The Cable Guise

Craig Reumund

Cable sales teams have lead auto dealers to believe that broadcast TV is wasted coverage and reaches outside their primary trading area. “Why would a customer drive past other same make dealers to my store?”

Here’s why: You ask them to.

A dealer can deliver a believable message that gives them a reason to drive past their competitor’s store to their store, and an efficient delivery system (broadcast TV) to distribute that message to more potential buyers for less money.

There are over 23,000 auto dealers in the US. The average store sells 100 cars per month. The primary trading area is a 10 mile radius. The manufacturer wants the dealer to sell as much of the primary trading area as possible. The dealer wants to sell as many cars as possible both in and outside the primary trading area.

When a customer chooses a dealership, they are selecting dealers for perception of best price or selecting dealers for convenience to service.

If a buyer is selecting a dealer based on the dealer’s convenient location for service, (a very small segment of buyers) the buyer finds the dealer closest to their home or work. The dealer does not need to advertise to bring this customer in. The customer searches and finds the dealer.

If a buyer is motivated to get the best price, as most buyers are, that buyer will travel for the perception of saving perhaps thousands of dollars at a dealership many miles from home.

This is where a destination mindset is critical for the advertiser.

A dealer that advertises only in their primary trading area, will lose the opportunity of luring buyers from other counties outside the trading area. Cable claims it is wasteful to advertise outside the primary trading area. Cable is wrong.

If a dealer wants to grow sales larger than average, i.e., if they have destination mentality, they must use a media that has the following mathematical criteria:

1) Delivers the largest audience within the demographic per dollar spent; i.e. the lowest cost-per-person in the demographic.
2) Has a high reach capability in the demographic.
3) Has the largest geographic footprint in the local DMA.

Broadcast Television is that medium. It delivers the lowest cost per thousand on any major demographic. It has virtually no “glass ceiling.” It has the largest geographic footprint of any local media. Broadcast television is everything a destination store needs to grow their business most efficiently.

Cable has one of the highest cost per thousands of any media, low “glass ceilings,” and smaller geographic footprints. Cable is a perfect media to increase the cost of buying new customers and losing market share. Cable is a great media to use to remain average or less than average in sales (and profit).

How could Lynn Hickey Dodge sell an average of 2,400 cars per month from one store in Oklahoma City? By inviting every potential customer in the Oklahoma City DMA to their store. This would not be possible on cable. Lynn Hickey Dodge was 100% broadcast TV during their reign as the world's largest Dodge store. Lynn Hickey was sold to a consolidator who stopped using TV and drove the store down to 80 cars a month in less than a year.

Auto dealers aren't the only business to benefit from the largest footprint, lowest cost-per-acquisition, highest reach media of Broadcast TV. All destination stores can benefit. Furniture stores, floor covering stores, in fact, most durable goods stores, financial institutions, medical practices, and legal practices can be destination businesses that grow faster and cheaper on Broadcast TV.

Don’t let cable steal your retailer’s growth with bad logic and an inefficient media. Tell them the truth about growing a destination store.

Craig Reumund is a Senior Consultant with ESA & Company. He meets with hundreds of local business owners each year and has significantly changed the fortune of thousands of local businesses over the past 20 years.

SEO Demystified (Part 1)

Dave Eckstein

Discussions of "SEO" are almost as prevalent today as discussions of the weather. If you're not quite versed on what SEO is or know enough about its vital significance to your clients, you'd better read on. As an industry, we absolutely need to know much more about this topic.

Apologies to those "in the know" ... but let's take a minute to get everyone on the same page here. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Wikipedia has a great definition for SEO:

Search engine optimization is the process of improving the quality and volume of traffic to a website from search engines (and here's the important part) via "natural" or"organic" search results for targeted keywords.

SEO is not to be confused with SEM (Search Engine Marketing), which is essentially a fancy term for pay-per-click. Oh, and let's please stop any associations between SEO and SEM right here, because SEO actually works, while SEM has quite a few flaws for local businesses. SEO done right will lower the cost-per-lead for advertisers, just like broadcast television has done for years. SEO focuses on the organic search results (i.e. the stuff on the left side of your Google search), while SEM focuses on the paid search results (i.e. the stuff on the right side of your Google search ... the "shaded and jaded" links).

