Wizard of Ads Clay Campbell

How Do I get the best Bang for my Marketing Buck?

My diving into the deep cool waters of search engine optimization and building and designing websites is one of the more fascinating and interesting things I’ve ever done.
I showed my first two clients their websites we just finished for them and they were both impressed & very pleased. I am sure that each of those websites will pay dividends over and over to the businesses.
They way I see it, a business owner needs to do several things right in order to survive and a great website is just one of them. A business must prosper, grow each year, and have good word of mouth going for them to last over the long haul.

Over the next weeks I'm posting many things that will give you more "Bang for Your Buck". Or I could call it " Making your business grow with a very small ad budget.

#1 First of all the business must have a product or service that people actually want and will come back again for. A great example would be: CPA, Dentist, Plumber a good restaurant, or a retail business that will keep customers returning again and again. There are many business models that are good. But I’ve seen hundreds of businesses go broke because they didn’t pick the right kind of business to start with or put it in the wrong location. Two main things that hurt a business: picking a poor business model and saying the wrong things about it. My partner Roy Williams says, “I’ve never seen a business fail because of reaching the wrong people… but I’ve many fail by saying the wrong things in their ads.”

#2 There should be something about the architecture of the building or that would be unique, generous, or different enough about the business, to cause a lady that leaves the business raving about it to her friends. Much has been written about word of mouth advertising. Read what good is "Word of Mouth Advertising"

#3 The business needs to create as many different ways of bringing in new customers as possible. A gravity well. Newspaper ads. Maybe. (If they can afford it.) Billboards though are your “best bang for your buck” as far as reaching the greatest number of people for the lowest dollar. The next best buy is radio. To buy newspaper ads in the 16 counties close to my business each week would cost would cost about $250,000 a year. However I can effectively reach over 60% of the population in this area for about $50,000… and reach them with 20 times a week 52 weeks a year on 5 different radio stations for that 50 grand. That’s over 6000 commercials! So buying media as smart, effectively and inexpensively as possible is crucial. You should have someone to negotiate the price for you…a professional media buyer can always get a better buy.

#4 The business needs a website. Not just a website. It needs to be well planned, with well-written copy, coming from an Uncovery and Strategy planning session. (Read the New York Times best seller: Waiting for you’re Cat to Bark?)

#5 Next the website needs search engine optimization. (Bringing it up in the search engines to the first page.) Better yet: the # 1 position. You can pay someone to do it, or you can learn it yourself. That’s what I did. It took a lot of time. I mean a LOT! But I know what to do now, and more important, what NOT to do. I’m teaching others and using it to help my own clients.

#5 The business owner needs a good writer for radio, newspaper ads, ad copy for website and your newsletters. Most business owners just aren’t very good at this unless they have taken a keen interest in it. One exception is my client: Bernard Lewis Jewelry. Download bernard_lewis_mixdown.mp3

More Later
Clay

Clay Campbell Wizard of Ads ltd
website-seo-wizard
Watch for Info coming on my new book-More Bang for Your Marketing Buck

How Small Businesses can get BIG Results for their small Ad Dollars.

How long should I run the same ad?

How often should you change your ad when running a schedule of 20 ads each week?

It has been the thinking for the past 15 years or so after much research by the Wizard of Ads and the running of many ad campaigns across the US that an ad should have a frequency of 3. That means a listener has “heard the message” after she has heard the ad 3 times within 7 nights sleep. We would then run that same schedule for 6- 7 weeks when doing a branding campaign. In this manner the consumer/listener would hear the same ad 18-21 times. Then the next ad in the campaign would begin. Most advertisers have begun at least one good campaign, but “chicken out” after 13-16 weeks. Because a good branding campaign to create top of mind awareness or TOMA, gets better and better the longer you run with it.. As in “we’ll leave the light on for ya” ( Motel Six ) and “Like a good neighbor State Farm is there. (Barry Manilow wrote that for State Farm 25 years ago.) However a branding doesn’t work so good if you expect instant results as in the case with most business owners today.
In Roy H. Williams Monday Morning Memo this week he is suggesting that our ads need to be changed a bit sooner now to satisfy today’s consumer. Be cause they “get it” quicker. But for 18 years I’ve been running branding and special event ads and I’ve always changed them sooner than 6-7 weeks.
I just had one of our car dealership clients say in our annual retreat meeting that he wanted to change his ads every two weeks instead of once a month. In the world we live in today I think that’s a terrific idea.
Here is Roy’s MMM.

How Often Should I Change My Ads?

About 15 years ago I concluded that medium-impact broadcast ads should be replaced only after the typical listener has heard it at least 12 times, and low impact ads should be replaced after achieving a frequency of 20. I arrived at these conclusions by carefully monitoring the results of radio campaigns of clients around the country.

But the times have changed, and so have you and I. It appears that the media filters we carry in our heads are like computers: they've been forced to get faster in order to keep up with all the demands our high-speed society puts on them.

My most current research clearly indicates that today's moderate-impact broadcast ad begins to show diminishing returns after achieving a frequency of only 8 to 10. Let the same listener hear a good ad 12 times or more and you'll see clearly diminished effectiveness after achieving a frequency of 8 to 10. It appears that our brains have learned to more quickly recognize what we've heard before, and to subconsciously tune it out.

Dang. This is means we've got to write 20 to 50 percent more ads in every 52-week campaign if we're going to keep our message at maximum effectiveness.

One thing that hasn't changed, though, is that we still have to hear a new ad 2 or 3 times before it begins to affect us, even when we're already familiar with the advertiser in question and have a positive opinion of them. What this means is that the first week of every new series of ads will continue to yield softer results than you can expect to see in weeks two and three.

