HERE’S A SHORT LIST OF GREAT REASONS TO KEEP ADVERTISING NOW
What can your salespeople say right now to customers who may be wavering about advertising in the coming weeks? Stay the course and let the others fall behind. Sure, the economy is iffy right now. But local businesses that maintain and even increase radio buys when their competitors are cutting back often outpace what used to be stiff competition and grab new market share – in any size market.
Get these five key messages across to any advertisers who are on the fence about being on your stations in the first quarter:
FIVE COMPELLING REASONS TO KEEP ADVERTISING
1. Advertising has always worked well during recessionary times. You can go back as far as the 1989-1991 recession for some stunning examples of companies that kept advertising – in many cases, increasing their ad budgets – and did much better than companies that didn’t. During that economic downturn, for example, Pizza Hut pumped up its sales 61% and Taco Bell’s sales were up 40%. When many beer brands cut way back on advertising, Coors and Bud Light kept their heads, spent more and each experienced double-digit sales hikes. How about Kraft salad dressing? Figuring more people were going to eat at home, Kraft pumped up its ad budget and catapulted its sales 70 percent.
Obviously, these are national brands. Does this same thinking make a difference to a small business, even a one-person operation? Sure. Because the logic is the same: Let the competition panic and apply a slash-and-burn approach to advertising; local businesses that survive and thrive keep advertising – and do more of it.
2. When the competition cuts back, your message booms through. Gee, fewer ads from your competitors? That’s…too…bad. Where their commercials used to run regularly on radio only yours are heard now. Where they might even have outspent you, you’re now running ads more frequently. They’re on the sidelines – you’re carrying the ball. It’s a simple sports metaphor but it exactly describes your forward-thinking business activity and their wait-it-out-and-hope-for-the-best thinking.
3. Advertising reassures your customers, both old and new. Every day it seems we hear of a well-known company or product or brand simply disappearing. It’s happened in your area. Businesses that might have been around for generations had to fold their tents and slip away into the economic night. Not you, though. Sure, you’ve had to keep a firm grip on expenses and rethink almost everything you do. But by keeping your message on the air you’re saying to your customers and prospects, ”I’m here today. I’ll be in business tomorrow. Come to me and I will absolutely be here to take care of you”. Confidence has an enormous impact on buying decisions when money is tight. Your continued advertising campaign tells people they can rely on you, no matter what happens to those other guys.
4. Consistency creates familiarity. Hit-and-miss never works in advertising. Never has, never will. That’s Advertising 101 and has been for a couple of centuries. Now, though, there’s a new urgency that speaks in favor of consistently putting your message out there. With the broad range of choices assailing your customers’ eyes and ears today it’s more important than ever to realize one thing: attention spans are getting shorter and shorter.
Your advertising needs to be available to those over-stimulated eyes and ears all the time.
5. Community involvement strengthens your message. Sponsor whatever you can: basketball games, concerts, community celebrations. Everyone needs money, especially when the economy is rocky, and civic sponsorships are generally very reasonably priced. When you associate your name with something that’s important in your trading area you not only project a caring image but create enormous good will with the sponsoring organization. You didn’t give up – you contributed.
Suggest to your customers that they contribute their time as well as their money. That doubles the value to both their businesses and the people and events they help.
Suggest to your customers that they contribute their time as well as their money. That doubles the value to both their businesses and the people and events they help.
