When you advertise a product, you create awareness (or, in other more smarty-pants-marketer words: exposures or impressions).  You get the word out.  Most importantly, you educate (and if you aren’t educating your market in your ads, you should stop advertising immediately and just start throwing $100 bills out your store window…it may be more effective).  You create a small message and show it off in a variety of mass communication media outlets.  Advertising is basically just a small (necessary) part of your overall marketing plan.

Marketing, however, is much more complex.  It’s everything about your product and it’s distribution–it is what you named your business, how you came up with your product, where you have your products manufactured, what your store looks like, where your store is located, how much your product sells for, where it is sold, how you promote it, where you advertise, what you advertise, what makes it different, what makes it special, how much does it cost, how is it packaged, and what is the overall feel of your product?  (It’s everything, basically.) Is it fun, family-friendly, quirky, practical, unusual, etc?  Is it competitively priced?  Is it attractive or eye-catching while on display?  How can it be pitched to the consumer in order to entice them to want to buy it?  ….And here’s where advertising comes in….  It’s then followed by product improvements, larger distribution channels, accessories and other complementary product ideas.  A shrewd marketer comes up with a solid idea, packages it in the most attractive way, and creates a reason for people to want to buy it.  A shrewd advertiser just creates the most clear message about the product and gets it in the right place.

Please, for the love, stop confusing the two.

Well, who could have seen this coming??

Me.  And so, this spectacularly-awful idea deserves our first awarding of the Botched Experiment.

Dear Mr. Andersen:  Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”  They don’t like it so much, you know.

Today’s Lesson:  you can’t lie to your customers.  You can talk yourself up.  You can add all the bells and whistles.  You can overuse your positive testimonials.  You can even give ‘em the hard sell.  But you can’t lie.  It’s wrong, uncool, and horrendous.

(Sidenote: Also Horrendous–no charities benefited here.  No $100,000 donation from the team or its owner…Lame.

Just one problem.  You don’t shop at your women’s shoe store.  You are a guy, remember?

Your ads should be on TLC, Lifetime, and the Food Network, so your customers (women!) will actually see your commercials.  If you never see them, that’s ok…because YOU DON’T SHOP AT YOUR STORE!

It’s time to touch on the mistakes—or the “botched experiments” as we like to call them.  Mistake #1: Get out of your own head.  It is irrelevant what you watch on TV, listen to on the radio, read (or don’t)…you aren’t your target market.  Take a moment and consider who would want or need your product/service.  What are they like?  Where do they live?  How old are they?  Where do they spend their time?  That’s where you want to be.
Selling hearing aids?  Don’t advertise on the radio.  Selling cutting-edge technology?  The newspaper is not the right place to market your product.  Do some research on your customers and then research each type of media…look for the common denominator.  Advertising for a place to sell used textbooks?  College newspapers are great for that.  Want to drive some traffic to your event?  Catch them on the drive home…via radio.

It’s not enough, however, to be in the right place.  You need the right content.  Think you are “the best dry cleaner in the state!”??  Or how about the “lowest prices in town!”  Or the fact that you have “the best food this side of the Mississippi!”  Guess what? Most people don’t care what you think…especially about yourself.  They want to know WHY you have the best food, prices, service, whatever.  What makes you different from every other dry cleaner/dentist/furniture store/repair shop/bistro/etc in town?  Sure, you believe that your customers want the best or the lowest or the fastest, but the truth is they aren’t going to take your word for it.  You have to show proof.  Do you have access to new or exclusive equipment?  Do you offer a product that no one else can provide?  Have you received awards, accolades, or testimonials?  Find what makes you different from your competition.  If you stand in the right place, you will stand out.

Two particular brands have done an exceptional job at literally manufacturing societal norms and generally accepted rules. We buy diamond engagement rings because it’s traditional, right?  Nah.  That was the genius concoction of De Beers and their ad agency.  Prior to the Depression, advertising for diamonds was considered vulgar.  However, in 1939, De Beers, motivated by a global surplus of diamonds, presented their “A Diamond is Forever” campaign, showing diamonds as the symbol of a long-lasting marriage (not to mention popular and worn by all the Hollywood starlets!).  By the end of WWII, it was the standard for engagements, and by 1965, 80% of couples were choosing to purchase diamond engagement rings.  Today, everyone thinks that the diamond engagement ring came first, not the slogan.

De Beers isn’t the only brilliant marketer.  Ipana toothpaste ads in the 1950s featured a cartoon character known as “Bucky Beaver”, who reminded us to “Visit the dentist every six months.”  Dentists today assert that there is no scientific basis for that claim (most people with good dental hygiene can go a year or more between visits).  We now completely believe that going to the dentist every six months is practical medical advice when really it was just a shrewd marketing campaign.

If you believe that branding is unimportant, that positioning is irrelevant, consider these marketing geniuses.  They came up with a slogan and forced it into our psyche in the most sly way possible, so sly that we didn’t even know it was there.  They didn’t stuff it down our throats or blanket the world with verbal vomit in the form of crappy print ads or annoying pitchmen.  They just stated their slogans and stayed consistent.  Want your idea to stick?  Rule #1: Be consistent.

YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

Most businesspeople are convinced that they can properly market themselves.  Marketing is a science and an art form…and it’s not something that comes naturally to everyone.  It’s also not easily taught (remember “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach”), but it can be understood through observation and experience.  I hated my marketing classes in college because they taught using phrases like “USP” (“Unique Selling Proposition”) and “The 4 P’s of Marketing” (Price, Place, Product, and Promotion).  No one in the real world uses these!  That’s not to say that “The 4 P’s” aren’t based in valid points, but spouting off marketing jargon doesn’t make you knowledgeable.  It just makes you sound like a regurgitated textbook.

Luckily, I’m here to fix that.  I’m going to teach you how to base your marketing and advertising plans on real logic, not textbook nonsense. And the first thing I’m going to teach you is that there is no magic bullet.  There is no perfect medium, fail-proof formula, or instant fame.  So stop trying to place your message in every other form of media, solely looking for the “One” that’s going to serve your every purpose.  Stop doing what others have done, assuming you will automatically have the same success.  Stop trying to be the next “You-Tube Sensation”…it only happens on accident.

Good marketing plans, however, are no accident.  Here, I will show you the good, the bad, and the horrendous, and I will teach you how to avoid the botched experiments and find the perfect formulas.  Read on…