David Young | Branding Blog - Marketing Advice and Advertising Strategy for Local Business Owners

Prosound: On-Hold Messaging for Smart Business Owners

2010-02-08T08:58:54-07:00

We launched a new client web site last week for ProsoundUSA.com, a company that specializes in improving the phone experience of your customers. Instead of just providing "on-hold messages" and those automated attendant systems that we've all come to hate, ProsoundUSA owner Chester Hull makes it his business to learn about yours BEFORE attempting to tell you what your message should be.

In fact, he takes it one step further and will evaluate how your living, breathing, real-life staff is doing on the phones. His phone evaluation service costs just $149 and if it saves just one sale, would be worth it to most businesses. Followups include not only his message writing and production, but customized phone etiquette training for your staff.

I don't normally gush like this about clients, but Chester is a kindred soul to those of us who believe that building a brand is more than just a cool logo and a funny ad. Chester knows that a brand is built only at that place where the customer's world intersects with the business's world. The phones are often the very first point of contact.

If delivering an outstanding experience to your callers is important to your business, Prosound is your first stop. Take a listen to his on-hold message samples and you'll understand how he's different. And, be sure to subscribe to Chester's on-hold marketing blog, he's got a lot to say about your phones.

About the web site...

Chester hired Wizard of Ads Partner Paul Boomer and I to re-design his old site from the ground up using our Persona-based approach. As Chester will tell you, the effort of putting up a site using this methodology is about 80% under water.

That is, we spent a great deal of time getting to understand Prosound's customers and their motivations...what points of information are important to them and in what order. Only after we understood his business, could we begin to map out pages, sketch out designs and get to the point where most web developers begin their process.

Kinda sounds like the same approach Chester takes, huh?

Here's the "after" shot of Chester's site:

And...here's what it looked like before:

Ok...let's roll the credits:

Persona based web architecture...Dave Young
Graphic design...Paul Boomer
Copywriting...Dave Young, Paul Boomer and Chester Hull
CMS platform...Wordpress MU installation by OM4

Car & Driver on the Toyota Recall

2010-02-04T23:17:40-07:00

There's a great editorial in Car & Driver on the Toyota Recall. I love the headline:

Scandal, Media Circus, and Stupid Drivers

Mike Dushane takes on the screaming media, including a jab at 60 Minutes for their coverage of a similar situation with Audi in 1986.

He also opens with a great piece of advice on personally dealing with the situation if it arises:

First, What to Do if Your Car (Not Just a Toyota) Starts to Accelerate Uncontrollably
If your car starts accelerating unexpectedly, hit the brake (it's the one to the left of the gas) and shift into neutral. After you do this, the engine may race loudly but the car won't accelerate. Pull off the road, brake to a stop, shift to park, and shut off the car. This is a simple solution we guarantee will save your life in any car that suffers from unintended acceleration. For more, read our story “How To Deal With Unintended Acceleration,” which is based on our own instrumented testing.

While he offers a more rational look at the numbers and the likelihood of this happening to you, he gives a scathing look at the Toyota's product line over the years and the motivation of the majority of purchasers.

Toyota has earned a reputation in this country over the past 30 years as a maker of utterly dull and utterly reliable transportation appliances. Readers of Consumer Reports and their friends buy them by the millions. But with the notable exception of the Prius (which now is facing its own recall fiasco), Toyota hasn't produced many interesting or exciting products.

It's worth your time to read the entire piece.

Web + Radio = Good Brand Strategy

2010-01-28T12:17:29-07:00

For a local business, optimizing a web site to compete against your local, regional, national and international competitors can seem a bit daunting, to say the least.

Wouldn't it be great if your most valuable web traffic arrived at your site because they were looking for YOU and not your category? Trust me, it's great.

In your town, your name is your brand. It is built on only two variables:

Your reputation in the marketplace (built up by direct customer experience), and to a far lesser extent the anticipation of that experience that you PROMISED by your advertising.

Those who think that a brand is built solely on advertising and marketing are fools. In fact, the quickest way to go out of business is to promise a lot and then deliver a lousy experience. Your reputation will tank and your advertising will accelerate this process by getting even more people to try you. All of these people will be happy to tell others how bad you are.

If your advertising does a good job of creating enough interest, people will seek you out when they need or want your product or service. They are no longer doing this in a dead-tree phone book. They are doing it on line.

A new study released by the Radio Advertising Bureau has confirmed what I've been telling my clients for years; your best prospects will be those who search for you by name.

