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Marketing
How Do Bots Committing Digital Ad Fraud Destroy Your Home Service Business?
This isn't about the fraud that comes from Google and Facebook's willful negligence, but rather a more nefarious fraud of the criminal...
There’s a kind of fraud that comes from lack of transparency from Google and Facebook, a kind of fraud that comes from criminals stealing ad dollars from businesses, and a kind of fraud that could be happening because your digital manager isn’t paying attention. It all adds up to a lot of loss for businesses. In this episode of The Wizard’s Roundtable, we look at the different kinds of mismanagement that can plague your advertising efforts.
Transcript Lightly Edited For Clarity
Johnny Molson: Let’s let the robots do the work. What’s the worst that could happen?
Every business wants to know “Did my ad work? When somebody sees my ad, did that encourage them to make a purchase?” And that’s one of the attractive things about digital advertising. When done correctly you can plot from when somebody saw that ad all the way through to the purchase — when done correctly. But digital advertising has been plagued with ad fraud. In other words, the ads you’re paying for aren’t actually being seen by people with eyeballs and money. Some of it can be attributed to Google and Facebook, YouTube, those entities just being negligent and sloppy with their reporting
Mark Pritchard (Procter & Gamble clip):
The time and the days of giving digital a pass are over. It’s time to grow up. It’s time for action.
Johnny Molson: A lot of it though can be attributed to out and out criminals. Criminals who are making it appear that your ads are being seen by people when they’re not
News Clips:
Malicious bots posing as you viewing thousands of ads every day. These are highly sophisticated, organized criminals, and they are creating ever-evolving programs that mimic human behavior.
Johnny Molson: Now solving the problem has been put on the backs of the duopoly of Facebook and Google, but it also has to do with whether or not the person who’s managing your digital advertising is paying attention and managing it properly. After a recent article from Forbes magazine came out, there was a pretty interesting conversation that was happening around the Wizard’s Roundtable. And you are going to get a chance to eavesdrop on that right now. With us today in Tucson, Arizona is Dave Young. He was one of the original pioneers in getting businesses to blog more and put the video on their sites, thus enhancing their SEO. In Guadalajara, Mexico is Luis Castañeda, who is a digital expert who really pays attention to what’s happening with businesses. And he’s going to help explain how a business can make sure they’re not being taken advantage of and what they should look for. And I’m Johnny Molson in Springfield, Illinois. And let’s start at the start. Does digital advertising have a fraud problem?
Luis Castañeda: There is fraud, you know, I’m not a fraud denier. But also I think fraud, as it has existed, is not unique to internet advertising. In print media work you’ll have lots of stories of magazines being printed but never distributed and things like that. So in my opinion, most of the fraud is due to poor management. When I started selling advertising, I worked for a guy called Chris Lund and he taught me that the responsibility to prove results is from the publisher, not from the client. And this really makes it very important for his business to prove value, to prove results to his clients. And I really think that is a key important aspect of what I do. And I take it to heart that I am responsible for showing my clients the value of internet advertising.
Johnny Molson: Well, I guess would it be fair to say that fraud is a pretty charged word? I would say some of that can be at least attributed to the fact that there are just unintended bots that are hitting these websites. Google and Facebook and the others don’t know if it’s a human or not. And then there’s blatant fraud where people are just ticking the things up. So I think it’s important to know that distinction, but Luis, for a business owner, what should they be looking for that would say, “Wait a minute, something’s not adding up here…”
Luis Castañeda: In my experience, every advertising campaign needs to have an objective. Okay. So once you know what the objective is, obviously you need to make sure how do you measure the result? How do you know if it works or not? And that will be the first step. Second step is the follow-up. I try to use the Deming Cycle approach: Plan, Do, Check, Act. And I think most of us fail at the Acting part. You know, we do the Plan, we do the Do, we do the Check, but then it’s like “Okay, I got the report, fine.”
Johnny Molson: Right.
