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Old 04-29-2005, 01:59 PM   #1 (permalink)
 
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Radio
Studies have found more things that kill radio’s effectiveness; radio itself is killing radio as the music isn’t what it used to be, and people can’t talk on a cellphone and listen to a car radio at the same time. I know what you’re thinking: heck, some people can’t even cell talk and drive at the same time, much less drive, talk, and listen to a radio ad simultaneously. So ads suffer. Any remedy? Use callout sound effects to get attention before your ads begins and again in the body of the commercial.

Also, people can’t read a billboard and listen to the radio at the same time which leads us to…

Billboards
A University of Michigan study concluded that billboard retention rates go down over 50% when drivers are talking on their cell phones. And we needed yet another study to tell us this? Elsewhere in other news, water makes you wet.

Any remedy? Use billboards only as ‘locators’ for hidden or hard-to-find locations to provide much-needed added push. Otherwise, reconsider billboards.

Yellow Pages
The biggest ad killers are dialing information (411) and the WWW. Another ad killer: your prospect goes to the YP to find you and instead finds you AND ALL of your competition. Dialing for dollars ensues.

Any remedy? Minimize your ad size or eliminate it altogether (unless ad costs are extremely cheap). Develop a website and capture search engine surfers in your area.

WWW
Although ad killers and pop-up blockers are not yet widespread, their easy availability through downloading could pose a threat to advertisers who rely on the Web to reach their audiences and sell their products. Any remedy? Drive people to your site and make it easy to do business with you.

TV
Even though VCR’s and DVD-R’s (Tivo, etc.) are widespread and consumers routinely fast forward through commercials, they don’t yet pose a threat to advertisers as over 95% of all TV shows watched aren’t pre-recorded by home recorders according to industry estimates. But the threat is omnipresent. Any remedy? Most likely you can’t afford to advertise on primetime most highly-taped shows anyway and this probably won’t effect most of you.

Direct Mail
Ad killer: what is in the mailstream that day for Solo mail (mailed by itself). Any remedy? Target an in-home date of Wed-Sat as there is less mail on those days to compete with your message.

Ad killer: if your ad is inside a coupon book (marriage mail – you’re “married” to everyone in the coupon book) where your message is diluted at best and at worst, the entire coupon book is trashed before being opened (they are at my house). Any remedy? Negotiate for the outside cover of the book.

For most advertisers, these are not currently big problems, but each one adds its own bit of tribulations. Let's put the issue in proper perspective. There are advertisers, mostly of the Ginsu-knife class of companies, with a strip-mine attitude toward consumers. We can do little to stop them. But let's not make the same mistake.

Unless advertising offers value to consumers, they'll find a way to get rid of it. We need to continue to work to develop ways to make advertising relevant, informative, entertaining, and interesting. Otherwise, more consumers will find a way to make it go away.

What should you do?

Your headline and copy should always be informative, relevant, interesting and entertaining if you can. Tell them WHY they’d want to tan.

Your Offer should always provide a call to action for immediate response. Always field your best offer.

Your tagline should always tell why people would want to do business with you.


_________________
Gary
[ This Message was edited by: gripmarketing on 2005-04-29 14:02 ]
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Old 04-29-2005, 04:47 PM   #2 (permalink)
 
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I would add that the Yellow Pages produced by your local phone company is still a necessary evil because it's still one of the first places people turn to for information. Also, if you're listed in the directory, when someone uses Yahoo Yellow Pages you'll pop up. Other than that, I recommend advertising in the local newspaper, putting up flyers or discount certificates at gyms and in local take-out restaurants that allow it, at supermarkets and mall bulletin boards. Money mailers are still okay if not pricey, but you have to offer something with them. Billboards are not that effective in my book, but if your place is hard to spot you do need good signage to get people in. Finally, one of the best forms of advertising remains community involvement.
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Old 04-30-2005, 03:11 PM   #3 (permalink)
 
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Welcome to the tanning industry, John. I appreciate your insights. Please allow me to provide you with some additional information, which might change your thinking.

