Here’s A Way To Get Traffic, Leads, And Sales

Google is now offer­ing a way for you to run your TV ad across mul­ti­ple net­works and programs.

The ad used here is a bit goofy, but imag­ine what you could do with a well designed ad — an ad to drive peo­ple to your web­site, or to build a mail­ing list, or make the sale. And you can do this all from the com­fort of your desk.

Are You Committing Copywriting Malpractice?

If you write copy for other clients, obvi­ously it’s impor­tant to know some­thing about those clients before get­ting the words down. In Don’t Be a Radio Adver­tis­ing Quack, Dan O’Day has some great tips about learn­ing more about your client before you write that com­mer­cial. Even if you’re not writ­ing a radio com­mer­cial, this is good advice before any copy­writ­ing you do for a client. In fact, even if you’re writ­ing copy for your own busi­ness, it’s a good idea to use these tips before you start writing.

More On The Power Of Sound

I linked recently to a great live pre­sen­ta­tion about the way sound affects us.

Today, I’m urg­ing you to take a look at a great pre­sen­ta­tion put together by Katz Media about the power of sound. This is more like a slide pre­sen­ta­tion than a video. Just be sure you’ve got your speak­ers turned on so you get the full effect.

Take a look at lis­ten to the power of sound.

Watch The Signs

By no means am I an expert on sig­nage.  How­ever, a num­ber of peo­ple have said they respect my opin­ions on mar­ket­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions and adver­tis­ing so I guess I can make a cou­ple of com­ments on good signage.

A well-designed and well-placed sign can do won­ders for a business.

If that last state­ment is true, then the oppo­site would likely be true as well.  If the sign isn’t well-designed or well-placed it won’t help the busi­ness, and could in fact hurt.

Who Are You?

What started me think­ing about this is the con­struc­tion of a new restau­rant a few miles from our home.

This restau­rant is being built at the cor­ner of a very busy inter­sec­tion with thou­sands of cars pass­ing through each and every day.  The restau­rant is located in what I would con­sider the pre­miere spot of a shop­ping cen­ter that includes Best Buy, Tar­get, Sun­flower Mar­ket, a bank, a cou­ple of fast food restau­rants, and some other businesses.

I say it’s in the pre­miere spot because it’s the most vis­i­ble spot in the shop­ping cen­ter and right at the cor­ner of this busy intersection.

What’s the restaurant?

I have no idea.

My wife and I have dri­ven past count­less times and through­out the con­struc­tion, we kept wait­ing for a sign with the name of the restau­rant. Finally, when the build­ing was nearly com­plete, a ban­ner was hung on the side.  It said, “Now hir­ing.” Still no clue as to which restau­rant this might be.

Is it a chain?  Or a brand new entry in the din­ing world?  What kind of food do they serve?

No clue.

The other day, I finally spot­ted a sign on the front of the restau­rant.  How­ever, I still have no clue what it says, because it faces into the shop­ping cen­ter. The only peo­ple who will see this sign are peo­ple who are in the shop­ping center.

That means tens of thou­sands of peo­ple pass­ing by each day will have no idea about this restau­rant.  If they are curi­ous enough, they’ll have to drive into the shop­ping cen­ter to check.  But, really, how many of those tens of thou­sands pass­ing by will even bother?

I’m very curi­ous about it, but not enough to drive in and see.

Check Your Sign

If yours is the kind of busi­ness that uses a sign or signs as a way to gen­er­ate cus­tomer traf­fic, take a look at your signs.

Is your sign placed so that the most peo­ple will be able to see it?

How close does some­one need to be to see the sign?

Is the sign eas­ily readable?

Can it be seen at night?

Can it be seen when the sun is out?  How about on a cloudy, rainy day?

Does the sign let peo­ple know what you do or do they have to guess?

Remem­ber, mar­ket­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions is about com­mu­ni­cat­ing.  Don’t make peo­ple guess.  Make it easy for them to know who you are and what you do.

On-Hold Messages: Why They Are Vital For Your Business

Every inter­ac­tion you have with your cus­tomer is vital to the suc­cess of your busi­ness. From the radio and TV com­mer­cials you run to get cus­tomers in the door. To the way you treat the cus­tomer after the sale.

Every­thing you do needs to be designed to com­mu­ni­cate your message.

Why should it be any dif­fer­ent when a cus­tomer calls you on the phone?

Think about this. A cus­tomer has taken the time to pick up the phone to call you. Maybe that cus­tomer is ready to make a huge pur­chase. Or maybe a ques­tion about your prod­uct or ser­vice needs to be answered.

Regard­less of the nature of the call, you have another oppor­tu­nity to inter­act with that cus­tomer. How­ever, the per­son who answers the phone isn’t the one who can answer the ques­tion. So the caller is placed on hold.

If that caller hears silence it may seem like they’ve been hung up on and they may hang up.

Or worse, what if that caller gets placed on hold and hears a radio sta­tion that is run­ning a com­mer­cial for one of your com­peti­tors? Uh-oh! That can be a huge prob­lem. You may lose that cus­tomer and the sale to your com­pe­ti­tion and prob­a­bly never even real­ize it.

There are also legal ram­i­fi­ca­tions to play­ing a radio sta­tion or other music to your on-hold callers. If you don’t have an ASCAP license you can’t legally play copy­righted music through your phone sys­tem. And even though the radio sta­tion you’re play­ing to callers has paid its ASCAP fees you still aren’t legally able to retrans­mit that sig­nal. The radio sta­tion likely won’t mind — they want all the lis­ten­ers they can get. How­ever, play­ing a radio sta­tion over the phone is actu­ally a vio­la­tion of the law.

But with a tele­phone on-hold mes­sage, you can solve these prob­lems. And give your­self another oppor­tu­nity to sell to that cus­tomer. First, your cus­tomer will real­ize they haven’t been dis­con­nected. Sec­ond, they’re hear­ing about your business.

You’re rein­forc­ing your sales mes­sage. You can tell the cus­tomer how impor­tant you think they are. Plus you can tell them about prod­ucts or ser­vices they might not be aware of.

Third, you won’t be vio­lat­ing any music copy­right laws with a custom-produced tele­phone on-hold message.

You never want to leave cus­tomers on hold for very long, but it’s an inevitable part of daily busi­ness. Why not use that time to make your cus­tomer feel impor­tant and take another oppor­tu­nity to inter­act with your customers?

I began pro­duc­ing tele­phone messages-on-hold for clients across the coun­try more than 15 years ago. A custom-produced on-hold mes­sage can be updated on a reg­u­lar basis to reflect changes in prod­ucts, ser­vices, prices, and spe­cials. They’re easy to update for hol­i­days or spe­cial pro­mo­tions. And they’ll give your busi­ness an edge over the competition.

Take a lis­ten to my On-Hold Mes­sages demo right now. If you’d like to learn more about tele­phone on-hold mes­sag­ing please call me at (303) 915‑9317 or email me at tim@weboutloud.com.