Neurologically, all of this happens in the phonological loop, one of the 3 functions of Working Memory just forward of Heschl's Gyrus and Broca's area in the dorsolateral prefrontal association area of the left hemisphere of your brain. Broca's area is also known as Brodmann's area 44. And just interior to it is the Nucleus Accumbens, the pleasure center of the brain.

Okay, I'll admit it… I said all that just to impress you. I wonder why I do that. Do you figure perhaps I'm insecure about my lack of education? Or is it just that I like to show off? I should probably give that some thought.

Oh well. That's pretty much all I've got to say today.

Oh! One last thing: Wizard Academy is offering a Free, Public-Sampler Seminar on Saturday afternoon, August 19 in palatial Tuscan Hall. I'll be delivering a tantalizing series of multimedia previews and teasers about each of the new, upcoming courses at Wizard Academy. It's going to be lots of fun. We won't be starting until 2 in the afternoon, so you'll have plenty of time to fly into Austin on Saturday morning from wherever you happen to be. We'll keep going until probably 9 or 10 that night because we want you to see how magical the Wizard Academy campus becomes after dark. But don't worry, we're going to provide a nice evening meal for you. No charge. We know you'll be back to take some classes later. We just take the cost of it from our ad budget.

And that, my friend, is what you call "transparency."

I hope you approve.

Roy H. Williams

Back-to-Back: August 7 – Steve Clark's Free Intro to NewSchool Sales Trainer Certification followed on Aug. 8 by Dr. Richard D. Grant's Selling by Personality Type ($300.) in palatial Tuscan Hall, Austin, Texas.

Have you ever thought about what it will say on your tombstone?

Have you ever thought about what it will say on your tombstone?
Yesterday I was at the showing prior to the funeral of my accountability partner and good friend Kevin. His Dad had just passed away. He said he had no idea that so many people would come. His dad was 91 and had been married to the same woman for 63 years. He’d been a preacher for 39 years and people came from all over came to pay their respect. It was kinda like a celebration. He knew where he was going to spend eternity and so did his family.
It made me stop and think about what they might put on my tombstone when I die.
A line from my book Escape from Mediocrity says, “I’ve had at times what seemed to be a fortune. I’ve been broke, destitute, and stranded. All things considered, having money is better.”
However having money and acquiring “things” is not nearly as important as friendships, peace of mind, sleeping good at night without drugs, feeling great all day with out taking drugs or downing a six pack, having good health, having a faithful loving spouse, and having good relationships with your children and your siblings. That’s what really important.
I hope that at my showing and funeral it will be sort of a celebration. What kind of legacy did I leave? What memory will you leave behind?

What would I hope is put on my tombstone when the Lord says my time on earth is finished?
I hope it would read: He loved life and he lived it fully. He rode boxcars with hobos. In the summer of ’65, at age 15, he hitchhiked 3000 miles, from Missouri to California and back.
He made records in Nashville. Sang his songs on TV. Was interviewed by Ralph Emery. He had two failed marriages and a one successful one. One business that failed and many that had great success. Was audited by the IRS, taught Sunday School for years, told the story of Jesus to many, wrote his autobiography, and wrote an inspirational book as his testimony.
Clay Campbell was a learner and a get it done type of guy. He always had a list of things to do. He was a master showman and entertainer. He was a humorist, always laughing a having fun at whatever he did. He gave encouragement and inspiration to countless talented young performers. He was loved and admired by his family, fans, and friends. He and his wife Barbara raised three boys. He made a difference in their lives by passionately loving them and their mother. He knew where he was going to spend eternity and so did his family.
He will be missed.

I’d be very pleased to hear from you and what you’d hope would be put on your grave marker for the passers by to read.

More later.

Can you help me "Fix my Business"?

How do you “fix” the problem of a business not doing well?
Many times I have heard a business owner say, “ I really need to think and evaluate things because if we stay on this course we won’t make it.”
Or, “My business isn’t doing as well as it should what can I do to fix it?”
Or “My advertising just isn’t working like it should.”
Many business owners tell me “advertising is just too expensive.”
I say, “The most expensive advertising is advertising that does not work!”

Just like when you go to the doctor he/she asks a lot of questions; then an elimination process begins.
If the problem has to do with advertising and marketing, here are some questions I would ask you if your small business is not growing. Or if you say, “My advertising isn’t getting the results I’d like.”

Questions:
# 1. How big around is this pie? How many dollars will consumers spend in your product or service category this year? How many will you get? How many dollars are left?
# 2. How good is your message? Is your story being told as well as it could be? What is the Impact Quotient of your ads? (How good are your ads in comparison with your competition?)
#3. How are your ad dollars being spent? Are they leveraged for maximum impact or are you “spraying and praying?” (Pick a media and dominate that one)
#4. How good are your competitors at what they do?
#5. How good are you at what you do? If we randomly called 20 of your customers asking questions from our survey, would they rave about you? Are you walking the walk or just talking the talk?
#6 Are you trying to reach more people than your budget will allow? Would you rather reach 100 % of the people in your area and convince them 10% of the way, or reach 10% of the consumers in your market and convince 100% of the way. The cost of the advertising is the same.
A bigger problem than overspending on advertising is underspending. Not fully convincing the consumer 100% that you’re the best company to buy from, or that you will solve their problem, is like buying a cruise trip half way to Hawaii.
A more efficient use of ad dollars combined with more persuasive, compelling, salient messages based on a sound strategy equals a greater return on your investment.
I say to my clients, “You should spend your dollars more efficiently by designing a more effective media plan to reach more people, with greater repetition, with better messages.”
contact me at
claycampbel@wizardofads.com

Clay is a Wizard of Ads Marketing Consultant. Sign up for his Newsletter More Bang for your Marketing Buck: Big Results from a Small Ad Budget.
For more info on Clay go to www.claycampbell.biz