Simon Redican, managing director at the Radio Advertising Bureau, said: "The internet has become an incredibly important interface for customer marketing but the problem is that it also allows access to all your rival's brands which means the key challenge is to ensure that customers seek out your brand specifically - marketers are increasingly turning to offline media to direct consumers to their brands online."
The radio ads drove on average 34% of the total brand browsing for an average of 10% of the media budget which the research said means the radio spend was on average four times more effective.
Barber said the findings are highly significant for brands where the internet "provides the crucial final stage" of customer buying and radio advertising offers these brands the chance to "turbo charge" the marketing process.

Most of the Search Engine Optimization strategies have you believing that the only way to win is to dominate the keyword phrases of your industry or category. This is amazingly expensive for a small local business. And, the fight is never over because everyone is going after the same phrases.

On the other hand, moving your money out of print and yellow pages and into local radio, coupled with a convincing web site that is easily found on a search for your name offers a more lasting solution in the quest to establish your local brand.

How does this work out in real life? I just got off the phone with a retail client of mine who has been using this strategy for about 6 years. In his informal check of his competitors, most of their December sales were down as much as 20% over 2008. Anyone who did as well in 2009 as 2008 is very pleased. My client had an 11% increase in his December gross sales along with an 18% gain in gross profit, meaning he didn't give away the store to make the sales numbers. We are very pleased.

WonderBranding: Michele Miller's Marketing to Women blog praised by Forbes!

2010-01-25T22:02:57-07:00

Just a quick note to congratulate marketing to women expert Michele Miller for being named to Forbe.com's list of the 20 Best Marketing and Social Media Blogs by Women.

You should also check out a few of her way cool marketing to women videos. Be sure to watch the "meet Michele Miller" video. (It's a cool production from our friends at SunPop, the online video introduction guys.)

Kia: Telling The Truth in a More Powerful Way

2010-01-24T21:50:03-07:00

"Our story began with a bicycle, back in 1951."

It's the opening line of a Kia ad that has been airing the past few months. I like the ad. It makes you feel good. I like the Kia models that I've driven. My wife likes the ad. She suggested that I write about it. It works at making you feel good about Kia.

The ad opens with a kid from the past. This helps us suspend disbelief when the announcer gets to the part about Kia. We're quickly ready for more because we've been instantly transported back to Mayberry. We're ready to feel good! When they tell us about the new Kia plant in Georgia, it all makes sense to us and we feel good about that too.

The interesting/curious part: there are elements of the ad that just don't add up.

True: Kia has opened their first U.S. manufacturing plant in West Point, Georgia.

True: This is a good thing for Georgia, and for the U.S.

Strange: That a kid who looks like he stepped off the set of Leave it to Beaver could be riding a bike that was manufactured in South Korea in 1951. He is later seen riding it in the Georgia factory.

Stranger still: By all accounts (Kia's web site and Wikipedia), Kia was started in 1944 in Seoul. Wikipedia says they manufactured bikes, but Kia's own site says bicycle parts.

Question: Why does the ad say 1951 instead of 1944? Why an American kid and not a Korean kid?

I get it. All Marketers are Liars Tell Stories.

The story is, "Kia is a successful company that has been around a long time. We used to only manufacture our products in Asia, but now we're manufacturing cars in the United States. We hope you will like this fact and buy more of our cars."

The inconvenient facts are that it simply wouldn't be effective to show a Korean kid playing with bicycle parts. 1944 was also right in the thick of World War II. 1951, not so much.

If viewers get the idea that those bikes were made in America, so be it.

And, if Kia can avoid tying itself to WWII, instead, to a time when we were allies, what's the harm?

Also...certainly, nobody is going to check the facts are they?

What do you think?

And...was that really a Kia bicycle in the ad?

Gravity Well: Are you giving your customers the opportunity to take baby steps?

2010-01-14T02:16:04-07:00

Do you have a gravity well mapped out for your business?

"What's a gravity well?"

I'm glad you asked. This is the time of year when everybody is writing about New Year's resolutions and taking all of those tiny steps towards making progress on your projects and building your business. Marketing to Women Expert, Michele Miller, does a good job of telling you how to use those baby steps for yourself. Roy H. Williams even talked about it in the rabbit hole of this week's Monday Morning Memo.

Yes, you can accomplish BIG things with small steps.

"What about the gravity well?"

I'm getting to it. Think of a big hole in the ground with a gradually sloping spiral staircase going down into it as it narrows to a point at the bottom. Your customer stands at the outer edge peering in.

Do you offer her an easy way to enter your gravity well, or do you expect her to dive straight to the bottom where she will enjoy a lifetime relationship with your business?

If she takes a couple of steps down the well, and she doesn't like it...well, she can still get out.

But, if you have no baby-steps, most of your potential customers will be quite hesitant to make the big leap.

