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| Subject: Part 7- Satisfy Enough of the Right People & You’ll Be … | |
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Author: Dennis S. Vogel |
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Date Posted: 21:32:43 10/16/05 Sun In reply to: Anonymous 's message, "Help" on 15:31:23 08/01/05 Mon By now, you should know if you’re attracting the right target market & how to reach the right people if you’re not already communicating with them. Some think, “They’re buying from the store, so they must be the right target market.” It’s easy to think that & figure that work is done, then concentrate on something else. Some suggest appealing the most frequent buyers or heavy users. But if somebody is already buying large quantities often, what can competitors offer, other than lower prices, to draw them away? In my opinion, “customer loyalty” doesn’t exist. If it did, customers would keep patronizing a store -- paying or donating money -- even if the store changed product lines. Imagine stereotypical macho-male construction workers who used to buy their work clothes from only one store. Now the same store owner discontinues work clothes & only sells sexy, frilly lingerie. Will those macho guys keep going into the store (beyond once by mistake) & buy products? Yes, if they’re loyal. But would they be loyal? Or would they look for another supplier? “Hey, Gus! Do you think this -- uh, whatever it is -- would be comfortable to wear while I carry bricks?” ‘Yeah, but you don’t have the legs for it.” Clayton Christensen wrote about competing with nonconsumption for valid reasons, but I want to save that for a different message thread. What’s left is being sure the right people get the right messages at the right times. When publishers & (broadcast) station owners don’t have specific information about their audiences, they tend to rely on general information from their trade associations. This data consists of averages. These are tales of how useful average information is -- on average, of course. If a winner of a multi-million dollar lottery lives in a ghetto, the average discretionary funds in the neighborhood could be about $100,000. Zig Ziglar said if you put one hand in a pot of a boiling water & the other in ice water, on average, you‘d be very uncomfortable. During my short time as a radio advertising rep (this is an example of why it was so short), I asked the station owner about the audience information I was supposed to spread. He asked me if I thought any business on the client list (he gave me) couldn’t find enough prospects to justify paying for advertising from his station. I’m not the kind to just let things drop so conveniently. If the average country & western music fan had an income of $50,000, that would indicate what? Example- Last year’s Radio Advertising Bureau research was done before petroleum companies’ price-gouging sucked away a lot of personal income. $50,000 had more purchasing power at that time. Plus, because the cost-of-living varies, $50,000 in New York City is worth less than it is in South Dakota or even in Binghampton, NY. Even if the average income figures were adjusted for inflation & varying costs-of-living, South Dakota residents are apt to spend their $50,000 on different things than New York residents. To claim people in the same income or age brackets spend their money on the same things is misguided, at least. I’m sure New Yorkers spend more money for opera & Broadway play admission than Midwesterners. Can claims of increased spending among a particular radio-format listeners be reliable? Example- A station, in the county I live in, claimed to be the number one country & western station in the area. The next year, that station kept the same staff but changed call letters & music formats. A few stations like that can throw statistics for a loop. This is especially true if the local average income is higher than the national average. So, if country & western music listeners (on average) spend $75 on movie rentals, how is that statistic affected when radio stations in high income areas change programming formats? If a lot of money was spent on entertainment last year, what is the majority of money being spent on this year? Whatever it is, it’s a gas, gas, gas. My former boss likes to quote this statistic - “There are just as many people listening to radio programming as there were before TVs were invented. But what does that mean? Like a lot of statistics, it can mean whatever people want it to mean. Do listeners pay attention to the content just as much as in The Golden Years of Radio? Maybe talk radio listeners do. There’s a definite difference between how people listen to music, sports broadcasts & news now. There’s a big difference between listening to “The Shadow” or “Fibber McGee & Molly” & listening to background music. There’s a difference between reclining at home while listening to Milton Berle & listening to music while driving. These kind of shenanigans aren’t limited to radio stations or even only broadcast. When I was a WZ-ard for WZ.com, I heard & read Jim & Audri Lanford repeat this warning- “HITS means How Idiots Track Success.” For a web site owner to charge advertisers for hits or click-throughs is almost unethical unless it’s tied to sales results. Ask the web site owners if they’ll accept hits or click-throughs as payments-in-full. Then you’ll find how web site owners really feel about hits & click-throughs. That’s my opinion, on average. Advertising, & other forms of marketing, work when they’re done correctly. Send marketing/advertising messages, but please be careful about who is involved in doing it & the beliefs your business is based on. Your messages can bring a lot of inquiries -- get a good response -- but it’s not enough. Until suppliers will accept inquiries as payments, you won’t succeed without sales. This thread isn’t even close to a whole marketing course, but I think it’s a good start. In the words of the Egyptian Minister of Mummification, “That’s a wrap.” Dennis S. Vogel thrivingbusiness@email.com Are you paying more for advertising & get fewer sales & less profits? When you change your approach, you’ll change your results? You should be sure it’s a positive change. Use the links below to get information you need. http://web1.lakefield.net/~thrivingbusiness/ http://www.voy.com/31049/ [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
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