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Phineas Taylor Barnum’s most enduring quote is “There’s a sucker born every minute.” I suspect he was right. But then, Barnum never expected to see the same customer twice.

Hucksterism can create a sale, but it can’t create a market.

Advertising can’t create a market, either, because advertising can’t convince people to purchase something that they don’t already feel the urge to own.

Whether or not they are yet conscious of this urge, customers must feel the need to own the product or service, or nothing happens. I was watching TV with my sister when an ad for the Clorox^® Bleach Pen^® came on. “I need that” was her comment. She instantly knew that he “needed” a product which (in her mind) didn’t exist 30 seconds ago. Although she’d never articulated it, she’d already felt the need.

This has a couple of obvious implications. For instance, you can’t “test” advertising effectiveness by featuring items in your ads that aren’t selling on your sales floor. (Think about it: if your regular customers are passing on those items, telling more people about them isn’t going to move ‘em any faster).

Also, shouting “We will not be undersold. Call me NOW!” doesn’t make people want whatever you’ve got any more than they wanted it before being exposed to your shouting.

Advertising does not create demand. It can only direct people who already feel that need to buy from you rather than from someone else. My sister already felt the need to apply bleach to a tightly-controlled area. Once the ad brought her attention to the product, she purchased one within hours.

Example #1: Refrigerators

When refrigerators were new they were obviously superior to the old ice boxes. The first generation of these devices sold by satisfying the need people already felt to make their lives easier.

Unfortunately for retailers refrigerators are appliances which have an exceptionally long purchase cycles. Consumers don’t usually replace them until they break down.

We call such breakage a “triggering event.”

The trigger suddenly moves customers from “not interested” to “I need one… NOW.” (Probably the pressure of hundreds of dollars of food spoiling). Until the trigger they’re largely oblivious to the new models. Hold all of the tent sales that you want, only a very few people will have a broken ‘fridge today.

Note to appliance stores: since there is no possible way to predict when an appliance will break, make sure that customers think of you immediately after the trigger is pulled. Think Top-Of-Mind Awareness (long term; relational) advertising rather than Call To Action (short term; transactional) advertising.

Example #2: Feminine Hygiene Products.

During World War I personal toiletry supplies were nearly impossible to obtain at the front. Red Cross nurses in military hospitals started using the new cellular cotton bandages as sanitary napkins.

Until the 1920’s menstrual pads had been made of cloth and needed frequent laundering. But having learned of the nurses’ use of their product, Kimberly-Clark in 1921 started marketing a modified cellular bandage under the brand name, Kotex^®.

Important point: although they created a whole new industry, Kimberly-Clark did not create demand. The demand for disposable sanitary napkins already existed. Since no one spoke of such things (Puritanism lives), the existing need hadn’t been articulated, or addressed by manufacturers.

Example #3: Remote Controls for Car Radios

Ever seen a remote control for an automobile radio? Most of the time the driver has to reach farther to pick up the remote than he would to reach the radio. Then he has to pull his arm back far enough to create the correct angle of application to allow the remote to function.

Does advertising sell these things?

Well, yes, but not to the general public. The general public does’t care. They don’t feel the need.

Car radio remotes are purchased by men (primarily) who haven’t outgrown the “Hey… lookit meeeee” stage. They felt the need to show off long before any manufacturer ever considered offering a new technological toy.

You can sucker someone to buy from you one time – if you’re particularly good at suckering. But without taking advantage of people, you can’t convince them to buy what they don’t want. And you’ll never convince them a second time.

Until they feel the need, they probably don’t want it.

Once they feel that need, we want them to think of you.

The oldest rule in investing is “buy low, sell high.” You can apply the same rule to marketing your company.

Over the last 100 years there have been 20 recessions – ten since World War II. Simple arithmetic would indicate that we’re roughly two years away from the next one.

Why are we talking about a poor economy during this period of economic growth? For that matter, why are we discussing economics in an advertising column?

Simple. An economic recession is your chance to “buy low.”

Your opportunity is coming. There will always be another economic recession.