Okay, so why are we having this discussion, and what does it have to do with selling advertising to local retailers and destination businesses? More importantly, how can we make this work for our clients -- and profit from this information?

SEO has everything to do with our job and our clients' success. And we must lead the charge here, because a lot of money is being wasted down the wrong avenues by local advertisers.

All local businesses desire to be at the top of organic search listings -- they need to be there. It's another reinforcement of TOMA (top of mind awareness) that can lead to preference and retail gains. The reasons are simple and obvious. Most important among those reasons: a lot of online "retail" traffic funnels through major search engines, and consumers do most of their clicking on the highest ranking organic search results. In fact, they're clicking much more frequently on the organic listings than they are on those costly paid positions off to the right.

No surprises there. The real question is, how do I help my client to an improved "PageRank" on the major search engines?

Should I tell them to spend thousands of dollars with a vendor who can analyze and restructure their "sitemap" and links? Should we recommend some keyword strategies that'll steal clicks away from the competition? Maybe advise them to bid on specific words on Google's AdWords service? And what do we make of all this talk about HTML and meta-tags?

Enough to make your head spin. The real answer is so much closer to home -- and simpler -- it's breathing on our necks.

The solution for many local advertisers, both from a cost and performance perspective, is to advertise on station websites. From a cost perspective, station website advertising is extremely cost-efficient when compared against other "narrow-band" local media and national media (on a cost-per-thousand impressions basis).

More importantly, it answers the call in driving page rank.


If you took a look at Google's own published Webmaster Guidelines, you'd see they've given us a simple hint. You really don't have to read between the lines to hear what it says: Companies are wasting lots of money going about their SEO the wrong way, and there's a direct solution for driving a local retailer's page rank. We'll save you the trouble ... here's the most important sentence:

In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.

Simply put, the BEST way to increase a website's search engine position is to have high quality inbound links to that site. Links from other sites that are relevant and highly trafficked. Hmm, any bells ringing yet?

Station websites provide both the volume and quantity of traffic that can both drive visitors to a local business's site, and improve page rank. In other words, when advertisers buy station websites, they're also getting SEO as a delicious side dish. For free.

Two important side notes to this discussion.

First, be sure your website's design supports your ability to use the "alt" attibute in your advertising. For example, when placing a display ad on your station's website for XYZ Furniture, the alt attribute will allow your webmaster to add another layer of relevancy to help Google when it crawls your site and ranks your client's site. Simple descriptive text should do the trick ("XYZ Furniture Atlanta has discounted heirloom furnishings, 40% sale this weekend"). If you're not sure about this, ask your local webmaster or contact the vendor.

Second, be sure whatever advertising you're placing is getting enough traffic. Page rank will not increase if your client's advertisements are buried in some lightly trafficked micro-site. This is why internet projects have had unpredictable results. In general, Home, News and Weather pages tend to draw the most impressions needed for local business. That's where we need to be.


Last but not least, make all of this simple for your client. Let them know that your website is receiving hundreds of thousands of uniques each month (most stations average about 250K uniques), and that search engine "spiders" are drawn to that traffic when determining page rank. This simple fact will help their own page rank increase. That's it.

Our clients need to realize local broadcast stations are the most capable and affordable means to draw store traffic and web traffic.

Now, all we need to do is to set appropriate expectations, measure performance, and demonstrate the worth of this investment. We'll tackle each one of these goals in Part 2 of this article.

Dave Eckstein is not the shortstop for the Toronto Bluejays. He is a partner in the retail consulting firm ESA & Company, based in Red Bank, New Jersey.

The Perfect Retail Storm

Why Developing a New Concept is More Important Today

Mac McDonald

More stores appear the same to shoppers today.

Since the early 90’s most major retailers have gone for years without developing a new concept. The result was a perceived “sameness” in store offerings, according to consumers. The major chains bought smaller, regional chains, and eventually all their stores began to look the same. Even when a large chain bought an extremely well-positioned smaller chain, the smaller chain would become indistinguishable from the parent-chain to the customer.

For the past 25 years, many major retailers have shied away from significant store innovation. Now, an opportunity is on the horizon. According to shoppers, WalMart is showing signs of weakening. For the first time since their inception, WalMart has shown signs of a decline in their brand strength among shoppers. They are no longer quite the deterrent they use to be.