Luis Castañeda: But you need to go into the details and take action on that. And that’s how I think you can find those peculiarities or those outliers. Okay. So I think it is important based on your objectives to see what is helping to reach the objective? What is not? Or also based on your web traffic — which is in my case the medium that we use to capture the leads or the sales — see which sources of traffic are bringing results? And which ones are behaving where they only stay for one second? You know something’s wrong. Either my site is wrong or something is wrong with the person that visited my site.
Johnny Molson: Okay. So time spent on the site might be an indicator that you’re getting hit by some bots. Is that fair?
Luis Castañeda: That’s fair to say that that would be one indicator. Or as I mentioned before, look for outliers. Because maybe not even bots, let’s forget about the bots. Let’s focus on what is working, what is not? Because even if it is a valid website, you know, The New York Times is sending traffic to my website, but it’s not working… Maybe it isn’t getting me leads, it’s not getting people to download my white paper or to see my video, or they stay less time than anyone else. So you have to go after those signals. And then regardless of it’s a bot or not — start making decisions to say “No, I don’t want to be bringing traffic from those sources.”
Dave Young: This conversation started on Facebook in our private group discussing an article in Forbes. The headline said, “When big brands stopped spending on digital ads, nothing happened. Why?” And it talked about Procter & Gamble. They made the decision to shut off $200 million in their digital ad spend and they saw no change in sales. And Uber shut off 120 million in their ad spend and didn’t see any change, no drop in meaningful numbers. It turns out that a whole lot of it was fraud. And I think Luis’s point about it being mismanagement is a very valid point. And I think sometimes some of these gigantic companies just have barrels of money that somebody is responsible for getting rid of in some way, right. They’re just like “Shovel it out the door, cause it’s your budget and you have to spend it.”
Luis Castañeda: Exactly.
Dave Young: And you end up making horrendous decisions. And if a local business owner is not careful… I mean there was one point in that article that talks about somebody that was spending dollars even in their AdWords on what Google calls the Display Network, right? And the definition of that is that your ads are showing up on lots of other websites, as opposed to just Google searches, where there’s obvious ads, right? So now your ads are showing up on who knows, right? And you can control that. You can actually go in and tell Google. “No, Let’s not do that site. Let’s not do that site and let’s not do this site.” And I think the way the story went she shut off the display network and her traffic dropped by 118000% or something. I mean, a huge amount of her traffic was coming from the display network and her ads, but they weren’t sticking around. And they were all coming from Android devices. And so it was some form of bots clicking on those ads and coming to her website. They never going to be sales. It wouldn’t matter what kind of landing page you had. Those clicks were not gonna turn into sales anyway,
Luis Castañeda: For me, the most important part is you have to test because it is so cheap to do a test. You can run a one-week test and find out for yourself. You know, the guy on the article was right. It didn’t work perfect. Now you can tell, could prove it with facts. It didn’t work or it may work. So you need to start digging, finding what is it that works for you, and continue doing it and learn from that. Why is this working? How can I extrapolate these studies working into other areas?
Johnny Molson: Right. Luis, you’ve said something a couple of times that I think is really interesting. And I want to make sure we expand on it a little bit. You have to have a clear understanding of what your objective is. Is part of the issue that business’s objective is “I just want some clicks and people come to my website,” and they’re not clear on the various levers that digital can pull.
Luis Castañeda: There are two answers to that, Johnny. And that is a great question because yes, I think many times, you know, “I just want to do Google ads because my competition is doing it and I don’t want to fall behind.” And in my opinion, the objective is very easy. You know, do I want to get more leads? Why want to make more sales? Do I want to get more calls? Do I want people to see my new video? That will be your objective, but that’s the first part. And as I mentioned before, the second part is how you’re going to measure that objective. And also that is something that I see a lot with my customers. I have a customer that was investing a lot of money, trying to get leads and they were not measuring. I was talking to them to a Google customer that I have, and he was telling me “If you don’t have the measurement of the result, then how could you judge?” And it is like blindly trying to put a stick on a map and finding Chicago, you know, it’s impossible. So these are the two steps. Okay. What is your objective? And second, make sure that you can measure it. Then you can tell. And there is another aspect to what in the internet world we call conversions. But there is another one that is called micro-conversions. Okay, so what is a micro-conversion? I didn’t do the objective. You know, I didn’t click for the lead. But what will put them closer to making a lead? So my objective is to try to get the lead. I didn’t get the lead, but they watched the video. They downloaded the white page. That’s a micro-conversion. So you can have a second-tier judgment. Okay. I’m not getting the conversions but, I’m getting micro conversions. Okay, it’s not that bad.
