Advertisement Ideas: Stand Out By Honoring Commitments!!!

Advertisement Ideas: Stand Out By Honoring Commitments!!

The word commitment is defined as:

com·mit·ment

[ kə mítmənt ]

responsibility: something that takes up time or energy, especially an obligation
loyalty: devotion or dedication, e.g. to a cause, person, or relationship
previously planned engagement: a planned arrangement or activity that cannot be avoided

Synonyms: promise, pledge, vow, obligation, assurance, binder, word, guarantee, warrant

You may be asking yourself what does this have to do with advertising? The answer is simple as you should pledge to yourself to be committed to strengthening your brand through advertising. In many cases entrepreneurs and marketing directors wonder why their ad campaign is not working and the answer is simple they did not honor their commitment to build their brand. I have been selling advertising for many years and I have heard let me try it once and see how it works. This approach is not effective, you might as well just through your money into a public place with your business card attached because a one time ad may spike traffic or make your phone ring, however the key in advertising is frequency and consistency. The idea is to be fully committed to the campaign and find the proper venues to advertise in that will be synergistic with your message and reach your desired target audience.

When you make a commitment to promote your business you will see the positive results. I often visit my local Starbucks and have my business cards at the ready as you never know who you may meet and how you can be of service and value to each other. This is part of my commitment to promote who I am and what I do. Through this commitment to put myself out there I have picked up a few clients, secured announcing gigs, and strengthened my brand. Continue reading

Advertisement Ideas: Dominick’s Pizza: What Not To Do!!!

Those of you who read this blog know my affinity for Pizza and you also know my passion about promoting Pizza Restaurants that treat me right when I am asking for help with Relay For Life. Well this is an example of what not to do as illustrated by my recent trip to Dominick’s Pizza. It was about 1:15 PM in the afternoon on a Friday I was out collecting for The American Cancer Society Relay For Life of West Boca Raton and walked into Dominick’s Pizza and was promptly told “We are not interested,” to which I replied I guess you’re not interested in selling me 2 slices of pizza a garden salad and a unsweetened iced tea. I was told no and to leave the restaurant. I guess my purchase and the good will I would have brought to them wasn’t important. Each person I shared this with said the same thing oh Dominick’s their tough. So The lesson here is to realize everyone who walks through your doors is important and has the potential to be a customer and create new customers. Dominick’s gets a fail in this department and will not be receiving any of my business. Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: Dominick’s Pizza: What Not To Do!!!

Advertisement Ideas: KISS Delivers Important Message About Building Your Brand!!!

Advertisement Ideas: KISS Delivers Important Message About Building Your Brand!!!!

I remember when I was younger and my younger brother Joshua was a big KISS fan and we would listen to this song. Today as I listened to the lyrics I thought the message is to SHOUT OUT About who you are, what you do, and give people a reason to use your product or services. I started to think why do people buy NIKE Products when there are other brands that are just as good? The answer is because NIKE Shouts the loudest and is constantly on the top of the mind of the consumer. Every where you look during a sporting event NIKE Has some type of presence. NIKE has also aligned itself with very well-known celebrities and athletes to build credibility.

You may be thinking but I don’t have a NIKE type budget. I am here to tell you yes it would be nice to have a NIKE type budget, however you can shout it out loud with your budget. I visit with many smaller businesses on a regular basis and the biggest excuse I hear when it comes to advertising is I don’t have a budget for that. I then ask do you have a marketing and advertising budget and yes there is a difference marketing is about building a brand so that when someone is ready to purchase your product or service they will choose you first. Advertising is promoting offers to drive traffic so you see a return on your investment. Many times I am told no. This is one of my pet peeves as I ask in mind how do you open a business and stay in business without setting aside some money to reach your desired target audience? I have encountered many people who don’t know who their target audience and I then ask them to give me a profile of who their customer is and they say everyone to which I reply your target audience can not be everyone for this is to broad of a spectrum to tackle. One must have a budget and know who their target audience is of they are to be successful. I ask businesses all the time how are you marketing and advertising and they tell me word of mouth. Word of mouth is okay however it must be augmented with other strategies because not everyone who needs your product or service is going to know your current customers. In order to shout it out loud you must have a strategic plan and you must find what your potential clients/customers are reading, watching, listening to, visiting on-line, and what they desire. A great way to shout it out loud is to answer the question of what problem do I solve in my clients/customers lives? Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: KISS Delivers Important Message About Building Your Brand!!!

