5 lines you should avoid using in your ads

5. Conveniently located
4. Lots of free parking
3. The sale has been held over
2. Friendly and knowledgeable staff
1. There has never been a better time to buy

All five are about you and not what you or your product can do for the customer.

Tony Mariani

Tell your staff you bought a big advertising campaign

The store employee looks like a deer in headlights.

They have no idea what you are talking about because management neglected to tell their staff they were blowing out all the unsold inventory to get ready for the spring arrivals.

Run the advertising campaign by your employees before the public sees its so your foot soldiers are ready.

Tony Mariani

Your still need a marketing plan

Its easy to get caught up in the whole social media, digital media and new advertising world.

You hear it a lot and it's today's version of "I need to be in the yellow pages because all my competitors are".

The digital world is in a constant change. Before you spend the kids college fund on redesigning a web page, step back a moment and review the way you do business. Putting up a new website without a plan to monetize it is just another website offering free stays at your hotel with multiple night bookings.

It doesn't matter the break neck speed the world is going at today in this new internet age. Check that marketing plan. You still have to give the consumer a compelling reason to do business with you.

Tony Mariani

Are you trying to win back the business

When you have messed up, are you really trying to fix the problem or take the cheap route out?

You are living in the past, if you are asking a customer to give you one more chance by offering to discount their next visit, or to charge a 20% re-stocking fee.

Word of mouth advertising is growing exponentially thanks to social media. That bad meal just got reviewed on the local restaurant review website and the the restocking fee gouge just got posted on a blog that or worse, the whole exchange was recorded and is on You Tube.

Free is the new monetary exchange and you will be amazed how much free will ring your cash register.

Tony Mariani

You cant handle the truth

How do you think this would go over at your next staff meeting?



Tony Mariani

Have you seen your yellow pages lately

It was likely banging your head against the wall. No amount of information, data and figures we would bring out to clients helped us to wrestle some of the yellow pages budget.

Businesses and primarily small businesses (you don't see national companies with big ads in the yellow pages. Its usually just a listing) built the yellow pages empire. But like most things, the time comes when you have outlived your usefullness.

You no longer have to add color to make your ad stand out or increase your ad because your competitor's ad is bigger.

Yellow pages, the passive media, a go to at last resort, the emergency medium has met its match.

Hello Google and Google 411.

Now that $1000 a month you were paying for a yellow pages ad looks a whole lot better on your P & L.

Here is the challenge if you choose to accept it. Lets meet here next year, March 3,2011 and lets compare how many times you used the yellow pages compared to Google.

Tony Mariani