Johnny Molson: Luis that’s so compelling that you know, that small gap between “I’m doing Google AdWords, because I want people to come to my website,” which isn’t an objective. Coming to my website isn’t necessarily an objective. Coming to my website to watch a video is an objective that you can quantify, that you can measure, and it actually is causing something to happen. And I think businesses probably really need to zero in on that concept and give some thought as to what is it you’re trying to make happen with your AdWords.
Luis Castañeda: Right. If you want to add another layer to that, many websites don’t tell you what to do. You know, there is a saying that if you don’t tell me what you want from me, chances are that I will not do it. So I got to the website, it costs you, what do you want me to do? “Give Me a call to send you a quote.” “Send us an email to make an appointment.” So it’s the call to action. So we need to have a clear call to action on the website so that he’s going to help people say, Oh, okay. You know, David wants me to send him an email to set up an appointment. Perfect.
Dave Young: Our friends Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg said years ago, this is early 2000, the three questions that every website needs to answer. This is one where, once you think about it, it’s so obvious. And it’s something that they’ve been preaching for years. And it’s the lens that I always use when I’m looking at a website: Who’s on the site? What do you want them to do? And what do they need to know in order to do that thing that you want them to do? And the tricky part is that all three questions have multiple answers. Who’s on the site? That can be a variety of people. It could be an existing customer. It could be a prospective customer. It could be one demographic or another. And then what do you want them to do? Micro conversion? Or do we want them to jump all the way to the bottom of the gravity well and become a full-paying customer? And I think the most important one is what do they need to know in order to do that? Like, what do they need to know about this video you want them to watch? What do you need them to know about how you’re going to respond once they raise their hand and say, “I want to do business with you,” right? So if you use those three questions as sort of a lens, you can make great progress on making your ads work better because your website’s going to work better. It’s going to convert more wherever you’re doing your ads. Whether it’s an AdWord or an ad that you’ve mentioned the domain on the radio, right. It’s going to do better if you answer those three questions or keep them in mind as you’re building it.
Luis Castañeda: And that’s another great point, David, because this is a team effort. It’s not only the advertising and it’s not only the website. It’s both of them working together. Because as you know, I can have the best advertising on radio, but if I fumble, when I got the call, no one answers. It takes too long to answer, or the person is rude, there’s no sales. And who are you going to blame? “The campaign didn’t work…” No, the problem is inside.
Johnny Molson: Absolutely. What would you recommend that a business looks for when they are hiring somebody to manage and watch over their campaign? I mean, just short of calling Luis Castañeda, which is what they should do. What things would give a business owner an indication of, “Hey, this person is missing something.”
Luis Castañeda: Well, the integration between the advertising and the website, you know..
Johnny Molson: Connect the dots, yeah.
Luis Castañeda: Connecting the dots, that’s the key. Making sure that, “Okay. He asked for my objective. He understood my objective. He made sure that I am measuring my objective. He knows how to do it.” And not only that, also connecting the dots of that objective to the Google ads campaign. Because the beauty of connecting the dots is the machine learning from Google. You know, Google has made a lot of problems with machine learning, and it is amazing all the magic that can happen once Google knows who are the ones that send you a lead, it’s amazing. It works. You’ll have to look for those little details. It’s not only how much you want to spend, where you want to be, and which keywords. No, you know, that’s basic. That’s wasting your time unless you only want traffic. But they need to understand your objective. They need to measure it. And they need to make sure that you can follow up with Google Ads, that objective. So for me, those would be the key areas for people that want to understand what you’re trying to achieve and make sure that they can measure it. For me, the way I see the internet and what is important is it is cheap to test. It’s cheap to experiment. It is cheap to try so go out and try. The worst thing that can happen is it doesn’t work, and fine, you move on. But also as we mentioned before we started the roundtable, the message is what is important. It’s not the medium. If you have a good message, if you have a coherent strategy, the medium is not the important thing.
