Advice You Have to Pay Me For:
Brand Management As a rule, people don’t simply buy products for the ingredients in the box. They want to be participants in the experience that a brand promises them. It’s a pretty sure bet that very few people have purchased Rolex watches because they keep such good time. Is there anything truly special about the shade of blue-green in that towel on the K-mart shelf, or is it the Martha Stewart label? And anyone with a kid can tell you that they will howl like banshees to go to McDonalds and never touch their McNuggets. We buy products because we like the clubs they get us into.
What kind of club are you offering your customers?
Can you answer that? The marketplace can. Anyone who has seen one of your ads, has a friend who’s a customer, or who can simply recall your product’s name knows something about your brand. Are you in control of that impression? Did you consciously, rigorously, lovingly craft it? Is it an accurate reflection of what your company stands for?
You already have a brand. Is it the one you want, in the niche you want, fighting for the customers you want against the competition you want?
I can help you assess the brand you currently own and give you clear, executable steps to build it, change it, reinvent it or simply enhance it. My rates are affordable and my recommendations will be clear, concise and functional. Contact me and let’s talk.
Advertising Management Are you satisfied with the results your advertising is generating? How do you measure that success?
Do you have an advertising agency? Do they understand your brand, product and customers?
Are your advertising expenditures reasonable?
Are you comfortable with your investment and results in web, mobile and social media marketing?
Does your advertising speak to the right audience, with the right message?
Do you consider your advertising to be a necessary expense, an unnecessary expense, or an attractive investment?
Do you know what your advertising message will be next month? Next quarter? Next year?
Do you collect input on your advertising from your sales staff? Your distributors? Your customers? Do you collect it before the advertising is begun, while it’s being created, or after it has run?
Which people or departments in your company have to approve your advertising strategy? The completed ads? Your media plan?
Which single ad that your company has ever run was the most successful? Why?
Managing an advertising program—whether you’re a sole proprietor or a multi-national—is a very complex process with a great many opportunities for error, misjudgment, waste and surprise. I have helped scores of companies large and small to spend wisely, speak persuasively, and produce results with their advertising. I can help you as well. with
• Agency search and selection
• Strategy review and development
• Creative review
• Media review
• Research and testing
• Budget development
I’ll give you honest answers and straightforward recommendations for a reasonable fee. Contact me and let’s get started.
Advice You Don’t:
If you put any ad or commercial in front of the public—even if it’s the finest ad ever produced—a certain percentage of the audience won’t like it. They’ll be offended, confused, insulted, annoyed or just too slow to grasp its meaning. It’s inevitable. But the biggest mistake you can make is to try to minimize that percentage, because the only way to accomplish that is to make your advertising safer, blander, less arresting, and therefore, less effective. It’s better to offend ten percent of your audience than to bore all of them.
If you show an idea to people who work for you, and you ask them if they see anything wrong with it, they will. 100% of the time. Not because there’s actually anything wrong. Because you’re the boss and they want to please you.
The more people involved in making a decision, the less likely you’ll arrive at the best one.
Along the same lines, in any group decision-making process, the final outcome will usually be determined by the most negative voice in the room. The one guy who doesn’t like it will always win. So don’t invite him in the first place.
Having another idea isn’t the same as having a better idea.
No one cares about your state-of-the-art facility, your friendly staff, or your Tradition of Excellence. They only care about how your product will make them feel.
Stop fiddling with it. Stop testing it. Stop making just one more minor adjustment to it. Stop showing it to a few other people. Sign off. Launch it. Get it out there. If it fails, it won’t be because it needed a little more tweaking.
Your competition isn’t that other guy making the same widget you do. Your competition is complacency. It’s potential customers who are either too lazy, too disinterested, too comfortable or too distracted to notice you.
When you use ALL CAPS, it won’t make your copy more legible, more urgent or more compelling. It will just make it more annoying.
Your logo doesn’t have to “tell your story.” Look at Chevrolet’s logo. See a story there?
Using true quotation marks, true apostrophes and real em dashes is a mark of good taste and respect for the written word. Typing this
when you mean this
is like wearing brown socks with a blue suit. And just as easy to change.
While we’re on the subject, don’t underline words or double-space between sentences. Those are leftover from typewriter days. And that’s not an Underwood on your desk.