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Advertising
and/or Marketing
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I have always been amazed at how few people understand the
difference between Advertising and Marketing.
Simply put, you ADVERTISE to
people you DON’T KNOW. You MARKET
to people you DO KNOW. The rest of this Nugget is based on my over
33 years in the real estate business.
With that said, where should you put MOST of your money that you designate to increase/grow your
business? Before you answer, let me
explain.
Advertising is a “shotgun” approach to attracting business to
you. You spend whatever it takes to run
advertisements in the paper, on television, in magazines and on the radio that
target a very wide audience in hope that someone in that audience at that
particular time has a need for your product and/or service and you hit them
right at that moment. If you think by advertising to the general public they will
remember your name or how to get in touch with you, you are sorely mistaken and
probably wasting a great deal of money.
Marketing on the other hand involves contacting (marketing)
to the people who already know you.
Study after study has shown that the majority of new customers to almost
any business come from personal referrals made by people WHO ALREADY KNOW YOU AND MORE IMPORTANTLY TRUST YOU. Of all the people you know, your past customers
are the best source of new business unless of course you did not provide those
customers with first class service or a first class product. Word
of mouth is the BEST ADVERTISING/MARKETING!
Want proof? Look at
your own life and the last time you needed the name of someone to handle an
issue for you. That issue could be a new
roof, yard care, dental work, back surgery, the list is endless. You can do as people have done since the
beginning time and select someone by pure chance that you will get a reliable
resource or you can ask a friend or family member if they know of anyone who
could help you. Given the two options,
which one would you select? Hopefully
the personal referral but then that is just the way I think.
The purpose behind this Nugget was pure frustration that I
have been experiencing in the New Orleans area.
If you watch any television or drive down any street in the New Orleans
area, you can’t help but see advertisements for attorneys. During one commercial break I counted four
different attorneys advertising within the space of 2 minutes. The only other businesses that do this are
car dealers. More importantly I am shocked
at several of the attorney’s advertisements.
I have never seen commercials as dumb and insulting as these several
are. First lesson. If you are going to spend the kind of money it
takes to get your name out by using television advertisements to do it, BEFORE you air your first commercial,
you should get a group of independent potential buyers and have them review
your ad to ascertain its effectiveness and then weigh the cost versus the
effectiveness. This would be a two step
process whereby you first run your IDEA
or CONCEPT of what the commercial would
look like to get their okay. Then you
would run by the proposed actual video advertisement to get their
approval. Let’s be honest here. As much as you might think you are the EXPERT in all things relating to sales,
you are NOT! No one is.
Besides, times and beliefs change; are you changing with them? In one commercial the attorney appears to be
advertising jazz and local bars; not legal services. In another I have no idea what the ad is
selling, it certainly is NOT legal
services, it IS that bad. The problem with both of these ads and many
more is YES I remember the name of
the individual but would I ever select him or her to take care of my
business? Absolutely not! I could be
wrong in judging these ads. It is
possible they are in fact targeting the audience they wish to target but that
audience does NOT include me. So why would you intentionally disregard a
large segment of your source of potential customers?
A lot of national advertisers now use Rap Music to promote
their products. Dare I say it? At my age I can assure you that I do not like
rap music. Besides just not liking it, I
seriously object to some of the lyrics that a lot of rappers have used in their
songs. Maybe you feel differently maybe
not. Here is the deal. If you KNOW
that some people and I would think that it would actually be a LOT of people dislikes rap music, why
would you ever include rap music in your ads?
There are so many other types of music available to reach your targeted
audience.
Whether it is advertising or marketing you want the viewer of
your advertisement or marketing piece to first remember your name, then what
you do or sell and then how to contact you.
Finally you want YOUR
commercial to have shelf life meaning it stays with the potential buyer of your
product or service for a very long time.
For example, I can still see the little man in the row boat inside the
tank of my toilet – that’s shelf life!
Watch television but this time watch and judge the advertisements. How do they measure up to these four
requirements needed to be effective?
More importantly get someone you don’t know to look at YOUR advertising and marketing pieces
to see how THEY measure up.
Back to Advertising and Marketing accepting them to be
different from each other. You have seen
car commercials on television and in the newspaper. They are targeting thousands upon thousands
of people they do not know in hopes that some will have a need to buy a
car. I have bought a lot of cars over my
lifetime and I can tell you for a fact that NO ONE has ever called or written to see if I like my purchase or
ask if I know of anyone who would be in need of a new car. NO
ONE! The last car I purchased I was
more than pleased with the company and the salesman but two years into the
sale; no contact with them. To prove my
point, I don’t even remember the salesman’s name. Your satisfied customers are your best
resource for new customers and just maybe also be in the market for a new car
themselves.
Look at the real estate business. Real estate agents for as long as I can
remember have advertised their properties they have on the market for
sale. But only a few of the
advertisements emphasize why a potential buyer or more importantly seller
should absolutely want to do business with YOU! They simply show a photo of the listing and
include a small description of the property.
In fact, the descriptions are typically so small it is difficult for
people to read them.
In this age of electronics and social media, I would strongly
recommend incorporating your contact info BOLDLY
in all of your ads. But look at
them! The agent’s email address is so
small you can’t even read it. The easiest way BOLDLY include pertinent information into your ad is to create a
web address that no one would ever forget.
Remember, TV viewers and Radio listeners are interested in watching or
listening to THEIR shows not
remembering something they hear on the TV or radio as ads. Therefore if you
want them to remember your name, what you do, how to contact you and hopefully
be able to remember it for a long time to come, what are you going to do to
make that happen. Otherwise you are
probably just throwing your money away and then complain about the high cost of
doing business.
Again, look at your advertisements, how do they measure
up. Will people remember YOUR name, YOUR company name, YOUR
phone number and web address and finally will any of it be remembered very
long?
Here is my own story.
I had customer after customer tell me when they heard my name Jim Brown
that Jim Brown is an easy name to remember.
But in reality it was a very easy name to forget, not remember. On the spur of the moment at a real estate
convention when asked what name did I want to use on my name badge, I created
my own nickname – GYMBEAUX. It is a
Cajun spelling of JIMBO. From that point
on (it was the early 90s), I used Gymbeaux in everything I did. My web site was www.gymbeaux.com. My email is JimBrown@gymbeaux.com. It was unquestionably the best marketing idea
I had ever had. I still use the name and
people still remember it. In fact,
people remember Gymbeaux but are uncertain of my real name. That should tell you everything you need to
know about both advertising and marketing. But I also learned another lesson,
whatever you use, make it easy to spell and remember. Gymbeaux does not fit that requirement. Still, I am grateful that I used it.
Want more proof?
Answer these questions without thinking:
Name a real estate agent
Name a car salesman
Name an insurance salesman
Name a plumber
Name an attorney (one that you would actually want to use)
Get the idea? If you
can answer any of these questions, can you also remember their phone number
and/or web site address? Why would you WANT to remember them? You must give your potential and previous
customers REASON to WANT remember your name, what you do,
how to contact you and why they should remember you literally FOREVER! Are you doing that?
Final Lesson: Never
spend a dime on Advertising or Marketing without knowing if it has a chance of
being effective. HOPING someone will call your ads is NOT an effective strategy!
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