Dave Young: I would just circle back around to the Uber situation. And I think mismanagement in terms of. One of the things we didn’t talk about was the nature of the mismanagement that caused them to lose millions in fraud was that they weren’t measuring success by the right metric. Right? So Luis, when you talk about, are we measuring some kind of a micro-conversion. Well somebody at Uber thought that downloading their app was how to measure success, when really measuring success for them would be, are people paying for rides,? But they put this metric on downloading apps and the company that they contracted with said, “Oh, we’re just judged on and paid on how many people we can get to download the Uber app, regardless of whether they actually go for a ride.”And so that’s where a lot of their fraud came from was this attribution fraud. And other apps that would trick you into downloading the Uber app. And now the ad company got paid, ka-ching, because you downloaded the app, whether you use it or not, whether you had an account or not, you now downloaded the app. And so Uber’s paying for that. And I think it was a huge case of measuring the wrong thing. And they’re measuring something that’s not really how they grew, right? That’s not what made Uber, Uber. It was the fact that you could go from the airport to your house or go from one bar to another, or here to there. It wasn’t about “I need an app.” It was, “I need a ride.” And when they started measuring downloads, that’s the wrong thing to measure. And you open yourself up to people just taking advantage of that.
Luis Castañeda: And that is a great point, David, because you should always have a companion metric. You know, if I’m gonna pay my salespeople by the volume of sales they make this month, you know, chances are that they are going to offer a lot of discounts. You know, they are going to be offering a 20% discount and say “Oh I sold ten thousand at the end of the month.” I’m going to have a lot of sales, but with a huge discount. Okay. So that’s why you need to have a companion metric, you know? My goal might be to make more sales this month, but we need to have at least this much profit. Okay. So going back to Uber. Let’s assume that they want it to grow based on the number of downloads. Perfect. Let’s have a companion metric that downloads with at least one trip. Then that’s a customer.
Dave Young: Yeah. We’re not going to pay you if the download that you got us, doesn’t spend some money on a ride.
Johnny Molson: Luis and Dave, and a whole host of digital experts at Wizard of Ads are worth getting to know, because we are paid when ads work and when businesses succeed. We’re not paid on which media we buy. All we’re interested in is did the thing do what we thought it was going to do? If you’d like to get in touch with us, here are some emails that you should know.
Advertising
The #1 Best Way To Achieve Massive Impact From Your Advertising Message
In presenting a focused strategy, sometimes I get presented with a made-up word: Alsofocuson. As in, “Can we also-focus-on this other focus?”
A key element of any strategy is choosing what gets focus. When I present a focused strategy, sometimes I get presented with a made-up word: Also focus on. As in, “I like the focus, but can we also-focus-on this other focus?” No. You can’t. That’s the deal with focus. You can’t focus on thing “A” and also focus on thing “B.” If you hire a photographer to take a picture of a cow, she can’t focus on the cow and also focus on that horse over there.
To focus on something also means to eliminate something else. This all seems pretty elemental until I ask the question “who don’t you want as a customer?” “Great Caesar’s Ghost!!” the business owner says (my clients are all Perry White from Superman). “I want EVERYBODY as a customer!!” This exercise isn’t to deny you the opportunity to sell things. It’s to cause you to think hard about who your customer is. And you can’t define who your customer is, without knowing who your customer isn’t. Who isn’t your product or service for? Knowing the answer to this will keep you from chasing every field mouse that runs in front of you. All customers have money, but not all customers are profitable. Red Lobster is for seafood lovers. Southwest Airlines is for budget travelers who don’t want any frills. Victoria’s Secret is for women who want high quality delicate underthings. Red Lobster is NOT for people looking for inexpensive fast food. Southwest Airlines is NOT for businesspeople who fly first class. Victoria’s Secret is NOT for women looking for everyday cotton underwear. Chasing those customers would not only be unprofitable, it would also be off-brand. Yes, Red Lobster could sell pancakes and grilled cheese and make some money, but it would come at the expense of the seafood lovers.
