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by Brock Henderson
Marketing Consultant
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Sign up for his FREE monthly Business & Marketing Newsletter at www.bhenderson.com The Most Important Word in Advertising What is the most important word in your marketing and advertising vocabulary?
Some would say that it is �Free�, and it certainly is a good word in marketing; but so are �New�, �Save�, �Value�, �Easy�, �Safe�, �Long Lasting�, �Guaranteed�, and a host more. But one word stands above all of these. One word really is more important than any other.
It is the word that helps the reader identify with what you are saying. It is the word that personalizes your message. That one word is �You�.
�You can save money by using our product� is much stronger than �Save money by using our product.�
�You� personalizes whatever you are talking about. The reader immediately identifies with the �you� and quickly mentally accepts the personalization and identifies with it.
McDonalds used to have the slogan �You deserve a break today�, well who wouldn't agree? We all feel over worked, even if we aren't. And we all appreciate a break; so how can anyone argue with �You deserve a break today�.
See how much stronger that phrase is as opposed to �Have a break with McDonalds�. It isn't personal. The �You� makes it personal and allows the reader to accept it and agree with the statement.
You don't need to make it a big production when using �you�. And don't over do it.
�Enjoy the beauty of your new windows from Anderson windows.�
�Keep your family safe buy purchasing our quality tires.�
�Improve your marketing by utilizing Brock.� (grin)
You get the idea. Check all your advertising, marketing literature, and even your Yellow Page ads to see where you can improve your results by making a small one-word change. Relationship Marketing Relationship Marketing is not selling to your relations, but rather developing meaningful relationships within your community and supporting those relationships in any way you can. I had the pleasure recently of talking with Darrell Maynard, President of Eastern Telephone Company, and his Director of Marketing, Bambi Phillips. Darrell is a big believer in helping people reach their goals, and they in turn will help you reach yours. 100% of his marketing effort is relationship based. Serving over 63 Counties in Eastern and Central Kentucky Eastern Telephone Company markets by supporting community efforts and by supporting the interests of the Agents who sell his services. For example, when Extreme Makeover Home Edition came into the area to help a local family the employees of Eastern Telephone Company were there for seven days preparing food for the 2nd shift of volunteer construction workers. Not only did they donate their time, but also their grill, (it's the extra large kind that has to be towed behind a vehicle), and the food. For the entire week there was no signage saying who they were, nor did they wear any logo'ed clothing. They were simply there to support the community. In the following weeks people found out who had supported this project and sales increased dramatically. During the school year they give bottles of water, (with their logo on each bottle), to schools to sell at sporting events. This allows the teams to raise money and gets their name out at the same time. Their agents throughout the state also have special community interests, such as Habitat for Humanity. By donating time or water or whatever, in the agents name they increase the agents visibility in the community and strengthen the relationship between the agent and themselves. Types of things they do include, cooking for various civic and community events, providing water for schools to re-sell, giving logo'ed apparel to their agents (with the agents logo not Eastern Telephone's logo), providing other promotional products with the agent's logo on it. By supporting the agents and the community in this manner Eastern Telephone Company has experienced a very healthy growth rate. In fact, the company has been growing so fast recently that they have found it difficult to keep up with the demand. They have outgrown their spacious offices and had to buy another building to house some of their staff. There is one downside to this type of marketing: measurability. It is impossible to traditionally measure the effect of any single community effort. But Bambi's attitude is: �If it works sales will go up.� And sales have definitely gone up . . . and up. Communicating with Customers The most common objection I hear from ISP owners about communicating with their customers is that they don't want to Spam their customers. What is unspoken is that they don't want to irritate their customers to the point of leaving, and that is understandable. Communicating with customers in any business is essential, so how do you keep in touch with customers without irritating them? Newsletters. I am a big fan of a newsletter because you can do so much with it. You can inform, sell, educate, and survey all at the same time. Of primary importance is that the newsletter be useful to the customer. If the customer doesn't find it useful, then you are wasting your efforts. Include information such as tips on how to make better use of common programs; or interesting web sites; or helpful web sites; or whatever would be of use to the �typical� customer. If your customer base has a large percentage of business customers you might have a special section dedicated to useful business information; or even a separate newsletter just for your business customers. Don't want to write your own newsletter? There are firms out there that will write the newsletter for you and leave an area for you to insert current company announcements - - such as new DSL pricing, or whatever. One