Is the changing shopper getting bored? It seems that consumers no longer flock to Ho Hum retailers. An increasing number of consumers are becoming less drawn to the Big Box stores, which have dominated the landscape for the past 20 years, and seem to have become less attractive and exciting over the past 6 years. Younger customers expect to be entertained. Older customers don’t need as much “stuff” and don’t see shopping a 200,000 square-foot store as easy, convenient or enjoyable.

The rewards of higher multiples and greater growth potential has proven to exist via new concepts, rather than the “organic” growth of traditional ones. Since even a majority of “successful” new concepts take 3 years to develop to acceptable profit levels, a great number of premature evaluations are being made, and “strong concepts” are being killed before operational excellence can be achieved. It also should be noted that increasing competition, and decreased product consumption, among key demographic groups results in a more competitors fighting for relatively fewer dollars.

Today’s mistakes and rewards are bigger. It took several of today’s large, iconic chains over 75 years to open 1,000+ stores. Today, successful new concepts can be rolled out at the rate of over 100 per year. The costs associated with:

- rolling out an ill conceived concept
- not rolling out a strong concept, at the right time
to the right target in the right location
- over-reacting to a bad competitive concept
- ignoring a breakthrough concept

… have grown dramatically in terms of both real and opportunity costs.

The worst mistake a merchant can make is to NOT spend resources creating a New Concept Store – BEFORE HE HAS TO. Remember the prophetic quote from Walter Wriston: “Failure isn’t a crime. Failure to learn from failure is a crime.” Following the New Concept development steps of “the best” merchants is expensive, and may even hurt the short term stock price or profitability … but so will going out of business. On the other hand, running a business for the short-term interests of your stockholders, rather than consumers, is what can get you into trouble in the first place.

Over the past two decades, the best new concepts have been developed by merchants who didn’t HAVE TO develop them as a means of survival. They just wanted to exploit the opportunity by moving away from “sameness”. (i.e. Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Central Market). But many of the traditional merchants today “WANT TO” because they “HAVE TO”, and that is extremely difficult! They now realize they have been painted into a no-win corner and their time as a future empire is tenuous.

The problems of developing a successful new concept when you HAVE TO are endemic to cultural difficulties in changing course, the short term financial pressures of the times causing a lack of innovation, objectivity, patience and persistence on traditional food retailers – and throw in Levitt’s Marketing Myopia Effect for good measure.

As noted earlier, for the past 25 years, most major retailers have shied away from significant store innovation. However, for the past 3 years, a flurry of “new concept” activity has taken place. However, for “new concept” activity to be considered “innovation” it has to be successful. The idea of In-Store Beauty salons was not exactly a true food store innovation. The only constant we will continue to see is that the largest chains will disappear and new powers will emerge. Not much different from when King Kullen replaced the General Store; A&P replaced King Kullen; Kroger replaced A & P and WalMart replaced Kroger as the dominant player and way of shopping for food. Only today, it will happen sooner rather than later.

The consumer market and competitive conditions that exist today make the chances of success in the development of new store concepts the highest they have been for more than 30 years. It’s the Perfect Storm condition for New Retail Concept Development.

William "Mac" McDonald has worked as a Senior Retail Marketing Specialist for over 40 years, focusing on consumer actions that affect retail tactics and strategies. An advisor to the National Retail Federation (NRF), Mac can be reached at Mac@ESACompany.com.

A Word on Frequency

Planning the right frequency in a TV buy requires Buying Window knowledge.

Adam Armbruster

Probably the most over-discussed and misunderstood topic in television advertising is the subject of frequency. “Frequency” means the appropriate number of times that a given amount of television viewers will see a specific commercial over a specific amount of time.

Although the television industry prides itself on its ability to reach the masses quickly, repetition of message is what causes a television campaign to actually work. In any given week most broadcast television stations will reach 98% of the local population so today television truly stands alone today as a mass reach medium.

Many years ago of marketing researcher at General Electric Co. named Herbert Krugman developed the classic three-time frequency formula. His argument was that people learn in threes. His theory holds that the first time we see television commercial we identify the commercial and we begin to understand what it is. The second time we see the same television commercial we decide if this message is of interest to us or not. The third time we see television commercial we've or decided that we are interested and we pay close attention and absorb the message in detail.

Krugman goes on further to state that the fourth, fifth and sixth time we see the same message it has no additional value to us and simply serves as a reminder of the third exposure.