We’ve found the opposite…that YP isn’t the first place people turn to…it’s the last place. Our polls have shown:

1. Over 95% of new Move-Ins don’t use YP, people just drive around the area to see what’s nearby. They’re looking for the grocery stores, dry cleaners, blockbusters, and if you’re lucky, tanning salons. Even new Move-In lists haven’t fared well as a result.

2. YP gets results in towns where either (a) YP costs are cheap, or there exists very (b) poor or no branding efforts by salon owners.

Everyone can understand the bang for the buck part, but what about (b)?

Picture this…a year ago, a prospective tanner saw or heard an ad, and now, this year wants to tan but doesn’t remember the salon. This is due to little or no branding effort or lack of brand equity in the marketplace for the salon rendering the salon unmemorable.

So what do people do? Prospects go online and failing that turn to the YP. And what do they find there? ALL of your competition. Dialing for dollar ensues.

If you have a great memorable brand, YP is unnecessary. In our 150-store furniture chain we had no YP ads, just a bold listing. And BTW, FYI the 37-store Tanning Bed chain (Dan Humiston) uses NO YP. Heads up. In our poll of salon owners, over 80% reported getting no results from YP. So it’s not a necessary evil, but rather a hit-or-miss proposition depending upon local conditions.

3. Having your website indexed by search engines is much more important than being listed in the web yellow pages no matter whether it’s yahoo’s or anywho.com. You gotta remember that most web surfers don’t know even a single YP site much less several, but most know google, overture, yahoo, and other search engines quite well.

FWIW, the YP companies have told Wall Street analysts for years that the reasons for their declining revenues is online YP. This is puffery as the online YP sites are owned or partnered by local YP companies. Secondly, online YP aren’t making money or much money. Most of them closed their YP sites or starting charging fees for searches (another kiss of death act). An aside: The wife of one of my employees of 20 years has been and still is the President of Bellsouth YP so I may have some info you probably don’t have. OTOH, search engines are making money – BIG money. I wouldn't be surprised to see a YP company buy yahoo, but I'd be very surprised if yahoo bought a YP company. YP is a dying brand, IMHO. But remember, the bigger the tree in the forest, the longer it takes for it to die.

The bottom line is search engines have replaced YP and online YP and rendered them pretty much mute for this type of search. It’s much more likely that a consumer would go to a search engine to try to find “tanning anytown anystate” than use online YP.

On local newspapers – over 95% of salon owners report little or no success. Why? Skews way too old. Today’s 18-44 yr old woman doesn’t get her news from newsprint, she gets it from TV or Radio. Newsprint is a dying industry and has been for decades.

Newspapers coined the term “junk mail” because they rightly saw mail as their competition (and magazines, they called them "rags") and in many cities mail, literally and figuratively, put newsprint out of business. So newspapers said to themselves, 'why fight it?' Today, as a result, all newspapers contain “junk mail”.

The same 2-color or 4-color pieces that are being delivered by the USPS are being delivered by your newspaper, too. Only problem? When the newspaper arrives it has everyone’s ads in it and all but the biggest ads or companies buying the most ad space end up with ad dilution. Any remedy? Insert your full-color ad for less money in the newspaper. This is why the big box retailers have catalogs instead of ads in newsprint.

It's well known for years that newsprint has been dying. It's an older generation black and white medium. Al Neuharth wisely tried to change that with USA Today by adding color and graphics. After years of billion$ losses, they have now consistently turned a profit of millions each year. No big deal in the scheme of things and certainly no big win for their investors. Put in perspective, this circulation is tiny compared to the reach of TV, Radio and Direct Mail. And miniscule compared to full-color ads of any kind that consumers can compare to.

You’re right on the money, IMHO with handouts as community outreach and cross-promotion with other retailers. This bears great fruit and over 80% of salons report success.

Hope this helps and again, welcome to the industry!
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Old 06-19-2005, 12:31 PM   #4 (permalink)
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Ahhhh, the furniture salesman speaks again...
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