BizTips: You're not McDonald's, so don't advertise like them

Rating:	★★★★★
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BY ROSS PARKS, SPECIAL TO THE DAILY BUSINESS BUZZ
The Nova Scotia Business Journal

After 18 years in media, I realized 99% of advertising was nothing but fluff. Words like friendly, professional, service, quality…these words do nothing to communicate why you're the best deal. But most businesses go on year after year spewing out the verbal platitudes. But why would anyone want to waste all that money hardly saying anything to anyone? It’s because all of our training on how to do advertising and marketing comes from the WRONG sources.

The government is a Level 1 business. Level 2 businesses include General Motors, McDonalds, and Nike. We've been indoctrinated by years of advertising and social acceptance to buy from these companies.

The key to their success isn't necessarily based on how good they are, but rather on advertising repetition that builds brand awareness. For instance, General Motors spent a whopping $3.087 billion. That's why they can sing “like a rock” and it works. If you spend over $3 billion, I promise you'll get stellar results, too.

The problem? We are constantly exposed to Level 2 advertising, and everyone assumes that’s how marketing and advertising is done. But Level 3 companies (everyone else) have to be smarter with their dollars and create action-oriented advertising, because they can't rely on broad based repetition-oriented advertising.

But here's the problem: none of these guys who graduate with all these degrees in advertising and marketing know how to make money in the real world. They don't know how to get prospects to take action. And, for you, that's what's crucial.

You need to craft your advertising to where you can get prospects to take action that leads to a purchase. Maybe you want the prospect to send in a reply card or call a toll-free hotline. That's different than Level 2 advertising, where you're trying to create a feeling and attach it to your product. You've got to have your advertising make the prospect take ACTION!

The way you do that is by using action-oriented advertising.

You'll hear a lot of people in the advertising industry say you can't quantify the results of your advertising like that...and in some cases they're right. But that's only because many businesses don't understand the fundamentals of how to make their advertising make money. So spend your dollars more intelligently. – Nova Scotia Business Journal

Ross Parks is a Master Consulting Agent with the Monopolize Your Marketplace Program & Seminar series called ‘Everything You’ve Learned About Marketing is WRONG.’ He can be reached at (902) 869-2000. Used with permission of Rich Harshaw, owner of the MYM system.

http://www.novascotiabusinessjournal.com/index.cfm?sid=99114&sc=107