who aren’t in the market for jeans to tune out your ad. The more you advertise your brand of jeans as an expression of rugged individualism, sex appeal, and pure Americana, the more anyone listening might be tempted to buy those jeans as a form of self-expression, “need” be damned. Remember how branding is getting people to “think of you first and feel the best about you when they need what you sell”? Well, making people feel sympatico with your brand’s values and symbolism accomplishes that “feel the best about” part.
Can An Ad Be Both DR and Branding at the Same Time?
Yes, you can have an ad that functions both as a Direct Response ad AND a branding ad. If you’re in a business where acquiring a customer means getting them to try you once and then impressing them enough to keep them for life, then a DR-style offer and CTA appended to a branding style opening can work wonders. Craft a great offer, package it in strong brand-building creativity, and watch it work wonders. The following ad is a great example of such a campaign:
Bonney Percolate
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But note how the CTA is not a “limited time offer” — it’s a standing offer. Good now, and good for whenever you need that service.
An advertiser can also sprinkle some occasional DR ads into their branding campaigns if they truly have a worthwhile, limited-time offer.
The Real Take-Aways
This article starting to run long, so I’ll make this short. Regardless of which type of ad you run, always remember:
- Relevance and Credibility, plus
- Entertainment and Hope
Those are the ingredients for successful ads. Even DR ads work better with entertainment and hope, as the runaway success for Poo Pouri and Squatty Potty can attest. So find yourself an ad man who knows how to create that for your ads, and you’ll do well.
Storytelling
Ugly Duckling Advertising — The Way “Normal” Businesses Get Rich
Most marketers offer one-size-fits-all advertising advice that simply won’t work for ugly duckling businesses.
What’s an ugly duckling business? It’s a business that is either:
- Unsexy — it provides a service that no one is interested in until they need it, such as plumbing, roofing, transmission repair.
Or
- Non-Purple-Cow-able — it’s in an industry where it’s impossible or illegal to claim superiority or uniqueness, such as lawyers, surgeons, insurance sales.
There’s nothing wrong with these businesses… except that 99.9% of marketers pretend like they don’t exist.
How Most Marketers Ignore Ugly Duckling Businesses
Most marketers offer one-size-fits-all advertising advice that simply won’t work for ugly duckling businesses.
Think about the lawyer or a stock broker or insurance salesman who’s told he needs to advertise reasons why he’s unique and superior to his competitors.
Such claims are usually illegal to advertise.
The Bar Association or FTC or some other agency simply won’t allow claims like that on the air.
And when those claims aren’t illegal, they are all-but- impossible to credibly make.
When is the last time you came across a plumber who was truly unique or had a single, easily-explained advantage that made them better than other plumbers?
Then there’s the content marketing and social media “gurus.”
Businesses are supposed to get people interested in “content” on, say, transmission repair just out of passionate interest, the way an enthusiast might want to read articles or watch videos about wine or scotch or golfing.
Sound likely to happen?
It all leaves many owners feeling like their business is an “ugly duckling.” They’re not Apple, Tesla, Amazon, or Jack Daniels.
They’re not inherently sexy or interesting to talk about.
So now what?
The Secret to Turning Your Ugly Duckling Into an Advertising Swan
Here are the fundamental secrets for businesses like yours to create great advertising that’ll grow them to the size of giants.
First, while your business may not be inherently interesting to talk about, you are.
Any honest man endeavoring to make an honest living in this world absolutely will have stories to tell — and many of those stories are spellbindingly interesting.
Second, a spoonful entertainment will make the messaging go down.
You may not be able to get people to voluntarily inform themselves about your profession through content marketing, but you can broadcast ads that entertain people while also prejudicing them in your favor.
And that’s it.
Tell stories that interest people while slipping in enough messaging to help build familiarity and trust.
Why Being “The Honest Goods” Is Good Enough
At this point, the typically objection to this strategy goes something like:
“But you haven’t sold people on WHY they should choose me. You haven’t convinced them I’m better. How can your plan differentiate me against my (lower priced) competitors?”
Answer: You don’t actually have to claim to be unique or better.
You just have to claim what I’d call the Boy Scout Benefits.
