Archive for the ‘Lead Generation’ Category
Not What it Seems
Yesterday in my mail I received a “pre-approved guaranteed” $5,000 from a finance company. It wasn’t the misleading offer that got my attention. It was the address on my mail.
Nearly 20 years ago I was married to someone with the suffix Jr. on his name and we had a joint credit card account. When the account was dissolved, the credit card company erroneously appended my name with Jr. The finance offer in yesterday’s mail was addressed to Carol Aubitz Jr. That erroneous suffix on my name is still entrenched in data banks after nearly 20 years. I have moved three times and am no longer married to the “ex Jr.” yet the suffix on his name continues to follow me.
That is the problem with information in data banks. The person isn’t always what he or she seems to be. Marketers use the information over and over, multiplying the error so many times it is impossible to extract it and permanently correct the records. While most of the data collected about us is entered and stored accurately, there are many ways that the data Read more »
A Discount Recovery
In the last two weeks of August, a muse article called “The Discount Dilemma” was the third most popular topic read by thousands of people who visited the Muse page on our Web site.
Discounting continues to be a topic of interest, especially as we are about to enter the busy 4th quarter retail season. What will drive holiday shopping? How much discounting can you expect as a consumer and will you do as a marketer?
Since I am on vacation this week, I thought it would be beneficial to take another look at “The Discount Dilemma.” So once again, as you look at price-cutting as an answer to slumping sales, or a way to gain a competitive edge over others in your market, consider the ways discounting can Read more »
The Irrational Consumer
There is a seduction scene in the Hitchcock movie North by Northwest with Eva Marie Saint and Cary Grant. Exactly who is seducing who depends on your point of view. It is during this scene when Saint whispers to Grant that as an advertising man, he gets people to buy things they don’t really need and do things they shouldn’t do.
Although Saint states it a little strongly, the fact is that advertising is about persuasion. The more persuasive the message the better the advertising works.
To be really persuasive requires an understanding of how we manage our emotions. The only place for logic in great advertising is to justify the emotional decision that’s already been made.
Nowhere is this explained so well and in so many different Read more »
The Disappearing Act
It’s a sure thing that belts are being tightened at all income levels. Consumer and business spending is being carefully calculated, pondered and restrained. Only the government seems to be on a spending spree.
Perhaps the product segment where this is the most significant is in upscale brands and luxury products. Until the recent plunge, average American households were acquiring luxury brands. In fact, the “average” American home was a haven of luxury compared to the average standard of living one generation ago.
No longer content with 2-car garages, our homes needed space for 3 or 4 cars. Newly built McMansions had entrance halls larger than the living rooms of a generation past. Each member of the family required his or her own personal bathroom. It was this feeling that we were all entitled to the luxury lifestyle that Read more »
Doing the Unexpected
Open a copy of Entrepreneur magazine and you’ll see ads for business opportunities. Flip through the pages of Vogue and you’ll find ads for designers, perfumes, and cosmetics. Most people would agree that matching the message to the media and the reader is common practice and good advertising.
After all, what better place is there to sell golf clubs than in a media source that is read, watched or visited by people who play golf?
That is giving people what they expect. Dig deeper into the research of behavior and psychology, however, and you’ll start to uncover this fascinating truth. If you Read more »
Put Your Marketing to the Test
In 1961 Dick Benson founded the first advertising agency specializing in direct mail. Eight years later he turned it into a consulting organization and worked with companies across the U.S.
Copywriter Chris Stagg said of Dick Benson, “They risked his bark and his bite because the rewards were so great. They listened, they learned and they followed all the way to the top.”
My path crossed with Dick Benson in the 1970s when the company I worked for hired him as a consultant. Of the many lessons I learned from him, the most important is the value of testing. He preached it relentlessly, and he practiced what he preached.
Testing can increase your advertising effectiveness 400%. Testing can open a new market that delivers Read more »
Sins of Omission
It happens all the time in the world of print advertising. Ads are created to be flashy, bold, edgy, and innovative. In the broadcast world, commercials are created to be entertaining, funny, provocative or shocking.
What gets tossed aside in this maelstrom of innovation is the heart of what advertising should be – information. The radicals, rebels and revolutionaries of the creative world see their challenge as one of art and not communication. Yes, there are times where advertising is art and art is advertising. Andy Warhol did more to build the Campbell’s Soup brand than the Campbell Twins ad campaign.
Realistically, however, most businesses prefer that their advertising delivers customers and ROI rather than be perceived as breakthrough creative or artistic excellence. Rarely are advertising awards given for results. In these lean times a front page article in Ad Age Magazine, in discussing the recent international advertising awards show held each year in Cannes, proclaimed “it is no longer about being flashy but is about solving problems, building brands and building customer relationships.”
The truth is, it has never been about being flashy. Great advertising is always, and has always been, about Read more »
Get the Customer to Find You
In the first quarter of 2009, U.S. Consumer spending actually increased 2.2%. The challenge is to get consumers who are spending to spend it with you.
This is where some different thinking is required.
Traditional marketing and branding still have the power to keep your name and message in front of consumers so you are foremost in their minds when they are ready to spend. Which is why you must continue to advertise even though the return on your investment is not as high.
But the way consumers receive and relate to advertising, and the way they shop, is changing. The consumer is Read more »
“Searching” for Results
The number of consumers performing online searches increased 20% in 2008 to more than 11.8 billion searches in the U.S. alone. In the worldwide market there were 82.8 billion searches in 2008. These figures will continue to increase in 2009.
As you strategize about where to spend your marketing budget, be sure you are allocating a portion to optimizing your results from Internet/Web searches.
This is especially important if you are marketing business-to-business. And it is why more than 26% of small B2B companies (those with fewer than 100 employees) are beefing up their online spending this year while making cuts to the overall marketing budget.
In just over ten years the marketplace has Read more »
The Power to Persuade
As Washington continues to allocate funds to financial sectors and select corporations, and as it supposedly puts money back into consumers’ wallets through the stimulus package, I can’t help but observe the greatest oversight of all when it comes to stimulating the economy.
And that is advertising.
There is not a penny put in any package to stimulate advertising.
Yet advertising is the single most important industry that needs to survive if Read more »
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