Some of What’s Old Will Hopefully Never Be New Again

My mother-in-law has officially never thrown anything away. Ever.

She is incredibly efficient, runs a tight ship and actually transmitted a “Coupon Clipping” gene to my wife that has occasionally made me go back home to retrieve a coupon worth slightly less than the gas it took to do so. In my family, we had the opposite gene, resulting in some highly efficient comments like, “Man, the air conditioner has put stalactites on the ceiling again. We better open a few windows!” But, I digress.

Anyway, at my mother-in-law’s house, you can find seriously old magazines, broken toys (anyone need half a G.I. Joe?), ashtrays that haven’t been used since Nixon and I think she’s saving burned out light bulbs just in case they come up with a cure. And she’s neat about it. I mean, this stuff isn’t like “Hoarders”; it’s, like, categorized.

But nothing compares to the treasure trove I just came across. This one photo pretty much says it all…

I came across a J. C. Penney’s catalog from 1977 containing hideosities I’ve either blanked out from having seen, or no one ever bought them, which might explain J. C. Penney’s current difficulties.

Every page of the catalog was a new fashion wonder of increasing horror. Please, fashion gods, do NOT ever let this come back in style. There were several of these “his ‘n’ her” outfits. To me, wearing this would’ve been an invitation to get Maced on sight. Any judge would vote in favor of the Macer.

“Maybe it’s the shirt talking, but those wing-sized lapels are giving me impure thoughts.”

And I am so digging on the dude’s windswept hair. She is looking at him like, “I may have hairspray envy, but your El Rancho shirt is making me forget about it.”

With any luck, the models went into witness protection and have had their identities erased.

Yet many contractors are not so lucky.

Dated Marketing Alert

We recently offered no-cost MPIs (Marketing Performance Indicators) to properly analyze the marketing programs of over 100 real-live, legitimate contractors. No need to bore you with what we do, but it’s basically like a marketing “physical.” We found MANY contractors with media allocations that were like 1977.

And these are good folks with good companies, but wondered why their clientele’s average age has continually risen while little “new blood” is filling in behind them, or why leads have fallen faster than Disco’s demise. Here’s Why…

1. Some are running Yellow Pages budgets approaching 30% of their total budget. (YP shoppers typically start at 55 years old.) Our current recommendations are under 14%, and dropping. Get smart with your allocations to extract maximum performance.
2. Nearly 20% of our MPIs showed contractors with an “unclaimed” Local Listing. This means neither your mother nor Madam Conzella the Psychic can find you online. Get your listing claimed. We can do it here or you can choose any agency you like. The point is to get it done.
3. Over 60% had no customer retention program. That is like seriously 1980s, and it means that their customers are very vulnerable to never getting a customer back from the 40% of contractors who had one! This type of marketing “shuts the door” on customer loss and can pile on new profit (by stemming attrition). Get a sample here.NOTE: Most of our clients have a Customer Retention program because we yell at them constantly, so the ‘real’ industry number is closer to 20%. Shocking.
4. Sadder still, a full 50% (also known among math wizards as “half”) are dependent upon manufacturers for co-opped ads. Fine to get co-op money, but a “dependence” on it and the ads sends a VERY mixed branding signal to your market. Be careful. And finally –
5. Though the individual ads weren’t quite as dated as the killer clothes in the photo, some were close. There were a LOT of “Institutional” looking ads, trying to appeal to everyone, with every product and service crammed into one ad. The current trend that works is message to market specificity. We’ve touted this for over 5 years in a row, with increasing results. “Match” your ads to your market and watch the leads increase.

So, dear contractors, take a look at your marketing and decide “who” it appeals to. If it’s not pulling in the leads, image or customer retention you want, it’s probably time for some adjustments.

Please, don’t let the 1977 J. C. Penney’s Catalog be your marketing model! Think of the shame it could bring your family… and your hairdresser.

- See more at: www.salesandmarketinginsider.com

Lights Turned Off, Viewers Tuned Out, Game Turned On

At the recent Super Bowl, someone apparently leaned against a rather huge OFF switch in the underbelly of the SuperDome. When they did, 108,000,000 television viewers saw the stadium lights go out. It is not known whether any of the 76,000 potentially over-served fans in the stadium actually noticed.

Advertisers don’t like it when millions of prospects grow bored and walk away from the television, especially when their $3.5M 30-second commercial hasn’t run yet. Darn the luck.

