Posts Tagged ‘economy’
Today was graduation at my old high school. I love to check out the graduates’ pictures in the local newspaper. Recognized several of my classmates’ kids…congratulations to all.
Then I noticed something else.
I grew up in a small town of about 3,500 in southern Wyoming. It’s your typical Mayberry kind of town, where everybody knows everybody else. The graduation insert in the paper isn’t just for congratulating the kids and parents. It’s an opportunity for businesses to advertise.
Most of the advertisers blew a great chance to grab more customers.
I counted over 30 ads from retail businesses. Not banks, lawyers, or accountants, but stores, restaurants, and commonly-used services like auto shops. This would have been the perfect opportunity to get people through their doors with a great graduation deal.
Out of the 30+ businesses that advertised, guess how many gave readers some kind of special for graduation?
One. The theater offered a small popcorn if the customer brought in the ad.
Why didn’t these businesses take advantage of this perfect opportunity?
How come one of the fast food joints didn’t offer a buy one, get one meal deal after 8 pm on graduation night? The restaurants couldn’t have offered free desserts after dinner?
Why didn’t the flower shop offer 10% off all orders that mentioned the ad? They could have put a time limit on it, as the paper came out on Wednesday. Some dads could have made some moms very happy indeed.
The grocery store could have snuck in a $5 coupon, or offered a special on photo albums. Their bakery could have thrown in half a dozen cookies for every graduation cake ordered.
The ideas are endless. Why don’t they get creative with their advertising?
Because many have never had to. Rather, they’ve never felt like they had to. In a small town, many businesses don’t have competition and use the same old ad in the paper and yellow pages every year.
What they don’t understand is that it’s not always about competition (or lack thereof); it’s about getting as many people into your shop as possible, giving them good service and products at a fair price, and getting most of them to rinse and repeat.
And if you DO have a competitor, the need to do this is even more urgent. Effective marketing can put you head and shoulders above the other guy, who is likely cutting back on marketing.
Using the flower shop as an example, let’s say there were just 5 orders for flowers averaging $30 a pop, or $27 after the 10% was deducted. My math says that’s an extra $135 for the week.
Big deal, you might say. But what if the flower shop started running a monthly special? What if every third Monday was 10% off day? Using the same 5 orders per month, that’s over $1,600 in a year.
When every penny counts, that’s nothing to sneeze at. For some businesses, simple marketing changes like that could keep the doors open.
These businesses can’t be the only ones who make this mistake. What marketing opportunities do you see businesses missing?
Found an article on prospering in this economy from master copywriter and marketer Bob Bly. We should all keep these 5 things in mind…remember, this too shall pass.
And if you keep marketing, you’ll come out the other side with a bigger piece of the pie than you had before!
***5 ways to thrive in a recession***
By Bob Bly
BusinessWeek recently gave these 5 suggestions for navigating
your business through the current economic storm:
1–Don’t panic. Cycles happen. Sometimes they happen hard, but
we’ll come back around eventually.
2–Keep marketing. Slowdowns are an ideal time to snatch up
market share.
3–Stick to your focus. Don’t water down your message in a
misguided attempt to widen your market appeal.
4–Don’t go “discount crazy.” If you keep offering “special
deals,” eventually the deals are no longer special… and
customers learn to wait for the next deal instead of buying
right now.
5–Have a plan. You can’t wish the crisis away by ignoring it.
Source: The Copywriter’s Roundtable, #398. This article appears courtesy of Bob Bly’s "Direct Response Letter" and can be found at www.bly.com.
