Advertisement Ideas: Building Isn’t Enough
Kevin Costner hears and acts upon the voice,”Build and They Will Come,”
We all remember the scene in Field of Dreams where the voice says build it and they will come, well people did come, then again it was a movie. Due to the large promotion of the movie many people trek to the movie site in Iowa. The Convention and Visitors Bureau for the area lists in in the attraction section. They have a marketing director and a special events coordinator to keep the traffic coming. What are you doing to create your Field of Dreams?
This sign is a form of advertising that everyone sees when they drive by.
Sometimes building is not enough you have to have a strong advertising mix that reaches many people at once. After you build, be it a brick and mortar business or a home office the next phase is maximizing your message. Then when you start to brand yourself you want to create loyal followers or as I like to say raving fans. Imagine being in a community and having the reputation as the person to go to in your chosen field of endeavor. Many businesses open up and don’t budget for advertising and marketing and struggle and as a result fail within 2 years. It doiesn’t have to be this way.
Many successful businesses are successful because they planned their work, worked their plan and when the time came made adjustments. When you build your business remember that to stay in business you must know:
1: Who is my customer- If you tell me everyone I will tell you rethink that. Have a primary target perhaps it is women aged 18-25 who earn $50,000 per year, married with at least 1 child, and living in a home valued at $250,000. Have a secondary market if it makes sense like women aged 25-40 earning $50,000 per year and single. Kowing who you customer is will help in placing ads.
2: What is the neighborhood like- Finding out how many schools public and private. Are their sports programs? What special events are there? When are commisssion meetings? Who are the elected officials? This is important asyou can find out if they fit into your target demographic and thus plan your marketing strategy accordingly. For example you want to reach the primary audience I mentioned get to know the neighborhood and find out the places these women go, what they read, and what activities are they oir their children involved in.
3: How many other people in the community are offering what I offer and what makes me different. Opening a business in an area that is saturated with that type of business is not going to work unless you are far superior to everyone else. The key here is knowing who your competition is and going way beyond anything they are doing. When I worked for a Bowling Center and put 1,500 league bowlers on the floor one summer I did it by being proactive and creative. My bowling center was one of the first centers to offer a ball to bowlers at the end of the season. We also used many of The Bowling Propertiors Association of America Programs and then we did some of our own promotions to stand out. One great promotion we did was Beannie Baby Bowling where a child would bowl 2 games and receive a Beannie Baby for $10. The parents could bowl for $6. Each week this grew and it became a prelude to waht we now call meet-ups. We promoted it and word got out about waht we were doing and none of our competitors were doing what we were doing. We created a a niche market with a unique selling proposition. By the end of the summer when you came into The Bowling Center on a Monday at 6:30 PM you would see 22 lanes of the 38 filled with beannie baby bowlers and 14 of the lanes filled with our Bowl for a Ball League, we kept 2 lanes open incase of breakdowns.
A unique mixture that led to a successful marketing program.
What are your top 10 Recognizable Brands? Mine are:
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This week think of ways and implement ways to make you as recognizable as these brands. Remember branding isn’t a movie it is real and those that stay ahead of the competition and innovate survive.