What are some of the baby steps you can offer?

Samples
Risk-reversal, money back guarantees
Short engagements with no strings
Overnight test drives

It beats the heck out of a big "Buyer Beware" sign.

"What's your point?"

Here's the point...if tiny steps of accomplishment will bring about YOUR goal, offering tiny steps of engagement to your potential customers will help them bring about THEIR goal...which is to have their pressing problems solved...by YOU!

Describe your gravity well in the comments.

photo credit

Book Review...from me?...Look Both Ways

2010-01-06T06:29:00-07:00

I don't do many book reviews. Mainly because of press agents. As soon as you start talking about a book, they smell blood and a week later the Fedex truck arrives with stacks of books that you'll never read.

Today, I'm reviewing a book that I haven't read. I probably won't read it. Ever. (maybe I will).

But, I love it.

I like to open it up and get a whiff of some smart design. When I open this book at random, I'm knocked over by Debbie Millman's incredible use of some very cool hand-made design elements that totally align with the words she chooses for each chapter. I'm not so sure that "chapter" is the right word. The book reads more like a portfolio.

It's a great way to kick-start the right hemisphere of your brain. Open at random. Enjoy.

The book is called "Look Both Ways - Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design" by Debbie Millman. If you want a real review...go look at what they said on The New Yorker's Book Bench. Those people know how to write reviews.

Focus Your Share of Mind

2010-01-05T10:19:03-07:00

Share of Voice is a local business' percentage of all the advertising done in her market for her category.

Here's an overly simplistic example: Jane owns a kitchen design company in a town where there are 4 other kitchen design companies. Each of them runs a weekly newspaper ad, 10 weekly cable TV ads and 10 weekly radio ads. That's 21 ads each for a total of 105 advertisements in the market for kitchen design. Each owner has a 20% Share of Voice.

Share of Mind is the percentage of all the people exposed to those ads who think of Jane first and feel best about her when the decision to remodel a kitchen comes to mind.

Let's make another simplistic assumption: All of their ads say just about the same thing in the same manner. They look and sound like average ads.

With these assumptions, you could make the case that NONE of these businesses will be getting much increased business from their advertising efforts.

WHAT IF Jane were to FOCUS her ads on one media? Let's say she decided to take her entire budget and run 20 ads per week on a single cable channel, only focusing on remodel shows in the evening hours. Even if her ads remained average, the frequency and repetition she would achieve with the fans of the remodel shows would make a difference in her sales.

When these people finally decided to shut off the TV and get busy in their kitchen, Jane would be the first phone call because she'd be the first business they think of and feel confidence in…simply because of the repetition.

Quit trying to "reach" your way to advertising success. Start putting your money into some smart frequency and it won't be very long until your focused Share of Mind begins to pay off!

Share of Voice x Impact Quotient = Share of Mind

That's the first sub-formula in the Advertising Performance Equation. If you want to learn more about the rest of the equation, just sign up for my email list. You'll be the first to know about an exclusive learning opportunity!

Smart Outdoor Ad

2009-12-31T09:39:30-07:00

In London's Piccadilly Circus, McDonalds' ad agency has created an LED sign that actually gets engagement from many of the 34 million people who pass by each year.

The sign is located so that you can pose in front of it and get a funny picture of yourself.

This is a great way for them to make sure their sign stands out and gets attention amidst the noise and clutter of such a busy place.

Check it out at Ads of The World.

What do you think? How else could you get people involved in your ads? Do you think this ad is effective for McDonald's?

Create a Company Culture...Start Now!

2009-12-30T09:31:16-07:00

I'm not big on year-end resolutions, big plans and the like. But, I have to share a post from my friend Rich Christiansen.

I've written about Rich before. He wrote "Bootstrap Business" and is an SEO and Adwords expert.

In his latest post on the Bootstrap blog, Rich talks about his relationship with Ray Noorda, founder of Novell. It's a cool story about how one man formed a strong company culture by his own leadership through story, connection and love.

This is a list of qualities that Rich took away from Noorda's funeral...

Believe and trust in people.
We all have a responsibility in life. Be faithful to it.
Customers first, employees second, shareholders third.
Be unassuming.
Listen, especially with your heart.
Practice integrity.
Be loyal.
Be true to your own core beliefs, but recognize the need to compromise within parameters that don’t violate those beliefs.
Respect the individual, not the title.
Marriage is ordained of God, and is your first priority in life.
Practice fiscal responsibility.
Take care of your health.
Willingly forgive others’ mistakes and shortcomings.
Retain your dignity, no matter the circumstances.
Give something back.

Be sure to go read the entire story on the Bootstrap Business Blog.

Have a Happy New Year!