A Couple Of Advertising Tools… that can make you money

I recently heard a copy writer make a presentation where he shared some of the tools he used to create compelling ad copy. The material was not original, which he clearly stated. Many of the tactics I had learned, used, and even forgotten years ago, but the review was just what I needed.

First, let me share my opinion in relationship to ad copy and copywriters. Copy is KING. Great copy sells. It doesn’t make any difference what media you use-- newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, direct mail, newsletters, emails, signature lines, or billboards. Copy is the one common denominator that flows through every media. I know you are probably saying but what about graphics, what about the picture that says 1000 words? Yes, graphics are important, but give me an ad with great copy and weak graphics and you can have a killer ad. Rarely will just a great picture work alone. Besides who needs a 1000 words when 3 or 4 will do just fine?

Taste great, Less Filing ---Those 4 words worked pretty well for Miller Beer. We try harder put a struggling car rental company on the map. My all time favorite bit of copy is from Hallmark Cards, When you care enough to send the very best. They are selling paper and ink but the right words can build kingdoms.

As for the copywriters, they are worth their weight in gold. I believe the copywriter should be one of the highest paid people you employ. They can demand exorbitant fees because they can generate measurable results and can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. They can make the mundane memorable but how do they do what they do? Do you have to be born with this skill or is it something we can all master?

There is no doubt that great copywriters are gifted but just like great buyers, they have accumulated experiences of what works and what doesn’t work—what words pull better than others and they are constantly testing. They might jump on a hunch that they think will work but then it gets pretty scientific. They test, test, test, and test some more. They will do split runs which means they will test two different headlines to see which one pulls better. Personal favorites must perform here.

They also employ methods that help them develop powerful copy that I want to share. These are referred to as the Three W’s and the FOUR U’s.

First, Three W’s:
Answer these questions before you write a word:

My product or service is the ONLY ONE that___________________
(WHAT do you or your product do that is so different from the competition?)

for _______________________________
(For whom is this product or service designed and who would receive the greatest benefit?)

by ___________________________________
(How is it going to do that?)

Example: My store sells unique home décor accent pieces for people who are tired of the same old thing. We travel the markets of the world to find merchandise that you won’t see anywhere else. Obviously this needs to be worked and words needs to be eliminated but it’s a starting point. Try it.

FOUR U’s. This is a simple test for any headline or copy you ever write. You grade your copy from 1 to 4 in these categories:

1. Urgent- How urgent is the message and is it something where I need to take action right away? Is it is a headline that the reader can say “I’ll do that later” and then it will never happen?

1. [ ] 2. [ ] 3. [ ] 4. [ ]

2. Unique- How unique is it really? Is it something that you can find or buy in many places? What makes it so different?

1. [ ] 2. [ ] 3. [ ] 4. [ ]

3. Ultra Specific- Does the copy have enough information to be understandable and enough to make a decision? The more specific the ad is, the better it will pull.

1. [ ] 2. [ ] 3. [ ] 4. [ ]

4. Useful – How useful is the product and why?

1. [ ] 2. [ ] 3. [ ] 4. [ ]

The goal is to receive 4’s in each of these categories.

Are these tools foolproof? NO, but they will get us thinking about the way our customers think and when we think that way we are on the road to writing copy that really works. I hope this helps.

EXPERIENCE, EXPERIENCE, EXPERIENCE

That’s all I hear or read about--the “shopping experience”. Every company wants to increase the shopping experience with lighting, music, display, layouts, and the speed of service. The other day I was shopping with my wife at Pottery Barn, which I love. The store is just beautiful. The merchandise has the right look, displayed perfectly, and it is even priced fairly. The store just put us in a buying mood and every display quietly shouted out, “BUY ME. Take me home with you”. This is retailing nirvana for the visual merchandiser. What could break that wonderful mood?

It was the employee who approached us wearing her Buck Rogers headset ready to serve us in any way she could with back up support on the line waiting for whatever question we could possibly ever have. With the state of the art communicator attached to her head, she had the ability of being able to say “Price Check Register One” quietly.

I suppose it does increase the level of service. (And it definitely increases the visits to The Ear-Nose-and Throat Doctors for all those poor unfortunate folks who have to be connected all day. I just can’t imagine wearing a headset for that period of time!) But I found out the reason why they are really used. It increases the pool of people that you can hire to work in your store. You don’t need to hire anyone who knows anything-- just a person who can listen to a question from a customer, repeat it word for word, then listen to the answer, and repeat that answer word for word to the customer.

That was the problem. I would ask a question, then she repeated it into the headset, heard an answer and then gave me the answer, which was not always repeated exactly. Sometimes she would miss a word or two. I felt like I was being waited on by the speaker system at Jack In The Box. Are robots far behind?

The other problem is that this sales associate brought nothing to the transaction other than data. That might work if I were the analytical type, but shopping to me is a social experience. If I wanted service like that I will buy online, which we actually ended up doing.

Every independent small merchant should run out and buy a bottle of champagne. Celebrate because having a smile, an engaging personality, some common sense, and knowing about what you are selling is still and will always be the Giant Slayer. Rejoice! Retail is a people business and if you give me an emotional experience created through relationship building, I’ll take that type of shopping experience to the bank. I will even forgive a poor layout, a weak display, and even less than perfect lighting for the sales person who knows my name, anticipates what I want to buy, and reminds me when I should shop.

Writer’s Note: I will continue to shop at Pottery Barn, and no, this experience is NOT a typical Pottery Barn occurrence. But I just couldn’t help sharing my “Jack in The Box” Service encounter. Let it be a warning that we should never forget our roots of people selling to people or the slogan of Jordan’s Furniture (one of the top furniture stores in America)—“We make people happy everyday”.

