The Last Ad Works Best

A common misconception about most advertising is that it creates a need to buy in the customer’s mind. If you run a home improvement center in the real world, the need to buy arises because the customer’s garden hose burst this morning or a skunk dug up their lawn last night. Those events are what brought the customer into the market for a new hose or some insecticide. If they were exposed to your advertising just after those things happened, they are going to be very receptive to your message. Customers tend to respond to the last ad they saw or heard in the window of time after the need arose and just before they make their decision to purchase.

Since skunks don’t attack every lawn in your market the same week, not all customers know they need grub killer at exactly the same time. Some need it this week, some next week; some the week after. The week you’re not advertising, you miss the chance to influence the customers who have chosen to buy that week. Sure, there’s some residual effect from the advertising you did in the previous weeks, but the ad with the greatest impact is the one the customer heard most recently.

So, what does this mean for your advertising budget? Should you spend more? Can you spend less? The answer is a resounding “maybe.” The amount of spending isn’t the issue here. What’s most important is that you find a way to advertise as continuously as possible. Generally speaking, it’s preferable to spread a small budget over more weeks than to bunch it up for more exposure during a shorter period (commonly called flighting). Don’t spend your entire month’s budget on one full-page ad. Run one quarter-page ad every week for four weeks instead. Don’t run 300 radio spots in one week, then remain silent for the next five—schedule 50 spots each week for six weeks. Or even 25 per week for twelve weeks!

This is not to say that you need to advertise at a uniform level year ‘round.You should still vary the amount of exposure you buy according to the sales you expect to generate each period. Nor does this mean that you shouldn’t heavy-up for a weekend sale or other short-term promotion. What it does mean, though, is that one ad by itself doesn’t work. You need consistent repetition to make your advertising work the same way you need lots and lots of seeds to start a lawn.


Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Have Social Media Changed The Rules of Marketing?

I'm not so sure there are actually new rules for marketing and public relations as much as there is new technology to use to apply the old ones, but David Meerman Scott does an excellent job of telling you how to do it.  His advice to "target a specific audience," for example, is certainly not a new concept to marketing professionals. In fact, I spend a great deal of time on that subject in The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Marketing and Advertising. The way he applies the rule to social networking sites like LinkedIn, however, is definitely worth exploring.  The book is particularly useful when it comes to helping the technical novice understand such basic tools as RSS feeds and YouTube videos.  The author's insistence that the marketer build an online presence around useful, unobtrusive content is particularly appealing.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Stage Fright Is Your Friend

Do you suffer from stage fright? Good! You’ll be a more effective speaker if you do.

I’ve done thousands of sales presentations, speeches, seminars, and live radio and television appearances—and I get that little flutter in my stomach, sweat on the palms, and shortness of breath every time. I welcome them as signs that my energy level is going to be high—I want the extra energy that comes from an attack of stage fright.

Stage fright is your friend—all you have to do is control it. The first step is to recognize the symptoms as nothing more than a small rush of adrenaline. The next step is to make a conscious choice to focus your excess energy on the presentation you’re going to make.

To control the intensity of your stage fright symptoms before your presentation, take the physical edge off them by doing some simple isometric exercises. Press your palms together—hard—for thirty seconds. Grip the arms of your chair as hard as you can for another half minute. This will burn off some of that excess adrenaline in your system while leaving you the energy you need to convey enthusiasm.

Now take a couple of deep, long breaths, using your diaphragm to fill your lungs completely. Let each breath out slowly to a count of ten. This will steady your voice and make you ready for a powerful opening statement.

Your stage fright has now become a reservoir of energy that you can tap into when you need it. You’ll find that you’re better focused and your presentation will be much more dynamic. You’ve made stage fright your friend.

Public speaking isn’t everyone’s forte, but most gallery owners are like Theresa Abel, owner of The Artisan Gallery in Belleville, Wisconsin who says, “I love talking to people about the work if they’re really interested.” She suggests turning that skill into group presentations because, “It’s good for business because the more information and knowledge you give your customers, the more they appreciate it and the more they want to own a piece and take it home.”

Catherine Bert, owner of Bert Gallery in Providence, RI, takes it a step further: “People are very intimidated by the art world. They feel they are unprepared to experience the visual arts and this is breaking down those barriers. We introduce people in very non-threatening ways to the visual arts.” The result is good for everybody concerned. “They fall in love with what I have been in love with for many years: creative minds and looking at ideas and objects in the world from different artists’ perspectives.”

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Marketing Through The Psychology Of Persuasion

To understand why your marketing plans work or don't work, you need to look deep into what goes on in your customer's head. That's where this book takes you. It's a classic work on persuasion that will show you not only why behavior can be altered, but how to do it. The author, Robert Cialdini, is a professor of marketing at Arizona State as well as president of a consulting company specializing in ethical persuasion. Unlike my book on the subject, The Dynamic Manager's Guide to Marketing and Advertising (which draws heavily from the stories of business owners), some of the material here might be a little technical for the casual reader, but the serious business reader will find it worth the effort. Marketers, sales people, and managers of all stripes should take the time to understand the concepts in this substantive work.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Surprising Your Customers Online

If you want to go an extra step, you can really “wow” the customer by putting a picture of the results of your work for them on a calendar, coffee mug, t-shirt, or even a teddy bear. If you do home remodeling, painting, landscaping, pool installations, or anything else with a visual impact, a customer gift will be a real treat. Online services like Café Press (www.cafepress.com) will put your digital photo on a wide variety of merchandise for just a few dollars. There aren’t any setup charges and you can order a piece at a time, too. All it takes is a photo and a few minutes online.