This is not a prediction of doom and gloom. It’s an attempt to draw your attention to an opportunity. Like the proverbial ant, you’ll be preparing for winter while the grasshoppers are playing.

When the economy heads south 75% of U.S. companies respond by cutting back, hunkering down, and trying to “tough out” the tough times. Advertising is the first expense that gets eliminated.

The overall level of advertising drops. Media feels the pinch and drops rates. This is the equivalent of buying stocks at the bottom of the market. Think of it as dollar cost averaging. Buy more as the price decreases.

There are two other advantages to aggressively advertising during economic recessions.

1) Your “share of voice” becomes multiplied as the advertising noise reduces.

2) Your “share of mind” is often uncontested for months at a time. During these times your more timid competitors will fall behind and likely never catch up.

Take a look at this graphic.

It’s a summary of the McGraw-Hill Research study of the 1981-82 economic recession in the U.S. The study analyzed 600 companies covering 16 different SIC industries. Year one on this graph is 1980. Year six is 1985.

You’ll note that the aggressively competitive companies represented by the black bar had only a slight edge over their competitors in the years leading up to the recession. Their sales growth was in the middle of the pack as the recession hit. But while their competitors cut back in year one, or year two, or both, they continued to invest in getting their message out.

These firms grew nicely during the recession, but the real news happened in the two years following the end of the economic downturn.

Two years into the recovery, the competitors who did cut back had all stalled out at levels the aggressive companies had blown past during the recession. By the end of 1985 the companies that didn’t cut back had grown a whopping 256%.

During the recessionary period 1989-1991 Kraft salad dressings, Jiff peanut butter, Bud Lite, Coors Lite, Pizza Hut, and Taco bell were in the aggressive group which increased advertising expenditures. Jell-O, Crisco, Hellman’s, Green Giant, McDonalds, and Doritos cut back on advertising during this period. Predictably the first group had showed growth during the recession ranging from 15% to 70%. The second group’s sales dropped 26% to 64%

During our last economic downturn, while aggressive marketers such as Proctor and Gamble took advantage of reduced media rates to expand their advertising program, K-Mart decided to decrease advertising during September and October, 2001.

The result? K-Mart sales dropped a resounding 5% during October. By late fall the company had lost far more in sales than it had saved in marketing expense.

At least a dozen other studies ranging from 1923 through 1991 show nearly identical results. Meldrum & Fewsmith showed in a series of six studies that, for all post World War II recessions, those firms that kept advertising aggressively increased profits as well as gross sales during the recession.

It’s important to remember that during a recession consumers don’t stop buying. They become more selective. They look much harder for “value” in their purchases. They are going to buy from someone. They’re likely to buy from businesses that they know and like.

Make sure they know you.

The more visible you are, the more confidant your customers and prospects become. The more they are reminded of your legitimacy and staying power, the more they’ll be inclined to believe you’ll be there for them tomorrow.

Remember too that during any period of economic downturn your best customers become someone else’s best prospects. When you stop inviting them to do business with you, a more aggressive competitor may become much more attractive.

So, in addition to advertising heavily when the economy is soft, what else do you need to do?

1) Never take your focus off your customers. Cherish them, and make sure they know it. Make their Personal Experience Factor exceptional.

2) Media pricing is driven by market demand. Take advantage of the weak demand and the resultant drop in price to buy even more market presence without increasing your advertising budget.

3) Start learning now about relationship marketing, permission marketing, and database management. Learn the names of your customers. Learn their sizes. Learn their preferences. Make sure they know you, your values, what you stand for, and what you won’t stand for.

4) Define your core values. Continuously share them with your customers, and your prospects, through your advertising, merchandising, and public relations. This is your opportunity for true brand building.

If the recesion were to start today, what would you change about your marketing message?

How might that revised message play right now while times are relatively good?

How much of a head start would the revised message give you over your competitors? By the time the next recession hits, could you successfully associate those changes with your business in the minds of your customers?

Hummm.

What’s holding you back from making those changes right now?

WARNING: The following article contains bragging. (I’ll let you know when it’s going to get thick).