Southwest Airlines could fly internationally and install first-class seats. But their loyal no-frills customers would feel “their” airline isn’t the same anymore. Victoria’s Secret could make a buck and sell a 6-pack of white Hanes underwear, but that’s not very sexy or “secret.” ntrepreneurs are brilliant at finding opportunities. Sometimes too brilliant. Companies that focus win. Companies that ALSOFOCUSON get distracted and crumble apart. My company works with owner-operated businesses, typically under $5 million in revenue. My company isn’t for places like banks, community organizations, or firms with layers of committees. Am I missing out? I have no idea. I don’t think about it. I’m focused on a thing. I don’t ALSOFOCUSON the other stuff.
Lead Generation
The #1 Best Way to Attract High Quality Prospects
How do you become the fan favorite and win the game before the match has even started? Secret: You won't need a folding chair...
Transactional advertising targets the 7% of people who are shopping for your thing today. Essentially, all the companies that sell your thing go into a ring and beat each other up until the one who is willing to give away their thing for the least amount of money is victorious.
Sound familiar?
Every once in a while though, a ringer emerges. This business is the darling of the crowd. Everybody knows them, loves them, and trusts them. While all of the other businesses clamour into the ring, smashing each other over the head with folding chairs, the favoured business doesn’t even enter the ring. They quietly sell their thing to the masses of adoring fans. But how? How did the fan favourite win the game seemingly before the match even started? How did they even become the fan favourite?
One thing: bonding.
Many business owners correlate transactional advertising with results. They pour 100% of their marketing budget and efforts into this approach. This one missing ingredient is the difference between consistent, high-intent, high-quality leads and a batch of goons looking to beat you up on price and price alone.
Leaving bonding out of your advertising is like leaving apples out of your apple pie.
As a Sales Operations Specialist, I am the first person to say that I am not a marketer. What I can say with 100% conviction is that a relational buyer is a way easier person to close. Proper marketing is the first of seven key factors in developing a Unified Selling System™ that help my clients become millionaires. Since becoming a Wizard of Ads™ Partner I have learned the difference between a good marketer and a bad marketer. Bad marketers are cheerfully full of nuts and bolts. For them, it’s all about price, loss leaders, cute and clever taglines, vanity metrics, how great the company is, and the right logo. Oh nelly, don’t forget that logo. Good marketers are master storytellers. They understand the seduction of transformation, the power of personality, and how the greatest speeches, songs, movies, and books draw us deeply into the narrative, creating a bond with the characters involved. Good marketers don’t dismiss the nuts and bolts, they just prioritize them. The number one priority in your business is saying stuff people want to hear about, care about, and enjoy. You get that right, and the nuts and bolts are easy peasy.
Love. That special ingredient that makes any dish delish.
When your curiosity gets the better of you, and you want to stop chasing the 7% of ‘today’ buyers and start a sincere relationship with the 68% of all buyers, email me.
When I read the Wizard of Ads book, I changed my mind, and I was ALL transactional. There is a better way. ~Ryan Deiss, Digital Marketer
Good selling.
Customer Journey
42 Astoundingly Brilliant Secrets to Marketing Your Home Service Business The Right Way
Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind of the customer will always create logic to justify what their heart has already decided.
This is what our Wizard of Ads® see inside their eyelids:
- Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind of the customer will always create logic to justify what their heart has already decided.
- We buy what we buy to remind ourselves – and announce to the world around us – who we are.
- A tribe is a group of self-selected insiders.
- Identify a tribe (an affinity group).
- Develop that tribe.
- Market to the tribe you have developed.
- Gathering your tribe is easy.
- In your first encounter, make sure they win big. Give them far more than they gave you.
- Speak to your tribe about what they ALREADY care about.
- All of the above can be summarized in two words: Identity Reinforcement.
- Entertainment is the currency with which you can purchase the time and attention of a too-busy public.
- Television and radio, YouTube videos, blog posts, and social media deliver results when they deliver entertainment.
- Information is medicine. Entertainment is a spoonful of sugar.
- Reaching the customer is mechanical, a question of media selection.