While you’re cruising the web with marketing on your mind, look for websites, groups, or other online material your customer might find interesting. Then drop him or her an email with a link to the site you’ve found. If your customer is a Corvette owner, for example, send him a link to the nearest Corvette club’s website. Even if he already belongs, he’ll appreciate the fact that you were thinking of him. Just about every special interest group you can imagine is on the Internet someplace. It doesn’t have to be anything exotic, either. If you know your customer is into music, send her a link to an up-and-coming band’s MySpace site. It should go without saying that you need to know your customer to carry out this tactic.

The key factor is to make your surprise something with a personal connection to the individual customer. If your nursery sends a generic link to all the flower shows in your area to all your customers, that’s fine, but you’ve lost that personal touch that makes the surprise such a potent marketing tool. Never forget, you’re in the retail business, where you succeed by selling one customer at a time.

Speaking of websites, what’s on yours? It’s fine to have pages extolling the virtues of your experience, the value of your merchandise, and the expertise of your technicians, but you’re missing a bet if you don’t have a section devoted to your customers. For a mechanic, putting a picture of your customer’s car on the web is like taping their kid’s picture to the refrigerator door. It makes you both feel good. Just don’t post any identifying information about the customer on the web: a caption describing the car and perhaps the work you did on it is enough. And never, ever, post a picture of the customer’s kid on the Internet—with or without permission.

Once the picture is up, surprise him with the link in an email. These days, you don’t even have to pay for a website. The social networks like Facebook or MySpace, photo sharing sites like Flickr, Shutterfly, and Kodak.com or even blog services such as Google’s Blogger, are all free and can allow you to communicate with—and surprise—your customers online.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

A Management Autobiography - Delivering Happiness

An autobiography can indeed be a how-to book, especially if you're looking for more inspriation than nuts-and-bolts about how to run a company. Tony Hsieh's story about how he succeeded in the online world, building Zappos into a company that Amazon was willing to pay more than a billion dollars for, is certainly inspring. Unlike my book, The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Marketing and Advertising, however, Delivering Happiness is not a particularly instructive book about how to deliver customer satisfaction. I took it more as a print version of a corporate culture manual designed to let people know what it's like to work for the company. The writing is delightful, though, and the book makes for an entertaining read.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

What's a Lifetime Customer Worth?

Next time you’re thinking about the worth of a customer, consider a business like Sueann Blackwell’s automotive restyling shop in Merrillville, Indiana. At Merrillville Restyling, most customers are serial car owners. They don’t just trick out one set of wheels and live with it; they buy, sell, trade, and do it all over again and again. Do the math on the customer who gets a different car every couple of years. If the shop’s average job is $1,500 and the customer stays with them for twenty years, he’ll bring ten jobs—or $15,000—through the door. If the gross margin (before overhead expenses) is 40%, the shop owner will put $6,000 in the bank.

Plug in your company’s numbers and think about that the next time you’re tempted to brush off a newbie.

One temptation to resist is the urge to make the customers’ decisions for them. It’s easy to limit the number of options you show them in the interests of time or from the mistaken belief that you’re clarifying the issues for them. The problem, of course, is that later they may discover that you’ve done so and misunderstand your motivations. It’s fine to guide them in their decision-making, but don’t give them any reason to think you’ve shortchanged them.

Another thing to keep in mind with newbies is that praise goes a long way toward making them feel good about their decisions. Think about Little League for a minute. Which coach got the most out of his team, the one who screamed at you about errors or the one who applauded when you did something right? The same is true for a new customer. As they make each incremental decision that goes into drawing up the specs for their order, confirm each decision as a good one. They’ll feel better about themselves—and about doing business with you.

That’s the goal, of course, to make the neophyte customer so comfortable with your business that he’ll come back the next time he has an itch that needs to be scratched. Keep in mind that the second job will be easier to explain than the first one and the third one will be easier than the second, and so on. That makes the time and patience you spend on the newbie customer an investment, not an expense.


Dave Donelson, author of The Dynamic Manager's Guides a series of how-to books for business owners and managers.

Communicating With a Younger Market

Perhaps one of the most difficult markets for many shop owners to profitably serve is that of young automotive performance enthusiasts. John Pruitt, owner of John’s Rod Shop in Abbeville, South Carolina, points out that “The Honda Civic that that teenager’s driving out there is comparable to our generation’s ‘55 Chevy. Unfortunately, usually those guys don’t have the money.”

“A lot of those guys want to buy every part over the Internet, and we can’t compete with the Internet pricing,” he observes. “These young guys are real savvy and they do a lot of the work themselves or they have a buddy do it because they don’t have the money to pay a professional shop.”

But that’s not to say they should be ignored. As Pruitt says, “That market has got to be acknowledged, massaged, and worked with in order for this industry to grow and survive.”

Andy Voytilla, owner of Dream Machines in Lake Oswego, Oregon, says that customer communication is essential. “When a customer comes to me to build a car, the big trick is to get into their mind and see their vision, because a lot of people can’t communicate well enough to tell you exactly what they want.” It helps when the customer has some hands-on experience with cars, so Voytilla encourages them to take part in the project in some way: “I always encourage my customers to come by the shop on a regular basis. Quite often I even get them to chase parts for me because when they get involved it is easier to get their ideas into it and make it like they wanted it.”

Neither Pruitt or Voytilla do any media advertising because they feel their reputation in their market niches is strong enough to pull in plenty of work. That’s not to say they do absolutely no marketing, however, because their constant attendance at car shows, cruise-ins, rallies, races, and other events serves to put their work in front of plenty of people. The drawback to that strategy, of course, is that it doesn’t reach many new-to-the-market customers.

In a way, though, that’s not particularly important to the shop owner who is more interested in serving a particular group of enthusiasts than in growth for growth’s sake. If the market niche is big enough, it can support a shop quite well for many years.



Dave Donelson, author of The Dynamic Manager's Guides a series of how-to books for business owners and managers.