I was first introduced to the concept of the Single Quarter Manager in 1994 over lunch with Ben Rast; Senior Vice President of Morgan Stanley’s office in Columbia, South Carolina.

According to Rast, the Single Quarter Manager’s objective is to make himself look good in the short term, without ever considering the long term effect of his actions on the future of his company.

In an effort to boost cash flow he fires the Research and Development staff, along with the Maintenance staff.

He tells Sales that anyone who can’t meet his impossible sales goals will be joining their unemployed brethren from Maintenance and R&D. As you might expect, the salespeople cut every sleazy deal with every potential customer with no regard to the profitability to the company, without even regard for next quarter’s sales.

At the end of the first quarter, the Single Quarter Manager’s division boasts an all-time high profitability. In fact, the Single Quarter Manager has set such records that he’s immediately promoted to a corporate job at company headquarters.

Now, consider the plight of his replacement.

The division can’t sell any more stuff.

With the profitibility of these deals so low, they can’t show a profit offering the original products to any additional customers – not that there’s any additional product to be had. Between the sleazy deals pushing the demand curve and the breakdown of the equipment from lack of maintenance, there’s no extra original product to offer.

There’s no new product to offer existing customers, either, ‘cause the R&D staff departed without developing one.

The next manager of this division will fail in the most spectacular fashion, achieving the worst profitability in the history of the company.

Searching desperately for answers, the company will replace him. They will systematically replace at least two more just like him. None of the Single Quarter Manager’s successors will be able to turn the division around.

The company’s only solution is to hunker down, tough it out, and start growing new customers.

That takes time.

A lot of time.

I was reminded of Mr. Rast’s description in early June of this year when, like you, I first learned of GM’s “Employee Pricing For Everyone” promotion.

GM had just posted a loss of over a billion dollars. That’s billion, with a “B,” in the first quarter of 2005.

This was followed by a thirteen percent decline in May sales, which was blamed on the increase in gas prices.

Dealers had a three-month inventory of ‘05’s on their lots. With the downturn in sales, it appeared that those units might not sell before the ‘06’s came out.

How did GM’s management react to the May sales slowdown?

They announced a workforce reduction of 25,000 and a new sales incentive, which they called the “Employee Discount For Everyone.”

Ford quickly followed with a discount program of their own: “The Ford Family Plan.”

Then Chrysler piled on with “Employee Pricing Plus” which gave customers the same price as Chrysler Group employees, plus additional cash back of up to $3,500.

The programs, said one analyst of the auto industry, “represent a desperate and necessary move for desperate times.”

“Now that,” said I, “is a spectacular example of Single Quarter thinking.”

It came as no surprise to me on Monday of this week to learn that in the first nine days of October, U.S. auto sales tanked. It seems that the end of September coincided with the big three domestic auto makers ending their summer “employee discount” offers.

“GM’s sales fell 57 percent and Ford’s fell 45 percent as sales in the U.S. auto industry dropped 33 percent from a year earlier.

“The aftermath of the employee-pricing programs is having a dramatic impact on automotive retail sales in October,” Jeff Schuster, executive director of global forecasting at J.D. Power and Associates, said Friday.

“Ford’s chief sales analyst, George Pipas, said Thursday that October sales would likely fall because the employee discounts spurred customers to buy sooner than they might have.”

Arizona Republic, October 14, 2005

Really? (He said incredulously, with just a hint of sarcasm). Discounts spurred customers to buy sooner than they might have? Who’d have thought?

(Brace yourself; the bragging starts here).

Seems I predicted this maneuver, as well as its outcome, on pages 20-22 of Fishing For Customers And Reeling Them In.

I said:

“Pretend for a minute that you’re a small town automobile dealer. In any given month you’ll sell about thirty cars. That’s about the demand in your community for your brand of vehicle.

“Then your new sales manager has an idea. “Let’s do a ‘cash back at signing’ event. We’ll draw in record sales.” So you do the event and you sell forty vehicles this month. GREAT NEWS, HUH?