such firm is www.cornerstonenow.com . Their prices are reasonable and they have a quality product from what I have seen. If the newsletter is generally useful your customers won't consider it Spam. If you don't believe me just ask your customers what they would think of receiving a monthly newsletter. I'm betting that well over half, maybe even as much as 90% will welcome the information with open arms. Now you could make it an on-line version, but my experience is that people won't go to it without your prodding them, which means a mass e-mail to tell your customers that the new edition of the newsletter is up, so you might as well just e-mail the newsletter in the first place and be done with it. Granted, some of your customers may not want the newsletter, so be sure they have a way to opt-out. You will find that very few will, most will accept it gratefully. I'll be starting a newsletter shortly and a sample can be found here ; or go to my web site and on the right side click on �See a sample�. Let me explain the how and why of my content to help you get a better idea about the though process involved in creating a newsletter. First it is in PDF format. Most of the people that will read this are ISP's and as such are not fans of HTML e-mail. Since I wanted to be able to include graphics and to make the overall look and feel visually appealing I needed HTML capabilities. The compromise then is good old PDF. I get to use graphics when I want, and the techie who hates HTML doesn't object to a PDF file. We both get what we can work with. Most residential customers will prefer HTML graphics, so make your newsletter in HTML even if you hate it. After all, you want the customer to appreciate it, and they typically want HTML. If your newsletter is going to techies or businesses then you might want to go the PDF route. Page One of course will have your logo, I'm using an attractive, (attractive to me anyway), Microsoft graphic. (Note I use Microsoft Publisher to create the newsletter and then convert it to a PDF file.) Also, I've got my ugly mug plastered in the upper right corner of the document. Why? Because seeing your face creates a warm fuzzy with the average customer, they like knowing whom they are doing business with - it makes the relationship more personal. Which is why Realtors will almost always have their picture on their business card. The ISP industry is virtually hidden from the customer and putting a face on the newsletter will go a long way in making your relationship more personal. On the right, just under my picture are the contents of the newsletter so readers can get an idea of what's inside. Finally, there is a Feature Article on some business or marketing topic. If the entire article can't fit on that single page there will be a link to the web site where the entire article is posted. This way I can keep the general format of the newsletter intact regardless of the length of the article. Once you start publishing a newsletter be consistent. It should come out in the same general time period of every month; it should look pretty much the same from one month to the next; and it should always contain opt-out and contact information in the same place every issue. I haven't started my newsletter yet because I'm still working on a couple of design/content issues, but it won't be much longer before I will be ready. Which brings me to a final point: don't rush. Fix any potential problems before you start sending it to customers, you'll look like an idiot if it comes out and there are very many problems with it. Take your time. Have fun with your marketing. Repetition in Advertising Repetition is important. The consumer needs to hear/see/experience your message a number of times before they take action. Traditional marketing says that your target audience will have to be exposed to your ad up to twenty-one times before they take action; and in today's ad-intensive marketplace that exposure rate may be going up. When you run an ad plan on it being for several weeks; people simply do not run to the phone the first time they experience your promotional effort. You must repeatedly beat the consumer over the head with your message. It's not that they are dense, but ads simply don't register with people the first time they see/hear it. It must be repeated over and over again. Does McDonalds continuously run advertising? Yes. Why? To keep their brand foremost in the minds and hearts of the public. You need to do the same. A limited budget is not necessarily a monumental hindrance to repetition. Let's say you want to do radio advertising, but you can only afford eight commercials a month. At first glance you might want to just give up and walk away, but hold on. Select a time slot that will best reach your target audience, (for our purposes let's say it's noon on a weekday). Is any particular day better than another to reach your audience? For arguments sake let's select Wednesday as our �target� day. Now, we can purchase two commercials during the noon hour every Wednesday of the month; thus we become a regular sponsor of the noon hour on Wednesday. Consistency. While the repetition isn't as frequent as I would recommend, it is still repetition and it is consistent repetition. Don't advertise on Monday one week, Wednesday the next week, and Saturday the next week. When working with a limited budget pick a single day and time to advertise. True you won't reach everyone, but you will do an effective job of marketing to those who listen during the noon hour on Wednesday. As your budget increases you can add days or expand your advertising from one hour to two. But keep pounding away at your prospects. (Brock Henderson is a marketing consultant to the ISP industry and a frequent speaker at ISPCON; you can contact him at
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