Advertisement Ideas: WWE Delivers Message Of Branding

Advertising Ideas: WWE Delivers Message Of Branding

Show these images to most Americans and they will immediately tell you that is Dwayne “THE ROCK” Johnson and the World Wrestling Entertainment Logo. It wasn’t always like this as wrestling for years was looked down upon and the crowds they attracted were looked at as being less than desirable. Then it happened Vincent Kennedy McMahon started to formulate ways to take the genre to another level and made his brand appealing to the mainstream. The WWE has capitalized on the popularity of their characters and the appeal of their events to record record earnings and record TV Ratings. Some would say that The WWE is a publicity machine. This publicity machine did not grow to the mamouth proportion it is today simply by putting up a ring and announcing that there will be matches locally, no their leadership sat down and put together a business plan that was very extensive outlining everything that they wanted to accomplish. Today The WWE is a publicly traded company whose stock as of today was trading at $8.55 a share you have $855 you can have 100 shares. It is estimated that it will trade at $10.50 a share by the end of the year.

The WWE has become a champion in the sports entertainment industry by branding itself and aggressively marketing itself. Despite filing for restructuring under the chapter 11 bankruptcy laws The WWE continues to have a following and continues to grow. With It biggest event Wrestlemania, now in its 29th year, The WWE continues to build a fan base and gain revenue as they capitalize on knowing what their fans want. Recently their TV Show Monday Night Raw went from 2 hours to 3 hours and has beaten The NBA and NCAA in the ratings proving that if you appeal to the general public and you market yourself you will be successful. Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: WWE Delivers Message Of Branding

Advertisement Ideas: Be Open To Receive!!!!

Advertisement Ideas: Be Open To Receive!!!

In his seminars the first thing Rev. Ernest Chu teaches is the concept of being open to receive. As I thought about this concept I began to think how many businesses may be struggling because they are not open to receive. So many times when it comes to advertising and marketing a business will respond with a programmed response I am not interested, or it is not in my budget, or I tried something like that before and it did not work. Do you see the pattern here? Each response contains a closed word such as not. Each time you say not or turn away from an opportunity you may be closing yourself and your business off from receiving better name recognition, more revenue, and a positive reputation in the community. In today’s market place it is important to understand that everyone you come in contact with can be of value and service to your business. Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: Be Open To Receive!!!!

Advertisement Ideas: Leveraging The Super Bowl

This Sunday, February 3, 2013 millions of people will be gathering for Super Bowl Parties across the country. Have you created a way that you can leverage The Super Bowl to drive business to you this week? Have you planned a strategy to capitalize on people’s love for The Super Bowl? Every type of business be it life coaching, personal training, a restaurant, a dry cleaner, a doctors office, etc. can benefit from doing some type of promotion revolving around The Super Bowl and thus creating more brand recognition and more revenue. Think about it you are a life coach and seeking more clients, how about an ad campaign that revolves around the theme Score A Touchdown In Your Life With Life Coach _______. Begin a program by 2/3/13 and recieve $50 off of your program. You are a personal trainer you could do a campaign with the theme Hoist Your Own Lombardi Trophy when you enroll for a fitness and wellness program with________________. You have a restaurant and you can run a campaign Score An Extra Point With Our Desserts, receive one FREE Dessert with purchase of an entree. You are a dry cleaner your campiagn can be Look Like An MVP with __________________. You are a doctor’s office you can do a campaign Let Us Be The QB For Your Health. As you can see if you come up with a creative theme and then put advertising out there you will leverage The Super Bowl.

As a business you can leverage The Super Bowl by participating in POINTS FOR THE CURE!!!! The way it works is you have your clients/customers/patrons choose either The Ravens or The 49 ERS and they agree to donate $.25 (25 cents) per point that the team scores and then after the game they visit http://main.acsevents.org/goto/jdogglederman and make their donation mentioning your business in the comment area. You as a business then do a media release about how you and your clients/customers/patrons participated in POINTS FOR THE CURE and raised money for The American Cancer Society. You then do a thank you ad as part of your print campaign and thank everyone for supporting POINTS FOR THE CURE and helping to raise money for The American Cancer Society. When you leverage an event like The Super Bowl you can strengthen your brand and increase revenue. Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: Leveraging The Super Bowl

Advertisement Ideas: What’s Your Problem?

