If you read the various marketing blogs, many will say that Advertising as a marketing form is dead. They argue that consumers want more control and no longer pay attention to out-bound advertising. And they sharpen this point and drive it home as if the argument is something new. It isn’t.
One of the advantages of having gray hair is that it means I’ve been in the battle for a long time. I’ve heard all the death-knells before. They seem to chime in 15-year cycles, and often grow louder with each economic slump. Then, as consumers start spending again, companies start advertising again! Funny how that happens.
I’ve had clients tell me directly, “Advertising doesn’t work; we only do it to impress our dealers.” Then, four to six weeks later, after the ads run and as consumers tell the dealers that they’re in the stores because of the ads, the clients retreat from their positions…for at least a few months. I’ve said before, marketing is a self-fulfilling prophesy: if you believe in it, you’ll invest for success and voila! it works. If you don’t believe in it, you won’t do what’s necessary to support its success and you’ll be right as well.
But at the same time, Advertising – or any marketing form, for that matter – won’t work at all if you don’t have something worth saying. Simply blurting out your name along with a clever slogan isn’t going to move the needle. You have to offer something your customers want – better services, lower prices, greater convenience, new features, etc. Your ads have to have “news” value, where the audience is left saying “Gee, I didn’t know that!” If all they say at the end of the commercial is “that’s funny!”, it’s going to fail. And worse, if they don’t notice it at all because it has no break-through quality, you may as well write the media check to me personally, since the money’s not doing you any better when the ads run.
Advertising doesn’t work without having a message that works. What can you say that will raise your customers’ eyebrows? What might you offer that raises your value well above the competition’s? What’s the “news” that compels a response? What’s your point-of-view that’s unexpected and exciting?
Once you answer those questions in a way that incites surprise, interest and desire, then you have lots of advertising options and they’ll nearly all work for you. Less than that, I’ll tell you where to send my check.
Funeral Marketing for the Perplexed 