How to buy radio advertising

Tim Miles has a great blog, The Daily Blur.

Tim is known as one of the Wizards, an associate of the original Wizard of Ads, Roy Williams.

Tim is a copywriter and he helps small businesses do more with less. If you are considering radio advertising, start here with Tim's articles on Buying Radio. It is well worth the read.


Tony Mariani

When direct mail is sloppy

I received this from department store HBC (Hudson Bay Company). What you see here is actually 2 mailers.

Bay Mailer


My business card displays both radio stations. Here they have obviously missed that fact and decided to add me for each station.

Bay Mailer 2

Same offer in each envelope. But here is where they lost me and really wasted their money.

Bay Mailer 3

I have never bought their HBC cards for employees. Heck I have never bought an HBC card.

Someone didn't do their homework and I wonder how many more on their mailing list are like me. How much did those mistakes really cost.

Tony Mariani

Would you have paid for this tv ad

This is very surprising that Coors who has some good ads, would have settled for this for Keystone Light.

This isn't funny or believeable.

Tony Mariani

Social media creating evangelists

Reading a post on building customer loyalty and evangelism with social media
on American Express Forum, the article talked about the rewards of engaging and strengthen those relationships and creating true advocates.

A word of caution. Your business needs to be firing on all engines from front to back.

Remember the social media knife cuts both ways.

Tony Mariani

Increase your direct mail response

The age of interruption marketing has seen its better days. It doesn't spell the death of the traditional medias but splinters them.

It's hopefully created a more focused approach to your advertising and marketing.

Take direct mail. A 2% return is considered good.

You can easily double, triple and even quadruple that return with a couple of tweeks.

First off do not send out your entire mailer in one sitting. You won't blow your whole budget and you also will be able to pace yourself to accommodate the work.

Secondly and probably more important, make sure you do your homework on acquiring your mailing list. Outdated lists end up costing you a fortune. Do the math. If your return goes from 2-6%, is it worth it to pay more for your lists?


Tony Mariani

Brand You: First Impressions

The Little Big Things, 163 Ways To Pursue Excellence is Tom Peter's new book. You can check Tom's videos on the book's content on You Tube.

In this video its all about first impressions. As you watch the video think about your radio, newspaper, TV, direct mail or website. Is your message enough to keep your potential customer's attention for seven seconds?

Tony Mariani

The problem with stock ads

If the fours seasons are significant where you live, then its really important to pay particular attention to your advertising message.

Car manufacturers are probably the worst offender. TV ads are shot where it looks like its summer and the ads run in the midwest where there is two feet of snow.

It's really hard to engage an audience, viewer, reader or listener when you your ad is saying one thing and the weather outside says different.

Tony Mariani

Went to a dentists office and it turned into a auto body shop

Think.

Are you really thinking?

Your ad says "we fix all auto body needs" and you ARE an auto body shop.

Here I thought you were a dentists office.

Think!

Tony Mariani

Value of a customer

When you deliver what you promise, the result is loyal customers. Loyal customers who love spending money with you and in turn word of mouth advertising you can't buy.

Loyal customers allows you to spend a lot less on marketing and instead allows you to use those dollars to continually improve customer service.

It's a great cycle.

Where is your cycle?

Tony Mariani

Your brand will leave a mark

As I entered the coffee shop and got in line, I couldn't help but notice the tattoos on the guy's arms just above the back part of his elbows. Odd place for tattoos. Tim was on the right side and on the left was Sarah.

As he turned sideways I then noticed the tattoo of a girl's face beside the name Sarah and suddenly there was Sarah I guess coming back from the bathroom. I don't get the whole tattoo thing but to each his own. Getting rid of the tattoo still leaves a trace.

You still have to admire Tim's commitment. His whole life is going to revolve around protecting that brand despite the fact there is a better than 50-50 chance that brand is going to fail.

Knowing those odds, what are you doing to protect your brand? Do you really have the largest selection in the city?

You can buy all the advertising in the world but if you can't deliver what you say you do, its going to leave an ugly mark.

Tony Mariani