So does this mean that a three frequency should always be the goal? Usually not. Please keep in mind that this research was done many years ago prior to the massive explosion in media choices including hundreds of television channels, dozens of radio options, dozens of magazines, millions of web sites, outdoor, mobile phone, and in the daily barrage of direct mail. So it stands to argue that we need to re-examine what the proper frequency is for television in today's age.

I grew up in a home where the daily newspaper was considered a must read, but now with two teenagers I see how they refer to the newspaper as a dead tree medium….They look at newspaper as yesterday's news. So why discuss newspaper considering the topic of frequency? Because anyone who buys print advertising those that multiple exposures of the same ad is required to generate impact and sales results.

In our work across the country with thousands of advertisers we've learned many things about television, not the least of which is how to design the proper frequency into a television plan so that the advertiser in generating immediate and measurable sales results.

A good rule of thumb is that when planning a television campaign in an extremely competitive category is a 4 or 5 campaign frequency recommendation. A higher frequency can help your message overwhelm the messages of the competition and strike a chord with the viewer faster.

In contrast, if you're consulting a client who stands alone as the only television advertiser in their category in a specific market then they can be adequately served with a high reach and a basic 3x campaign frequency. In other words this client has the luxury of reaching out to more people less often since they are not competing directly with another similar television campaign.

A few examples of frequency done right are as follows:

The Macy one-day sale plan targets several hundred targeted rating points of television over a 30 hour time period. Macy's will air 4 to 6 television commercials in each hour of programming across three or four television stations. This generates a powerful result since this approach combines the power of classic “road-blocking” with hyper frequency. The net effect of the Macy one-day sale is massive reach along with massive frequency. It's no wonder that when you shop a Macy's the day of one of these events you will see the store filled with buyers.

WebMD.com is another example of a television advertiser who distinctly understands their buying window. In a recent conversation with the folks at Web M.D., we discussed the role television in their plan. As a dot com business their singular goal is to generate massive inquiries on the web site on the same day as their television campaign airs. WebMD.com focuses on Sunday advertising as Sunday is often the number one most popular day for health-care research online. Knowing this WebMD.com dominates Sunday afternoon sporting events with a very high frequency plan over a limited time.

Let's get down to what it takes to do this right.

First is the need to understand the buying window of the product. For example a car dealer advertising a television is a very different buying window then say, a furniture store. A car dealer needs to motivate massive amounts of car buyers very quickly over a 15 day buying cycle. In contrast, a furniture store needs to generate frequency over longer buying cycle since many people will shop for furniture for weeks instead of days.

For example, how do you design the appropriate frequency into an auto dealer campaign? For many retail automotive dealer television campaigns we will design a plan to generate a 3X frequency over 72 hours. That means we will plan to reach about 35% of the entire population 3 times. Now, several things are factored into this frequency recommendation including competitive dealers, competitive nameplates, and used car dealers. All of these play a role as a competitor to an individual dealers’ television campaign.

Only by understanding the actual buying window for each specific advertiser are you able to make appropriate frequency recommendations. In the end, making the right frequency recommendation of television plan is not so simple.

So first do your homework. Discuss with the client the actual buying cycle for their product. Then, anticipate this buying cycle by one or two days prior so that your television commercials have achieved the recommended frequency by the time the actual buying cycle begins. This is necessary because of what we now call Internet lag. Internet lag is the process with which people see television commercials and then go to the advertiser's web site before they actually contact the advertiser. This is a phenomenon has occurred over last 10 years and was not factored into the original three-time frequency model.

In the end the right frequency factors many things into the final equation. Massive sales and profit increases await an advertiser who embraces the power of television with the massive reach and the right frequency.

Adam Armbruster is a senior partner with the retail and broadcasting consulting firm Eckstein, Summers, Armbruster & Company and can be reached at adam@esacompany.com.

TV Central in Mixology of Multimedia

Adam Armbruster

Are you a media multitasker?

You are if you need to watch the TV news at the same time you read a newspaper. Or if you can’t drive your car without checking e-mails on your BlackBerry. Or if you’re compelled to surf the Net on your laptop while you’re on the phone.