To Advertise or Not to Advertise…That is the Question

I received an interesting email and call from Sandy Brown, the Executive Director of The New England Jewelers Association. She was concerned about her retailers that have taken the attitude that business is slow and that they don’t want to spend any money to advertise or promote their businesses until the holiday season when there are customers out there that want to spend. Sandy asked, “What should I say to them to get them to do something before they start losing their businesses?”

Sandy is of the belief that out of sight is out of mind. I couldn’t agree with her more but there are many people who believe you only advertise when there is business to capture. Another way to justify that position is the budget approach. Spend 4% (or whatever number makes sense to you) of your sales on advertising consistently, which means if you project to do $40,000 in sales in a month you spend 4% or $1,600. If your sales for a month increase to $100,000 then you spend $4,000. As one retailer put it, you cook the meal when the oven is hot.
Many retailers believe that even if customers don’t buy from you, at least you shared your message when the prospective customer was most interested in listening to it. Fertile ears would be one way of putting it or why talk about something when people are tuned out?. But are they really tuned out? There is no sense of urgency to purchase immediately but people only get tuned off when the message is inappropriate or uninteresting.

The one phenomenon I have observed over the last 34 years as a retailer and the last 15 years of someone who evaluates retailers is that the best stores build their businesses not on Price-Item Advertising but more on solid brand building image advertising. PLEASE don’t think I am against Sale Ads or Price Promotions. Absolutely NOT. They serve a purpose but they are the quick fix and can get immediate results. However they rarely build a brand or create the long-term effect we want.

There must be a mix of advertising. I built my successful woman’s specialty store with one small institutional ad that I ran in varies forms for over 22 years. The headline of the ad said it all, “Mother’s Are Our Specialty”. In 4 words it said who we were and what the customer could expect to find. We specialized in Mother of the Bride or Groom dresses. (I know it’s not glamorous, but find a niche and you’ll get rich.) We would run a small space version of that ad throughout the year. That did more for us than any of the thousands of price or sale ads I ever did.

Remember 3 things:

1. Word of mouth advertising is what builds businesses. We want our customers to be able to say, “I’ve heard of that store”, not really knowing from whom and from where they heard it. Out of sight out of mind.

2. Who ever said that you have to promote your business by spending lots of money? It just isn’t so. There is a whole world of little to no cost ways to promote your business to keep your name in front of a customer. From creating a Blog (100% free) to a press release about something happening in your industry or town, celebrating a celebrity’s birthday (by the way, Martha Steward’s birthday is August 3rd which is great for all the home décor and craft stores) to sponsoring events that cost little and are fun.

3. Lastly, always remember one thought that motivated me every year I was in the retail business and that is, THERE IS ALWAYS SOMEONE DOING BUSINESS. My job was to find out what they did and adapt it to my business. The frustrating part was that the stores with the strongest business didn’t seem to be doing anything different. They just built their businesses by always keeping their name in front of their customer throughout the year.

Thanks Sandy. I think we all needed that.

The Objection

In last week’s column, I discussed how it isn’t one thing that makes the many little things that create a successful business. It’s not the one promotion-- it’s a series of promotions that create increases. Even one successful event has multiple components.

That made perfect sense to me and to many of my readers who wrote in to comment on the piece. Actually I only received one negative comment that was so powerful that I had to respond to it in the form of this article. The negative comment was from my son. My son is an extremely successful executive with Fidelity Financial. He makes million dollar decisions daily and never ever discusses them. He knows what makes companies successful and is also one of the most ethical people I know. He believes in maintaining the highest levels of integrity. I would like to think it is because he is my son but that is the type of company Fidelity is. (No, I am not drumming up business for him because he is not a broker and has very little customer contact.)

Moving on--enough bragging about my son who crucified me for the article. His complaint wasn’t technically about my position that there are usually many elements to success. He actually agreed with that premise. His objection concerned my advertising claim about the public workshop that I am having in Atlanta on the 13th of July that was positioned right beside the article. The advertising said it would be a life changing experience for the people who attend and that I will guarantee to increases their sales and bottom line. He said that I was contradicting myself because no one thing makes for the success of a business. He said that I just told people there are no silver bullets and then I offered my silver bullet… how can that be?

He asked, “How can that really happen?” I didn’t back down at all because I said we are really talking about the same thing. (The genius didn’t get it.) If you need multiple things to make a business successful, you need multiple ideas to keep on fueling the fires. I explained that many retailers don’t understand what it takes to be profitable. Many don’t know how much to buy and when I show them the simple ways to do it, changes happen immediately.

When you can share award winning promotions that people can adopt or adapt, they see increases. When I share the techniques to deal and negotiate with vendors, stores can be become profitable instantly. Just sharing how to use and not use consignment merchandise can turn a business around in seconds. (And it has!) When I share my secrets on retail selling, sales will increase instantly. When I can stretch the mind of a retailer, that mind never returns to its original size.

I told him it takes many things to make a business successful and there is no way any one person can know everything. But they must be on a quest for that knowledge. I spend every minute of my professional life working on ways to improve stores--from how to effectively and cost effectively use the internet to the effect that proper signage has on a business.

So I am not contradicting myself. I believe that I am actually forwarding my position. It just happens to be wrapped up in a one day event that does change lives and businesses. No, this isn’t just a plug for my workshop on July 13th but I am proud of what I do and the people and businesses I have been able to help. But that’s not the point. The point is constant and continuing education is important for the survival of every business person. Attend classes—workshops -- broaden your mind and come up with the ideas that will help you create your successful business. If you just learn one idea at every seminar you attend, the expense of time and money is well worth it. Even if you hear a speaker with whom you disagree, that’s just as good because it strengthens who you are and who you are NOT.

As for my son, I am waiting for his comments. He hates to lose.