Marketing - The Bold Approach Method

Farmers Are Getting In On The Advertising Action Too

Well, I guess reality TV has met reality advertising. Maybe BULA knows something about the connections between cows and conversion rates . . . but haven't Cowboys been using cows for branding for a long time, is this really new? (Bad Pun Intended)

The Customer Comes First

Finally someone in a major media role gets it. Consumers BS detectors are set to high all the time. Blatant product placement with no real attempt at meaningful integration into the program is not just wasted effort, but offensive and potentially damaging to the brand.

Here is another brilliant observation by Scott Donaton from his upcoming book (read a free excerpt here) Madison & Vine about the customer. “Forgetting that the consumer comes first is a surefire model for disaster, one that leads to weak products that are unable to attract an audience, or earn its trust if they do attract it. The public loses out. The media company loses out. The advertiser loses out.”

Relevancy, focus on the customer, deliver on the promise of your advertising and your brand, the corners of the marketing success pyramid.

Making Ads Accountable

Miller beer is trying to and you should be too.

But.

Miller beer has a new television commercial out that may have the longest website name known to man. Their website is www.sweetmotheroffrothygoodnessbudlightdrinkersareintouble.com. The site immediately redirects you to votemillerbeer.com, but if you can remember the whole url and type it in, it sure gives them some great feedback as to how many people are intrigued by the spot (assuming they are not already too drunk on Miller or Bud to type at 11:00pm on Friday nights)

The problem is that the url is way too long, (slightly humorous, but too long) and while some people may be able to remember it, most won’t be able to and therefore will never get to the site.

They get my vote for trying to see how well an ad does by sending traffic someplace they can count it, but drinking beer or changing beer shouldn’t be this hard.

What do you do to make tracking your ads tough on your clients? How can you make it easier for them and more effective for yourself? Clients love questions like "How can you make this easier on me" and they reward you with more of their dollars.

Funny is ok, but easy is profitable.

Getting Clients and Prospects To Return Your Call

I’m always on the lookout for unique opportunities to be able to get through to a client or leave a unique message, Hollywood Is Calling is one way to get through. They have a celebrity, (typically older and not hot right now) call and leave a 30 second message with your client (or anyone else). If you’ve been trying to get through and can’t, it might be worth the $19.95 to have Lou Ferrigno, Lorenzo Lamas or the Barbie Twins call and see if they have better luck. You can personalize your message for $10.00 more, but it has to be brief and to the point.

I typically only use programs like this when the person just won't return a call or when I want to surpise them when they are thinking about making a decision.

Marketing, Marketing, Marketing. Oh! And Implementation As A Business Growth Tool

I’ve been a little slow in posting the last couple of weeks as I’ve been on the road speaking; First at the premier Jay Conrad Levinson (Guerrilla Marketing books author) and Chet Holmes Guerilla Meets Karate Master II event (You may know Chet from his work with Jay Abraham). Then it was on to Portland, OR and Seattle, WA to speak for WeHoP, a major broker in the nursery and horticulture industry. I learned A TON about nurseries and flowers and plants . . . and was able to realize just HOW GLAD I was that my wife hadn’t accompanied me on this trip or I’d still be planting rather than writing.

But now I’m back and have a lot of new information to share with you over the next few days.

While I was speaking at the Guerrilla Meets Karate Master II event, I got to hear Alex Mandossian speak again and he shared some great technology that I believe every business who is selling anything on the web should be using.

The first is the Ask Database. The Ask Database allows you to deeply survey customers whenever you want on your page but most specifically when they are leaving. Alex demonstrated how by using this simple and in expensive tool (under $30 a month) you can increase conversion rates and KNOW exactly what your clients want to buy. I highly suggest you check it ou.

The second technology is the Audio Generator technology. It is a simple technology that allows you to add the recorded voice to your website in just a few seconds. This adds the intrusiveness that radio enjoys directly to your website. You can give visitors directions, tell them what to do, sell to them, tell them your story and send audio postcards that virtually anyone who can receive email can listen to. Imagine being able to have a one on one conversation with your client, them listening with rapt attention to every word you have to say without interrupting you. This is truly great. You’ll see it on the Bold Approach website VERY soon.

It isn't that I wasn't already familiar with both technologies but I'd never heard such a clear example of how to use them that made sense to me. I urge you to see if these technologies could make you more profitable.

In parting, the other thing that I learned while speaking at the seminar was what a difficult time small business owners have with implementation of ideas that will grow their business. It is so overwhelming that most of the businesses in the audiences that I spoke to had in many cases stopped trying and were just focused on what they were currently doing . . . and they were not growing, in some cases they were losing share.

I’ll be discussing implementation more in the coming days.

Will Pay Per Call Be The End Of Pay Per Click And The Yellow Pages

I don’t think so but I do think that it may be the ultimate easy way of determining effectiveness for small and mid-sized businesses. Ultimately for most small businesses tracking is very unscientific. They run an ad, people come in and buy things or they don’t. If they do come in and buy the ad is effective, if they don’t it isn’t. Not really a good system but literally billions of dollars of small business advertising decisions are made this way.

The reason (among many) that is a very poor process of determining ad effectiveness as it doesn’t take into account the number of leads you are generating or look at where the system may be broken. It also never accurately determines where people actually heard about the business unless it is the very first ad you’ve ever run for your new business. The experience someone has with your receptionist, your salesperson or even your phone system may ultimately determine whether or not they do business with you and has nothing at all to do with the effectiveness of the advertising medium.

Ingenio has developed a very unique spin on pay per click, it is pay per call. When searching for local products or services your are directed to a number than instantly transfers you seamlessly through their system to the vendor. Very targeted traffic that you can measure.

While I think this holds tremendous potential for people who don't have websites but do want to take advantage of websearches for product categories, the challenge that remains is that people want information before calling in many cases and that has been the traditional value of pay per click combined with a website.

This could be trouble for traditional yellow pages though.