- Convincing the customer is artistic, a question of message creation.
- Reaching the right people is easy. Saying the right thing is hard.
- Online, when you target the right customer at the zero moment of truth you are fishing with a hook for today’s customer.
- At the zero moment of truth online, the best hooks are information, availability, and free service.
- Customers seeking information have not yet chosen a preferred provider.
- Customers seeking availability want the product immediately.
- Customers seeking free service want to save money.
- When using mass media – TV and radio – at the zero moment of truth, your message must be urgent.
- Urgency is achieved when the desire is widespread, but the availability is limited.
- Customers in transactional mode are afraid of spending too much. They are willing to spend their time and yours to save money.
- Customers in relational mode are concerned about spending time. They are willing to spend money to save time. This is why they will choose someone they believe they can trust. In the absence of a previously chosen preferred provider, they will choose to trust Google reviews.
- Television and radio are called mass media for a reason: they reach the unfiltered masses. When you use mass media, you are fishing with a net for future customers AND their influencers.
- The goal of advertising in mass media is to become the preferred provider, the one the customer thinks of first and feels the best about.
- Mass media – TV and radio – can deliver big results quickly, but only for products that have broad appeal and a short purchase cycle.
- Food and entertainment have broad appeal and a short purchase cycle.
- Water heaters and air conditioners have broad appeal and a long purchase cycle.
- The longer you use mass media, the better it works. The effects of mass media are cumulative. But it only works for products and services that have broad appeal.
- When using mass media long-term for products with a long purchase cycle, your message must be memorable.
- Mass media fails miserably for products with narrow appeal.
- When your product has narrow appeal, online media is your answer.
- Make your buying experience, website, social media, blog, and YouTube interesting. The seller who gets more of the customer’s time is the one most likely to get their money.
- Online, when you want to target the customer at the zero moment of truth, you have to bid on the right keywords or buy the right list.
- Unbranded keywords are the ones that everyone in your category is bidding on.
- Unbranded keywords are expensive.
- Branded keywords are those signature phrases – brandable chunks – for which your company is known.
- Our data proves branded keywords deliver 7x to 10x higher return-on-investment than unbranded keywords.
- Branded keywords are most easily created through mass media – TV and radio – but they can also become known through blog posts, YouTube videos, and other social media.
- Don’t set out to make money. Set out to be the kind of company that people want to do business with.
If people like you, they will create their own logic for buying from you. Do you remember our opening statement?
“Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind of the customer will always create logic to justify what their heart has already decided.”
Lead Generation
Avoid Being Seduced Into The Coupon Trap By Unscrupulous Dogs
Modern-day vendors of coupons tell you coupons attract new clients to try out your products and services, but there is an evil underbelly...
In 1888, Coca-Cola released the first coupon on record in North America. Between 1894 and 1913, an estimated 8.5 million free drinks had been redeemed. Today, Coca-Cola is still the leading soft drink manufacturer on the planet.
So obviously coupons work, right?!
Welllll, yes….and no.
Modern-day peddlers of coupons will tell you that coupons attract new clients to “try out” your products and services. They plant the fear that coupons (discounts) are necessary to attract new customers. They even demonstrate through metrics and data how your coupons deliver a very high ROI.
Then why did the likes of Groupon fail so spectacularly?
Business owners would argue that it was decimating their margins while simultaneously delivering terribly disloyal and price-sensitive customers. Customers, who initially loved the thrill of consuming offers at a fraction of the intended price quickly became disenchanted with subpar service and progressively less appealing offers.
The reality of discounting is that any of your competitors can do it, and will, in reaction (or retaliation) to your offer, making your company utterly indistinguishable from another. Furthermore, grudge purchases like air conditioning maintenance and repair are externally triggered, meaning they’re only sought after when they absolutely must be purchased.
No one ever “treats” themselves with a naughty little A/C repair.
Hence, the death of Groupon.
As modern marketers digitized, coupons saw a rebirth. Eluding that coupons would keep them extremely honest since you could easily track the ROI of each coupon clicked, used, and tracked through the entire sales cycle of the client. Coupons, they said, were the reason why they chose to buy….along with their brilliant SEO, PPC, and ad copy of course.