Claim and then — through your stories — show yourself to be: honest, dependable, helpful, trustworthy, loyal.
In other words, claim nothing more than to be the honest goods. The genuine article.
Because if people feel like they know who you are and have a gut feeling they can trust you…
…and they don’t know your competition or have any idea if they can trust them…
who do you think wins that sale?
Where You’ve Already Seen This Work
Just think about how often someone comes to you from the merest, most tangential of connections.
They’re friends with your sister or your cousin, or a buddy of yours goes to the same gym, or they see you at church.
And that merest puff of a connection is enough.
Why?
Because SOME connection is better than NO connection.
Well, telling your stories on the radio is a way to leverage mass media to make hundreds of thousands of people feel as if they have a connection with you.
And a much stronger connection than whatever six- degrees-of-separation style coincidence that usually does the trick.
And that’s how ugly duckling businesses turn into advertising swans laying golden eggs all day long, year after year, for decades to come.
Got an ugly ducking business? Let us help with your advertising.
Advertising
Why You Feel Disappointed With Expensive PPC And How To Change It
Whatever you’re paying per click, it’s extortionately, shockingly too much. You don’t see that cause you’re under a spell.
Whatever you’re paying per click, it’s extortionately, shockingly too much. You don’t see that cause you’re under a spell. No use arguing about it; let’s just do the math together, and maybe seeing the numbers will snap you out of it. Are you willing to run the numbers with me? Great, let’s say you’re paying $5 per click. Now, without comparison that’s useless. If everyone else is paying 50 cents, you’re getting ripped. But if they’re paying $50, you’re getting a fantastic bargain. And of course, the real comparison is cost vs. customer value. If you’re converting those $5 clicks at 10%, but a customer is worth $500, it makes sense to keep pouring your money in, right?
And that’s the spell. Google’s telling you they’re giving you a chance to sell a customer, who’s ready to buy right now, every time you hand them five dollars. That’s the story they’re weaving with their “Zero Moment of Truth” jargon. It’s the song and dance used to make that five dollars per click look “cheap”
Breaking the Spell
To break the spell, we have to stop thinking of the time you’re buying to be in front of the customer as “special” and just view it as time spent in front of the customer. So how much time do you get for five dollars?
Well, on average, you get about two minutes of time. Average page views for PPC-generated clicks is about 2 pages. And people spend about a minute or less per page. Your mileage may vary, so do your own math, using your own numbers. Now, let’s compare PPC to mass media, using radio as an example.
Getting Clarity on Cost by Comparing PPC to Radio
When Wizard of Ads Partners negotiate radio for a client, the metric we use is:**Cost-Per-Person-Per-Year.**How much does it cost to reach a listener three times per week, fifty-two weeks per year? And that cost usually comes in under a dollar. But to make the math easy, we’ll just round up to a dollar per person per year. So for a dollar spent on radio, I’m getting minute long chats with my customer, three times every week, for 52 weeks.*
But let’s be honest, they may not be fully paying attention during each chat, which is one reason I want to reach them three times during the week. But even if we say it’s a minute a week for 52 weeks, that’s pretty darn close to **an HOUR’S worth of the customer’s time bought for one dollar.**PPC is delivering two minutes for five dollars. Radio is delivering damn near an hour for one dollar. Now, I know your objection. As you stare at this in disbelief and the spell tries to retain its hold on you, you’re thinking:
“Yeah, but you’re saying the same thing over and over, only switching out the ad every month.”
And I have two answers for you:
- Repetition is your friend. How many times do you tell your spouse or children that you love them? Do you think the persuasion hurts the messaging or helps? When it comes to bonding, repetition is crucial, not a hindrance.
- Fine, let’s say (for the sake of argument) that it’s only 12 minutes for one dollar. With radio, you’re still paying just over 8 cents per minute. Now compare that to $2.50 per minute for PPC.