“Well, actually you got the thirty customers who would have purchased from you anyway, and ten more. Where did the other ten come from? Chances are there were not quite ready to buy, and the cash back convinced them to commit early. The extra ten customers may well have come from next month.

“So now your sales are lagging in month number two, and the sales manager says “We have to do it again. Remember how well that promotion worked last month.” So, you again offer the cash incentive.

“This time you sell forty-five units. The other twenty who would have been in the market in the second month, and twenty-five from the third month. Can you see where this is leading? At some point you’re pulling from so far ahead of the demand curve that no amount of incentives will convince customers to buy now.

“Then what do you do?

“You’re about to have the worst month in the history of the dealership. It’s just around the corner… and there’s not much you can do to stop it.

“And remember that these last few months of cash back at closing have cut deeply into your profit margins. We’ve already established that you must have full margins to remain profitable. You’re selling more cars and making less money. You’re also trapped on a treadmill that just keeps turning faster and faster.

“This is the problem with Call To Action advertising. And the longer you do it, the less effective it becomes.”

Fishing For Customers And Reeling Them In
Wizard Academy Press, 2004

In his April 11, 2005 column, Motley Fool’s Rich Smith pretty much agreed with me when he said “When Ford lists a car at $17,000 and then incentivizes it down to $15,000, it makes a sale more likely today with the consequence that that sale will not occur tomorrow.”

Ok. Rich and I recognized the danger of such short-term thinking. Done bragging. Now what?

How about two new predictions:

1. Deep discounts from MSRP will now become the way business is done in the auto industry. From this point forward, cars will not sell without a discount. (Hey, I remember life before cash back deals became S.O.P. for the industry. I predicted that they’d never go away either. Oh, wait. I already said I’d stop bragging. Scratch that last comment).

2. I wouldn’t recommend buying stock in Ford, or GM, or Chrysler. They’re all in for a long non-profitable stretch that sill be marked by further desperate moves from the auto manufacturers as consumer resentment toward them continues to grow.

You want evidence of that resentment?

• This summer a Chevy Suburban half-ton, four-wheel-drive LT model, could be purchased by any of us for $9,798 off list. A Silverado 1500 extended-cab pickup could be had for $7,888 off list.
• The Lincoln Navigator luxury 4×2 was offered at $9,012 off retail. Price for the Ford Escape became $4,212 off list price.
• A fully loaded Town and Country minivan could be purchased for nearly $6,982 off list. The Dodge Durango sport utility could be purchased with zero percent financing for 36 months, and a $4,000 cash rebate.

The big three automakers have each effectively admitted that after shaving $7,000, $8,000, even $9,000 off the price of their vehicles, they’re still profitable.

If you’ve purchased a new vehicle in the last few years, do you now feel as if you didn’t even get kissed?

Will you ever pay full price for a car again? Will anyone?

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Perhaps the biggest change in the last decade is the growth of interconnectivity. New technology has empowered people.

Uh… let’s re-word that: New technology has empowered customers.

Whether you call it word of mouth or professional reputation, this personal experience factor has always driven repeat business, referral business, and even first-time business. But with the speed and power of interconnectivity, personal experience is multiplied exponentially.

What happens when your ads brag about your customer service, and customer dreads going on hold with your automated call center?

What happens when your customer finally understands that your “money back guarantee” is actually pro-rated for the number of weeks that she owned your product?

What happens when your angry customer makes the evening news carrying a placard which declares you to be a crook?

Where do you hide when there’s no place to hide?

Interconnectivity Example Number 1:

Blogs are cheap, easy, and nearly universally available. A blog allows anyone to post observations, opinions, or discoveries to the world and get the attention of any other person interested in the same topics.

And then for an investment under $200 anyone can be a “citizen journalist.” A cheap digital recorder and a cell phone with built-in camera are all the tools necessary.

Catch a talking head as he leaves the major media interview, ask the question, shoot the pic, and have it posted to a blog before the big boys have even finished postproduction.

When the major networks have no interest in a story, it only takes one curious blogger to check and publish facts. Other bloggers pick up the story. Eventually the major networks are forced to pay attention, too.

