I have been listening to audiobooks from Roy H. Williams lately and I must say they are GOOD. They are the Wizard of Ads series. I want to share a few things that I’ve learned from them with you. First thing is that there is no one ideal advertising medium for a product or service. Of course, there are some forms that are better suited for certain types of ads than others (Roy really likes the power of radio), but what’s more important than the medium is the…message!
Too many advertisers place boring messages in the right advertising vehicles and get nowhere. Most ads don’t really say anything except, “Buy from us. And here’s how to find us.” That’s not compelling advertising. If you can’t give the reader, viewer or listener some darn good reasons to buy from you that mean something to them, then you may as well save your money. So, first lesson, the message is what makes or breaks an ad, not the demographics of the audience.
Another great lesson is that you can’t count on your advertising salesperson to tell you if you have a compelling ad or not. Oftentimes they either aren’t paying enough attention to notice, don’t care, or don’t want to tell you it’s a bad ad because then you won’t run it while you go fix it. Moreover, just because a person sells advertising doesn’t make them a good marketer. They may have little to no experience in marketing. So, second lesson, if you don’t have a keen understanding of advertising principles, don’t count on your advertising salesperson to guide you UNLESS they happen to be great marketers, too. (Here’s where I insert a plug for me as an experienced marketer ready to go to work for you).
Last lesson I’ll share with you here is that radio, when done properly can blow the doors off of many other mediums. Why? As I understand it from Roy, it’s because you can reach a lot of people over and over to the point where they will actually remember you if you have a compelling, what? Message. And they’ll take that memory right to you to buy what you’re selling. Indeed, you can expand your business like crazy with a proper investment in radio. What’s a proper investment? A one-year commitment for starters (Roy says you shouldn’t expect much of anything for the first three months), broken down in to regular weekly advertising on how ever many stations you can afford. The actual formula is in Advertising in America and I’d be happy to go over it with you in detail and help you to put it all together if you have the courage to commit to radio for a whole year.
I highly recommend the Wizard of Ads series to anyone interested in improving their marketing knowledge. I’ll share more tidbits with you down the road.