“Yeah, but the people I’m reaching with PPC are in the market right now — I can sell them. The people on radio aren’t in the market”
And this is the crux of the spell. And like all good spells, there’s a kernel of truth to it; yes, the PPC prospects are generally ready to buy today. But for a mass market product, you can be sure that many of those radio people WILL enter the market at some point during the year. I’ve even got a different article that does the math on this, taking into account your product’s buying cycle. Now here’s the kicker: when those radio-reached customers do enter the market, they’ll already know about you, and feel better about you than the competition. And that means three really cool things:
- They’ll likely search on your name rather than your industry “key words” when going to google. Meaning you win the sale before it even started, and those other suckers on google are straight out of luck. They go to your site, get your number, and call you without even considering anyone else.
- If they do search keywords on google, they’ll recognize your name in results, and your ads’ Click-Through-Rate and Quality Scores will go up, causing your bid prices to go down.
- When they call you up or show up in your store, they’ll be pre-sold and willing to pay premium pricing (assuming your ads positioned you as premium). No more competing on price with the cheap-bid-charlies and ankle-biters of your industry.
And you’ll get all that for less than a dollar per person per year. So, yes, you can run both PPC and mass media together, and your mass media ads will make your PPC work better than ever. But still, think about that comparison, in terms of what you get for your dollar with mass media vs. what you get for it from PPC.
This is why I consider PPC not only shockingly expensive, but spellbinding in the way that it’s able to hide this dirty little secret. Once you break out of the spell and move into mass media, you’ll never look back.*P. S. Sure, not all radio ads are 60-seconds. In fact, most are 30-seconds. But you’ll find the math still works out considerably in radio’s favor even when running the calculations using this shorter ad format. And, yes, the math also works out in TV’s favor, too, but it’s much clearer and easier to calculate with radio
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Why Wizard of Ads®?
Are you ready to transform your business into a distinctive, emotionally resonant brand? Here's why hiring Ryan Chute and Wizard of Ads® Services is the game-changer your business needs:
Distinctiveness Beyond Difference: Your brand must be distinctive, not just different, to stand out. We specialize in creating emotional connections with your customers to make your brand unforgettable.
Building Real Estate in the Mind: Branding with us helps your customers remember your brand when they need your service again, creating a lasting impression.
Value Proposition Integration: We ensure that your brand communicates a compelling value proposition that resonates with your audience, creating a powerful brand strategy.
Who Should Work with The Wizard of Ads®?
Wizard of Ads® offers services that start with understanding your marketing challenges.
We specialize in crafting authentic and disruptive brand stories and help build trust and familiarity with your audience. By partnering with Wizard of Ads®, you can transform your brand into one people remember and prefer. We understand the power of authentic storytelling and the importance of trust.
Let us elevate your marketing strategy with our authentic storytelling and brand-building experts. We can take your brand to the next level.
What Do The Wizard of Ads® Actually Do?
Maximize Your Marketing Impact with Strategic Alignment.
Our strategy drives everything we do, dictating the creative direction and channels we use to elevate your brand. Leveraging our national buying power, we ensure you get the best media rates for maximum market leverage. Once your plan is in motion, we refine our strategy to align all channels—from customer service representatives to digital marketing, lead generation, and sales.
Our goal is consistency: we ensure everyone in your organization is on the same page, delivering a unified message that resonates with your audience. Experience the power of strategic alignment and watch your brand thrive.
What can I expect working with The Wizard of Ads®?
Transform Your Brand with Our Proven Process.
Once we sign the agreement, we visit on-site to uncover your authentic story, strengths, and limitations. Our goal is to highlight what sets you 600 feet above the competition. We'll help you determine your budgets and plan your mass media strategy, negotiating the best rates on your behalf.
Meanwhile, our creative team crafts a durable, long-lasting campaign designed to move your brand beyond mere name recognition and into the realm of household names. With an approved plan, we dive into implementation, producing high-quality content and aligning your channels to ensure your media is delivered effectively. Watch your brand soar with our comprehensive, strategic approach.
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The Power of Strategic Marketing Investments
Are you hungry for growth? We explain why a robust marketing budget is essential for exponential success. Many clients start with an 8-12% marketing budget, eventually reducing it to 3-5% as we optimize their marketing investments.
While it takes time to build momentum, you'll be celebrating significant milestones within two years. By the three to five-year mark, you'll see dramatic returns on investment, with substantial gains in net profit and revenue. Discover how strategic branding leads to compound growth and lasting value. Join us on this journey to transform your business.
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