“The president of a Louisiana parish tearfully told a national TV audience the heartbreaking story of a coworker whose mother was left to die in a flooded nursing home days after Hurricane Katrina immobilized New Orleans – but, as it turns out, the story isn’t true.

MSNBC reported the man Broussard was talking about is Thomas Rodrigue, who told “Dateline” that his 92-year-old mother was one of 32 elderly people found dead at the St. Rita’s nursing home. The New York Times reported the 32 residents, out of 60 total, died Aug. 29.

Reported WuzzaDem.com: “Broussard claims Rodrigue was talking to his mother for four days after she died, promising here some nebulous ‘cavalry’ was on the way. His story doesn’t jibe with the reporting of CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, or even Thomas Rodrigue’s own account.”

Interconnectivity Example Number 2:

Time was that a young man could go away to college, raise hell, cut classes, get stupid drunk way too often, and clean up his act in time for graduation.

But even if Mom and Dad never find out, it’s getting way too easy for employers to completely check every job application. Suppose this young man applies for a job in which he’s not truly qualified, thinking that he can exaggerate (ok, lie) “just a little” on his resume?

Or if he asks out a lady who uses the Internet to check potential dates? With not too much effort she can examine our young man’s police record, check for judgments, and peruse public records for previous marriages and child support.

Privacy?

There is no such thing, despite the protestations of Google’s C.E.O., Eric Schmidt.

Some found it poetic justice when Eleanor Mills, a staff writer at CNET used Google’s search engine to find basic information about Schmidt. Schmidt responded by blacklisting CNET.

As more information becomes digitized it will become universally available. And make no mistake, once information about you, or perhaps more importantaly. once information about your businesss hits the World Wide Web, it’s going to be there forever.

We all live in glass houses. There’s no place left to hide.

Interconnectivity Example Number 3:

Think your advertising is the only thing that influences potential customers? Uh, no.

The web is becoming the great source for information exchange. A customer who feels abused enough starts his own web site: (YourBusiness)Sucks.com. Think the legal system will defend you? The courts have ruled that merely using your name in a derivative domain is not copyright infringement.

Will this immediately affect business?

Probably not.

But, as more and more people become dissatisfied with any business, and they post their dissatisfaction, the collective volume of negative will eventually become public knowledge.

I turned over some copy to a client. The client’s wife went to work improving it. She systematically removed all of the specific points I’d made and replaced them with clichés. She insisted that the phone number be included several times. Finally, she was emphatic that we use the business street address rather than the “next to” directions, because she “didn’t want to give them any free advertising.”

I argued. I explained. I implored them to let me do what I do well. They informed me that they were the clients.

They’re right. It’s their checkbook and their final decision.

I resigned the account.

Oh, I do understand the urge to do it yourself. In high school I taught myself to play guitar, then built my own 12-string. After recording in commercial studios, I designed and built my own mixer, my own compressor, my own microphones. They worked. Perhaps one could say surprisingly well. I don’t use any of them any more.

As I became more descriminating I became less enchanted with doing it myself. The commercially available equipment worked better, was less expensive, and could be depended on for more satisfactory results.

Eventually I completely changed my mind about doing everything myself. It seems that I purchased a pair of radio stations, and in the process of being totally responsible I learned that not to use a specialist is a false economy. (Or incredible arrogance).

Oh, it’s a great concept: be so versatile that you can do every job at your company.

However, when you’re busy producing an ad you can’t be simultaneously responding to a customer complaint. When you’re making a sales call you can’t be simultaneously covering for a sick disc jockey. When you’re repairing a broken transmitter you can’t be simultaneously developing a new listener promotion.

I finally figured out that when I tackled a piece of broken equipment it could take me as long as ten hours to finish the repair. Some of that is lack of practice. Some is me second-guessing my own diagnostic skills. Either way, when it comes to electronic repairs I’m slow.

On the other hand, when I hired a local electronic technician he finished in two hours instead of my customary ten. I paid him $15 per hour. (Hey – it’s an old story).