Marketing’s Inviolable Rule #1: Keep the audience. You cannot sell to an empty room, non-listeners, non-subscribers, or delete-happy index fingers.

This may “seem” obvious except that you’re paying for advertising seen by nobody. Exposed: A Minor Conspiracy, plus a surprisingly reliable money-making media...

Is this a marketing conspiracy?

Consider dozens of Yellow Page books stacked in an apartment hallway with no interested takers. Or on our lake house street, 4-5 newspapers in every recreational home’s driveway to drive the “delivery” numbers up. Or your banner ad that had a reported multi-thousand visitors… with not a single email or phone call to show for it.

How often are you spending money selling to an empty room? More than you think.

And today more than ever, viewers/readers/listeners have turned off… because they can. Tivo renders Television time-slotting useless. Pandora and subscription radio marginalizes radio air time. Spam and over-inundated inboxes makes your “free” email like raindrops pelting a roof.

The advertiser has lost control of the advertisee.

Your control, bought with your dollars, to touch your audience with your chosen message is what governs your marketing outcome.

See, in a “normal” circumstance, billion-dollar ad buyers would’ve had control of the Super Bowl audience. Heck, they’d be there for 3 hours or so, dying to see what Budweiser, Doritos and Dodge – the ad “winners” in order by the way – were going to come up with.

But no. Either the power bill on the Dome was overdue or a guy with a 32-ounce Hurricane (in the coveted $12 Souvenir Cup!) leans on the switch and ‘pfzzzzzt!’, no control.

A Brief but Meaningful “Lack of Control” Rant

The internet is everyone’s darling. Born of good vibes and lofty intention, it is the bastion of societal betterment (except that it is eating our brains, but that’s another matter).

You think your Local Listing is controllable? Guess again. I’m convinced that there is a room at Google just for insane math professors with severe short-term memory loss working toward an algorithmic apocalypse. And they don’t want converts.

You think your Social marketing is controllable? If Zuckerberg even thinks about creating more effective ad space, hordes of anti-selling but over-posting non-buyers begin designing a pyre-mounted stake just for him. Board meetings often discourage ticking off a billion people (though unless there is a rational business argument to keep them, I’m a bit stumped as to why not).

Oh, and those SEO analytics and Pay-Per-Click numbers you’re getting for your site? Too bad they aren’t currency, provable, real prospects, or even reachable for that matter. You spend a ton of time trying to “convert” numbers that are mythical at best.

Rant mostly ends here, but you get my point. Marketing to an empty room gets expensive.

Oh, to leave you with a media bright spot: The most enduring media stalwart – and one I continue to laud – is the lovably offline direct mail. Why? Three biggies right here:

1. Targetability (as in specificity of chosen audience),
2. Metering (choosing exactly how many), and
3. Timing (mailed when you say, not when the media tells you) make Direct Mail one thing most other media are not:

Controllable.

Right, I know. The Pony Express barely serves your town any more. This means less competition in the mailbox rendering each piece therein more valuable.

In a sea of confusing or nearly conspiratorial numbers, it is time for you to regain control. This starts with the fullest and most attentive room you’ve got – your customer list. Make it your marketing’s mission to maintain an active customer base first.

You want to lose control of your customers? Here’s how: Forget about them for 6 months and see what happens. (I’ll go ahead and blow the surprise: 11% of them will leave you due to your indifference. Multiply that number by your average sale and gulp hard.)

You want to lose control of your “warm” social site prospects? Sell to them like an over-caffeinated circus barker. That’ll do it. Oh, just thought of another: Tell complete strangers to “like” you on Facebook, as if that’s enough.  You almost had them, but then lost control.

Marketing today has changed. Power has shifted. It’s more of a dance of parity than it used to be. Prospect and prospector a little tenuous, semi-suspect of each other. Make a customer mad today and he takes control back, revealing your misstep for all online. Delight a customer and give them reason to share it, and you win new customers at no expense.

Take control of your audience to help control your outcome. Leave them to chance, and there’s a chance they’ll leave you.

During the Super Bowl black out, announcers did their best to keep the viewing audience engaged, but coming up with new ways to say, “Man it’s really dark!” grew old, and the audience evaporated. San Francisco gave their fans a reason to rally with a highly commendable effort. Yet for them and the second half advertisers, it was too little too late.