We know this to be last-touch attribution, and legitimate digital marketers have all but abandoned these weasely practices by redesigning their new client acquisition offers to be considerably more in tune with attracting the right type of customer without damaging your good name in the process.
An article by the Harvard Business Review on the subject states that:
“A company that offers average-value products and services to everyone wastes resources in over-satisfying less profitable customers while under-satisfying the more valuable loyal customers. The outcome is predictable. Highly profitable customers with higher expectations and more attractive choices defect, and less desirable customers stay around, diluting the company’s profits.
Onetime promotions can cost a great deal of money and do not, as a rule, generate loyalty. They do indeed change customer behavior but often in ways that are undesirable in the long run. Any positive impact is washed away as soon as competing companies launch their next promotion.
Realizing the benefits of loyalty requires an admission that not all customers are equal. A company must give its best value to its best customers.”
The harsh truth is, your coupons are lying to you:
- The research indicates coupons do not create brand loyalty.
- 4 families in 5 use coupons, but not because the coupon instigated the purchase. Rather, they use the coupon because there was a coupon to be used.
- Coupons create price sensitivity, making it less likely to up or cross-sell beyond the product or service offered. This forces businesses to serve the kinds of customers that do not contribute meaningful profitability to the bottom line.
- Coupons do not prove ROI. They prove that if you offer a discount, people will take it. This dismantles any claim that coupons generate ROI.
- Coupons place your brand into a sea of other unremarkable competitors, making you indistinguishable from every other option.
- Coupons are unbiased. They can be used by new or existing customers, with no means to determine the efficacy of attracting new business. This further perpetuates price sensitivity, low margins, and rewarding cheapness over loyalty.
- Coupons don’t hold your marketing team accountable, rather they are exploited by digital marketers to justify false ROI claims.
- Approximately 4 percent of coupons received are redeemed, making the cost of lead generation impressively high.
Does this mean there is no place for transactional offers like coupons?
Absolutely not!
What it does mean is that you need to voraciously protect your goodwill and integrity in the eyes of your prospective customers. Instead of carelessly throwing out arbitrary discounts, consider strategically developing relational-friendly transactional offers that won’t damage your brand image. This will produce consistently more high-quality leads that convert easier, faster, and at a higher profit.
Just like Coca-Cola did, way back in 1888.
Here are a few of our unwavering principles:
- Start with strategy. Loyalty does not exist in a vacuum; discounts and coupons must dovetail with both a solid strategy and your capabilities to execute.
- Limit your relational-friendly transactional offers to 30% to 40% of your total marketing message. Anything more will attract too many of the wrong types of clients.
- Full price or free. If you are going to entice new prospects to try your service, limit it to first-time buyers only and do it at full price with added value stacked on in abundance or provide the first service for free.
- Be willing to provide an offer that no one else is willing to do. This will definitively separate you from the herd.
- Offer savings in the form of bundles. Like Costco, this makes it far more difficult to compare apples-to-apples while delivering exceptional perceived value.
- Stand your ground and don’t waiver. People will respect your confidence and interpret it as competence. If you don’t appear to believe in your prices, neither will they.
- For home service companies, run an outstanding club membership program to nurture and reward your loyal client base.
We know the exact 4 things you have to do to create a powerful coupon offer that overperforms. The conscious choice to eliminate this short-term tactic from your marketing vernacular is reserved for the courageous few who are 100% committed to the long game.
For those few who keep their eye on the horizon with us ALWAYS see the light of a new day. For the riches that lie beyond that which you see at the tip of your nose are 100 fold to what you know of today.
The proof is in our pudding.
Good selling.
PS – Home Service Businesses who want a free swipe file of our Top 20 RFTO’s (relational-friendly transactional offers) are welcome to email me. We’ll also happily spend the time to discuss how you can custom tailor these offers to fit your company’s strategy and capabilities.
Lead Generation
How Increasing Your Lead Generation By 871% Will Make You Happy Again
People are predictable, though a person is not. The exception does not disprove the rule.