As you begin to develop you advertising program you must recognize your problem and understand how a properly planned and implemented advertising program will solve the problem. When I approach people to advertise with the many avenues that I represent like www.labonitakidz.com, www.miamifuryfootball.com, or www.spicemiami.com, I hear I am not interested or that type of marketing and advertising won’t work for me. That is a part of the problem as your lack of interest may have just cost you the potential to reach new people and thus strengthen your brand or you may have decided that it won’t work for you and lost out on an opportunity to work with someone who can make it work for you. I hear I can’t afford to ad more advertising at this time to which I say what if you were to cut what you are doing with someone else in half for example instead of a full-page ad with them runs a 1/2 page with them and run a 1/4 page with me and then you can run 1/4 page somewhere else thus giving you more exposure in the market place. I hear things are slow and I can’t afford to advertise. To this I say advertising should be done when it is slow and when it is busy as the consumer perceives that a business that is advertising is a strong business. So now what is your problem? Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: What’s Your Problem?

Advertisement Ideas: Advertising Expense or Investment?

Advertisement Ideas: Adevertising Expense or Investment?

Investment Expense

In all my 20 + years of advertising sales and design and developing advertisement ideas I have always pondered the question of is advertising an expense or an invetment? In many cases it depends what side of the table you are on, are you the one selling the ad or the one buyimg the ad? It all so depends on your mindset about about business. In many cases when businesses are slow they cut the marketing and advertising budget looking at it as an expense when that is the time to increase the budget and strengthen your brand and look at advertising and marketing as an investment because you can measure the results. If you run an ad with a specific tracakable number you can see haw many calls it generated, if you create a unique link to get to your website from the ad you can track visitors and the actions they took. The key is to look at all the advertising choices and determine if I invest in this type of marketing will it increase my brand awareness, will it create a buzz, will it drive business. Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: Advertising Expense or Investment?

Advertisement Ideas: Greetings, Salutations, And The Bottom Line

It was a Wednesday Morning a week before Christmas when I found myself out making sales calls for La Bonita Kidz and Teenz with the owner and ceo Shanta Tanksley as we are gearing up to launch the magazine in March 2013. We both knew it would be difficult as most business owners were not thinking of marketing let alone planning their marketing for the Spring of 2013. We encountered many people who seemed pre occupied who seemed to think that we were imposing on their day when in reality we were there to help their business. One particular encounter at Third Federal in Coral Springs, FL as we walked in we were immediately greeted with a women standing up and saying NO SOLICITING. My response was mam we are not soliciting we are meeting with local businesses to start to build a relationship so as to see how we can be of service and value to one another. I also made it a point that we could have just come into money and were looking for a bank. She began to explain that corporate instructs them to do this when it appears that someone maybe soliciting. She then gave us the branch manager’s card. Shanta said to me you are amazing you kept your cool and made a great point. We both came to the conclusion that many businesses are missing out on potential by not understanding how greetings and salutations affect your bottom line. Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: Greetings, Salutations, And The Bottom Line

Advertisement Ideas: What Does Trump Have That You Don’t?

Advertisement Ideas:What Does Trump Have That You Don’t?

I think of Donald Trump and I see the living example of branding. Trump knew that if he was going to be successful he had to brand himself and create a buzz about who he was and what he did. This got me to thinking what does Trump have that you don’t? The answer was a following created by using public relations effectively and marketing savvy. Trump is in the news nearly everyday as he has become the man who media people go to for opinions on almost everything. He speaks his mind and makes a spectacle of himself on many occasion however he has built a brand that is synonymous with wealth and royalty. He did this over many years by continually promoting. He also built relationships with those that could be of service and value to him while also providing service and value. Donald Trump has also surrounded himself with other successful people who he can go to for help when he needs to. He may come across as brash and arrogant but who would you go to to invest with? Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: What Does Trump Have That You Don’t?