Hummm. I spent ten hours saving my company $30.

I effectively “earned” $3 per hour.

Surely I could do something worth more to the company than $3 per hour.

I could have made another sales call and earned more than the technician’s $30. I could have spent a couple of hours creating a new sales promotion that would have generated several hundred dollars in new revenue. I could have made any number of more productive choices.

But, there I was holding a soldering iron and feeling proud that I didn’t need to spend $30 of my company’s money.

There may be satisfaction in being a “renaissance man,” but there isn’t much money in it.

So let me try to make this point one more time. We can file it away for use with some future client:

“Dear Mr. Client:

“You understand the technical work of your business, floral arranging. It’s obvious that you also understand the business of selling flowers.

“You don’t, however, understand the marketing of that business. That’s why you called me.

“Good copywriters write, and re-write, and then re-write some more. Then they begin to polish. They agonize over every syllable. They explain precisely why the words they chose to carry your message were not just good, but were in fact the best choices available.

“Good copywriters only make it look easy.

“A good copywriter can explain why one verb will resonate with your potential customer, and another will pass by unnoticed. A good copywriter will know when to use industry terms and when to use everyday language.

“With the exception of those businesses built on a core of marketing, (catalog companies come to mind) most businesses don’t understand why those word choices are so critical to their success.

“An advertiser who re-writes a professional copywriter’s work is the equivalent of a $3 per hour electronic technician. Worse, actually, ‘cause it’s obvious when the tech plugs the broken equipment back in whether or not it’s been fixed.

“Mr. Advertiser, when you “improve” your own ads, you’ll never know whether you’ve really fixed them, will you?

“Sincerely,
Your Copywriter”

Two years ago I got a different cell phone, with a new number. I had trouble remembering it until my wife pointed out that it’s composed of the month and year that I turned twelve, the year I graduated high school, and the year I was born. Since then, I’ve never forgotten it.

This is an excellent example of how memory works. In order for any new information to stick when it hits our minds, we associate the new with something we already know. All successful memorization is associative.

So is all decision making, which is an important point for advertisers. Each person’s opinion is built upon what she’s already accepted as fact, and can retrieve from memory.

Sometimes she will accept new information and come to a new conclusion, which appears to contradict the earlier opinion. It doesn’t. The old opinion was based on the old information. The new opinion is based on additional information that complements the old.

And when she is presented with new information that contradicts the old? She refuses to accept it. This does not compute. It must be a lie. As marketing guru Al Ries said in his recent Advertising Age article, The Sad And Unnecessary Decline Of Saturn:

“When you believe in something, what you generally do when faced with facts that seem to contradict your beliefs is to fault the execution, not the strategy.

Conventional wisdom dies hard. You can defend any strategy by pointing out flaws in its execution.”

In other words, I choose not to believe what you’re telling me.

This is the primary reason it becomes pointless to argue politics, religion, or new advertising campaigns.

As advertising practitioners, the key point is: people refuse to accept any new information that contradicts their existing beliefs. Those beliefs become a big filter for new ideas.

We call this big filter the Personal Experience Factor. When the new advertising campaign didn’t work, did the ad fail because people don’t know about Mr. Advertiser? Or because they do?

Every contact Miss Customer has with Mr. Advertiser builds her Personal Experience Factor. Every new bit of information is filtered through that Personal Experience Factor. A lot of new information never makes it thorough the filter.

Mr. Advertiser makes claim of great customer service. Miss Customer hears claim, remembers her last visit to Mr. Advertiser’s business, and thinks bull stuff.

From that point on, not only will Mr. Advertiser’s claims fall on the deaf ears of Miss Customer, but she may well start sharing with her friends her personal experiences at the hands of Mr. Advertiser.

When I worked at a News/Talk radio station in Columbia, South Carolina, we had a staff of about 30, pretty much evenly divided between the genders. In the space of a few short months through three major news stories I saw first-hand how perception of the news was affected by people’s previous experiences.