Gary Drenik, president of BIGresearch, says 41.2% of people who watch television commercials are surfing the Internet simultaneously. “Consumers seem to be seeking information from digital platforms, while TV has traditionally been viewed as a brand-building medium,” he adds.

Why are we doing this to ourselves? Another recent study from the folks at BIGresearch, called the Simultaneous Media Survey, says the only way people can keep up with the amount of media pumped into their world is to blend their own “media mix” and monitor several media sources at once.

Mr. Drenik says, “Media that can target, be timely and deliver value to consumers, such as coupons/direct mail, radio, Yellow Pages, newspapers and newspaper inserts, all increased in influence to purchase as consumers are looking to stretch budgets in a slowing economy.”

What about television? Although television has proven itself to be the world’s finest brand-building medium, its awesome power to drive high frequency of message and measurable sales and profits for advertisers is often overlooked.

Used properly and consistently, television trumps all media, new and old, in generating massive immediate retail consumer response. If television were only a branding medium, then politicians would not spend tens of millions of dollars on TV ads to quickly influence opinions just prior to an election. If television were just a branding medium, then the iconic Macy’s One-Day Sale would not be part of our national vernacular. No, television is much more than a branding medium; TV builds sales and profits. But there is a real discipline to it all.

So when the economy cools, why don’t all advertisers run to television instead of printed coupons and direct mail? Simple: Many marketers think of television as a great brand-building medium but not as a good tool for helping to build immediate and measurable market share.

We think that’s just plain wrong.

Consider this: Coupon redemption rates have plummeted as female consumers balk at the prospect of clipping a coupon to save 25 cents on a can of hairspray. With 60% of American women working full-time, it seems her time is better spent on activities other than clipping printed coupons from the local newspaper.

Next, direct-mail return rates have declined from 2% to just under 1%, a cataclysmic drop. We feel this is a result of the consumer getting better at using the Internet and thereby less influenced by direct-mail pieces. The Internet has created a commonly held belief that free information about any advertiser is easy to find. This knowledge has significantly impacted the “Wow!” effect of direct mail sent to the home. Why read direct-mail pieces when all you want to know about buying anything is on that business’ Web site?

Also, since television is ranked as one of the top influencers in triggering an online search, it makes sense that television and the Internet are moving into one appliance. The Internet has created a blur in the traditional retail shopping patterns, thereby affecting the rational retail buying windows.

During the 1970s, car-buying consumers shopped up to four dealerships before buying. In the 1980s that number of dealerships shopped declined to three, and in the 1990s the number of stores shopped dwindled further to just over two. Today, many car buyers shop just one store before buying.

Delayed Effect
I remember when we could air a television commercial for a big-ticket-merchandise retailer and that very day retail outlets would buzz with store traffic. Now, because of the Internet, interested consumers spend some time on the advertisers’ Web site and may also surf related blogs before actually using their valuable shopping to visit the physical store. So today a delayed effect to a television campaign can be expected.

We need to give the consumer time to do their homework on your business. Assuming you pass the “Web preview,” they will phone you and set an appointment to shop.

“Unfortunately for marketers faced with the challenges of an uncertain economy and the need to increase marketing ROI, new-media options are impacting how consumers use traditional media,” Mr. Drenik says.

If you buy into what he is saying, then you need to look at old media and new media as just plain media. And the real world demands that advertisers use a new cocktail of electronic media tools to help turn around lagging sales.

Since Nielsen reports that the average American consumer spends a total of 5½ hours a day between television and the Internet, the solution is right in front of us.

That solution is high-impact levels of targeted sales promotion with a retail ad that drives immediate sales, married to Internet tools including, but not limited to:

• Media partner web banner ads
• Topic blogs
• Self-blogging
• Limited paid search
• Free "how to buy" information on you own website.

All of these elements combined interrupt consumers in the middle of their shopping pattern. This pleasant television commercial interruption effectively deflects “now” buyers to your business. Let the other guy get the window shoppers; you want serious buyers ready to buy now.

Bottom line: Consumers don’t want to work so hard anymore for information about how to buy from you. Make it easy for consumers to buy and they will reward you with a purchase.

Adam Armbruster is a senior partner with Red Bank, N.J.-based retail and broadcasting consulting firm Eckstein, Summers, Armbruster & Company. He can be reached at adam@esacompany.com.

Recession-Proof Your TV Campaign

Adam Armbruster

Are we in a Recession? Who knows? Even the experts don’t agree.