Having worked on 4 continents and 8 countries I’ve discovered one thing always stays the same – human psychology. While cultures and economics differ, masses of people do not. Psychology doesn’t change whether you live in Shanghai, China, or Corpus Christi, Texas. The good folks at the Center for Applications of Psychological Type have confirmed that certain personality preferences tend to skew in rural vs. urban areas, but on the whole, we can predict actions and behaviors with reasonable accuracy. Decades of behavioral research has ascertained: People will act within predictable standard deviations, based on normative needs. Any specific individual within the sample does not represent the whole. Said differently:
Masses of People are predictable, though an individual person is not. The exception does not disprove the rule.
-Roy H. Williams
Therefore, behaviors can be charted out on a bell curve. Above, we can see the following standard deviations of prospective buyers in any reasonably-sized target market (yes, sample size matters):
- 16% will not buy
- 30.5% who may buy have some level of reluctance
- 7% of prospects are ready to buy today
- 30.5% who may buy are open to consideration
- 16% cannot buy
The 16% of people who will not buy include your competition, enemies, people named Todd, and a small subset of the population who are not willing to consider anything you have to say. You could offer these people a free truckload of gold and they would turn you down. Do not be put off by this group of people. They already lead a difficult life. The next cross-section of 30.5% of the population could be swayed to considering options from your business, but your work is cut out for you. As the bell curves up to the apex, so too increases their propensity to buy. When you understand how to best approach each of the 6 objections in sales, you increase your likelihood of influencing these fine folks. The middle 7% represent the proverbial needle in the haystack. These are the people that are ready and able to purchase your thing today. This minuscule subset is further carved up between two types of competition:
- The competition desperately standing-by to drop their drawers and bare all for a taste of some sweet sweet cash flow.
- The competition who has already won the heart of your mutual prospect, and therefore, have already won the game.
Moving to the next deviation, we see a second 30.5% of the population who are seen as willing participants in the sales arena. This group has the greatest potential to be swayed under two scenarios:
- They are presented with a compelling argument that this is an ideal opportunity to weigh their options.
- They are presented with an offer that is too-good-to-be-true on an infrequent basis.
The final 16% of people represent the most willing of participants, with no means or ability to buy. This included people without the money or good credit to purchase, those without jobs, or people outside a reasonable geography to receive your product. This group often includes the elderly, students, and the ill or infirm. This group includes the underprivileged or destitute, and you are best advised to never take advantage of a vulnerable person or situation.
Do you want to fight it out for 7% today, every day, or do you want to easily sway 68% eventually?
Just know, it’s not just you; most of your competitors are fighting with you over the same group of people. Assuming all of your advertising is aimed at this 7% of prospects who are in the market today (discounts, loss leaders, sales events, etc.) then this means you are not connecting with people who might be in the market under the right terms and conditions with companies they love. This becomes your opportunity to dominate. Since we won’t be able to sell the two outlier groups of 16% each, we are left with an additional 61% of potential buyers that could be swayed if they were presented with a non-salesy opportunity or they were presented with a too-good-to-be-true offer (or 871% more prospects). The more the prospects know, like, and trust you, the higher your likelihood of persuading them to consider one of your two approaches.
PRO TIP: do not overuse too-good-to-be-true offers as a tactic. Just like the boy who cried wolf, you will quickly appear untrustworthy.
The best way to drive exponential traffic to your front door is to stop targeting your advertising to the 7% of today’s buyers and start bonding with the 68% of all buyers who are open to being persuaded in an interesting and entertaining way. Because you’re advertising effectively in a noisy crowd, you capture the attention of the 7% you already want, but also the 61% you’re currently excluding.
FACT: This is precisely the reason your current lead generation efforts are producing low-quality, inconsistent results.
Repeat this success formula 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year, and you will always win the game before the game has even begun. Good selling. Want to build an advertising strategy that is entertaining, endearing, and trustworthy? A smart prospecting system that compliments the perfect buying journey? A digital plan to match? Email me.
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Frequently asked questions
Questions? We’ve got answers.
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.
What Does A Brand-Foward Strategy Do?
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.
Ready to transform your world?
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