In fact, I seem to recall that during the last two recessions the experts did not agree even then.

It was only when we emerged from these down cycles that the economists finally identified each recession as it was swiftly fading away in the economic rear view mirror.

How does that saying go? Economists can be wrong every time and still collect a paycheck. Fact is we just don’t have a clear way to identify a recession. So for discussion purposes let’s assume that we are in one now.

In a recession, customers don’t stop buying; they just stop “over-buying”. In other words, they start second guessing that four dollar Starbucks latte and start talking about how great ninety-nine cent Dunkin Donuts coffee really is after all. Spending more conservatively on small items helps the American consumer rationalize larger purchases like cars, vacations, and clothes.

So what to do when your local market economics wither? You need to make sure that your television ad campaign generates an even higher Return on Investment to compensate for a smaller market opportunity.

How do you do it? Simple. You “Recession-Proof” your television campaign. Here are a few tips on how to do it:

Present a Superior Value: The consumer wants to see a commercial from you that can help her stretch her dollar. Auto dealers are moving toward advertising and selling more preowned cars instead of new cars. These used cars are a great value and the dealer makes money on these used car sales at a rate of five to one versus new. Department stores start gift with purchase events. Furniture stores are offering full room discount deals. Grocery stores start accepting competitor’s coupons. You get the picture. Think about what value statement you can create that makes your product or service a more attractive value than those of your competition.

Create a Renewed Sense of Urgency: In a slower economic cycle consumers shop longer and buy slower. However, we find that there is always a sector of “Now” buyers that will respond to short term sales promotions. Home builder clients of ours are proving this to be true in all kinds of regional economies. With so much negative press, even attractive home purchase opportunities are second guessed by shoppers. What can you do to create excitement and a short term sales promotion and communicate this excitement in your commercial? Examine the offers in your commercials. Are the motivating? Would You buy from You?

Offer Deferred Payment: Americans are not broke. It’s just that their cash is tied up in their homes. They overbought during the home sales run up and now since home sales have stalled they have to spend “real” after-tax money instead of home equity money. This has crimped the free cash in the market. On the upper end of American consumers these buyers have cash but don’t want to take their cash out of their investments especially in a down stock market. So what to do? Offer deferred payment. Most retailers can assign a small portion (3-4%) of their product cost to be able to offer a full year of free financing. Even if you never offered this before … now is the time. The consumer will be to rationalize buying from you since they will see the expense of buying as “free” financing. In other words, they would rather use “your” money to buy than “theirs”.

Create new Service Standards : Live web chat is being used by busy female home shoppers. They like the fact that they can hold a conversation with you while they are “at work”. (In reality, she is shopping while working…but don’t tell anybody!) As a result home builders are encouraged to include this function in their web site and to promote this capacity in their television commercials. Click to Call (www.clicktocall.com)is being used by auto web marketers to create an instant connection with a car buyer. Now you can load in your phone number and have the car dealer do all of the dialing. Consumers are using this function more everyday. It makes for quick contact and never underestimate the power of a passionate salesperson in a down economy.

Eliminate Wasted Ad Dollars: If you normally buy multiple television stations on your buy, perhaps it’s time to choose a few friends from the group of stations. Approach your television station partners and ask for creative support. Ask how these stations can stretch your dollar. If you approach in the right spirit, most station managers will join your cause and help. In a battle, chose your foxhole friends carefully. This is not the time to demand added value…this is the time to request creative support and new ideas.

Buy Smarter: Negotiate an annual plan instead a quarterly buy. Television stations can help you on cost if you help them by planning. Next, analyze your current cost per thousand. Has it slowly increased as you’ve added dayparts to your buys? You may find better results in reducing your daypart count and instead double spotting lower cost per thousand areas such as local news and syndicated programming. Moving prime dollars to access can increase your frequency in your buy and create better response. Adding more AM news to your buys can increase reach and add frequency as morning news programs in some markets rival local evening news reach numbers.

Look the Part: Market share can be bought “on the cheap” when your competition stops being aggressive and leaves the marketplace. If you see that a major player goes quiet, then get loud. Pick up their customers and try to keep them. Several of our clients had terrific years in 2007 because while their competition pulled their TV ads in favor of more “measurable” direct mail, we created a new pricing strategy and which enhanced their TV presence and in some cases doubled their market share! The smartest thing to do in a recession is to present your business as aggressive and in search of value shoppers. Some clients even open up discount themed
departments to represent this theme visually in their stores.

These are just a few ways to stretch your television advertising dollar in a slow market. Hey, nobody asks for a down economic cycle. So let’s stay smart and give the customer what she wants and show her the message she wants to see. Use your resources creatively. Recession proof your campaign right now and, while your competition struggles, you may not even miss a step.

Adam Armbruster is a partner in the retail and broadcasting consulting firm Eckstein, Summers, Armbruster & Company located in Red Bank, New Jersey. Adam can be reached at adam@esacompany.com.

A Cool Half-Million (or More)

Dave Eckstein

Quick, multiply 10,000 by your cost-per-point.

Is it a quarter million dollars? Half a million? A million or more?

That's the low-end of what a simple change can bring to your sales team per salesperson.

Certainly, some of you have stopped reading by now, out of disbelief. for those that remian, the payout is very real and is already happening.

The Plus-1 Challenge is not a new concept, nor is it rocket science. But its time is way overdue. It goes something like this: Get in front of one more destination business owner a week. That's it. The math takes care of itself. If you look at what established destination businesses spend on television (the low end is 800-1000 points), and look at a very tenable close ratio of 20-25%, the payout is enormous.

What is a destination business? An auto dealer, furniture store, HVAC shop, window & siding installer, credit union, legal firm, home builder elective healthcare practice, mattress store, and so on. They are the businesses that buy television because they know it works.

Even more of you have stopped reading by now, maybe out of fear or complacency. For those that remain, the math is right there for us.

One more decision maker (i.e. business owner) a week equals 52 more meaningful meetings a year. Those 52 qualified prospects a year represent 10-12 more clients at a modest close ratio. Those 10-12 clients translate into 8,000 - 12,000 more points moved each year. On the low end. So, again, for those of you with cost-per-points around $50 ... does a half-million sound worth it? If not, multiply that by the number of people on your sales team. A mid-market station could stand to gain a lot of ground in a very short time. Any station could.

We're well aware that not everyone is still reading this. For those that remain, you must have objections to this "plan".

Wait, it's not easy to get in front of one more decision maker each week, is it? Maybe "easy" is the wrong word. If it were easy, it'd be done by now, and we'd all be millionaires. But just for the record, we posed this same challenge to a group of relatively "unseasoned" broadcast television salespeople. Actually, we recommend they talk to three decision makers a day. Makes one a week look like child's play. That's a tall order, huh? This "unseasoned" group of AEs responded by getting in front of one more decision maker each day (let alone each week), which led to more clients, which lead to more points moved, which ... well, you know how the story ends.

I hesitate in using the word "unseasoned". They had the ability to do this all along. And if they were unseasoned, their seasoning happened so fast it was scary. In a very good way. What we noticed along the way, is that the salespeople who got the most meetings saw their close ratios improve along the way. Some as high as 47%. Oh, by the way, this all transpired in a month's time. About twenty business days.

We presented this challenge again to a group of veteran salespeople and sales managers and saw a few careers significantly change in trajectory ... again, all in a month's time. The most stunning report was a salesperson who had closed nearly $400K in new business in less than a month.

Okay, here come more objections. "We could never write that much in this market ... our market is different."

Stop with the objections. Your prospects and clients already provide plenty. Why add to the list?

If you're a salesperson and you're looking for the next "surefire way to double your sales in short order", which seems to be printed in boldface on so many dust-jackets of best sellers these days, consider this your plan. It works. Just go one more.

If you're a sales manager, try it for a month. Be sure to take a check-point every day. That part is absolutely necessary. No meetings required, just a brief conversation to reinforce a positive habit. Here's the context of that discussion: "Who did you meet yesterday? And who are you meeting today?"

Then let the math work itself out. And after a month, you'll notice this information will be regularly volunteered. Because by then, it'll be a learned habit, and it'll be working quite well.

We're positive that only a few of you are still reading. We're also hoping many of you are picking up a phone or walking to the car to meet your next client. If so, congratulations.

Just go one more. It's your choice.

Dave Eckstein is not the shortstop for the Toronto Bluejays. He is a partner in the firm ESA & Company, based in Red Bank, New Jersesy.