• The Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings had opinions divided according to gender. Without exception men believed him, women believed her.
• Lorena Bobbit’s trial, and her subsequent acquittal, had all of the women in our office standing and cheering. Our female news director shouted “There IS justice.”
• The O.J. Simpson verdict split the bias along racial lines. Whites believed him guilty. Blacks believed him to have been set up.

We all saw the same evidence. We came to different conclusions. Why? We all drew from different Personal Experiences as we weighed the evidence and made our conclusions.

When new evidence contradicts your Personal Experience, then the evidence must be a lie. When it reinforces your Personal Experience, it’s likely true.

Most women have had experiences with unwanted sexual advances. It’s easier for women to draw upon those experiences and say “That’s happened to me, just the way she described it. Most men have had, shall we say, more limited experiences in these areas. It’s harder for them to say “Could be true, because they’ve never shared that particular experience.

A great many black Americans have had the experience of being stopped for “driving while black,” or know someone who has. It’s not out of their realm of experience to imagine someone being profiled.

Most whites have never experienced the police automatically assuming them to be suspects. It’s harder for them to imagine the police pulling anyone over to ask what they’re doing in this neighborhood.

What experiences has your customer had in dealing with you? Should it surprise you that her perceptions are not yours?

Does she listen to you brag about your incredible selection while finding you don’t have anything in her size?

Does she drive all the way across town for your advertised special to find that limited to quantity in stock means you only had three at this price?

Does she hear all about your commitment to customer service while listing to the recorded on hold message as she waits 22 minutes for someone to help solve her problem?

Is your advertising failing because Miss Customer doesn’t know about you, Mr. Advertiser, or because she does?

One thing for sure, she won’t change her opinions about you until she starts having different personal experiences.

People not only won’t accept that which contradicts what they already believe, but they will also find reinforcement all around them for things they do choose to believe.

Here’s a quick non-scientific poll you can conduct among your friends.

First question: Who’s responsible for the mess in New Orleans?

Second question: How did you feel about this President before the hurricane?

Here’s my prediction: People who were fans of Mr. Bush prior to the advent of Hurricane Katrina will blame local authorities. They will be angry that New Orleans’ Mayor and Louisiana’s Governor have both criticized the President.

Those who were not fans of Mr. Bush before the disaster will use the apparent disorganization on a lack of planning at the Federal Level, and on the general ineptness of the Bush Administration. None of them will change their minds as more facts become available.

The Internet is a wonderful marketing laboratory. You can come up with an idea at lunch, implement it this afternoon, and look over the results tomorrow morning. But this is not an article about web-based marketing.

It’s an article about using information.

The great thing about collecting customer preferences from the Internet is how quickly you can apply them to your off-line marketing.

Search words, for example.

Your customers, or potential customers, already have a name for what you do. Its up to you to find out the names they’ve given to your stuff, your services, your procedures.

Use those names. Making people change their vocabluary only frustrates them.

When customers have to try to remember your name for what you do, instead of just calling it by the name that comes to mind, they won’t order it. Which terms do they use when they want what you’re selling?

Hardees restaurants used to have a pretty good ham and cheese sandwich. Customers called it a ham and cheese. Hardees insisted that it be called a “Yumbo.” Had Hardees called it a ham and cheese you’d likely still be seeing it on the menu. (There was also the added embarrasment of having to publicly proclaim “I’d like fries with my Yumbo,” but I digress).

Sometime back a radio program director explained that her format, Adult Album Alternative, was going to be the next big ratings winner. I told her she didn’t have a prayer. Somewhat taken aback, she said “Well, our numbers are small now, but our listeners LOVE us. Our time spent listening is already the best in the market.”

It doesn’t matter. Country radio listeners will tell you they listen to country music. Jazz listeners will proclaim they listen to jazz. Reggae listeners know they’re listening to reggae.

“Then there are your listeners,” I said. “What do they call the music on your radio station? You can safely bet that whatever they call their music, they don’t call it Adult Album Alternative.”

When they can’t name it, they won’t recommend it. People can’t rave about your radio station, or your store, or your service, if they don’t know what to call it while they’re raving.

You’ve been describing your business in your own terms. Your ads are producing a return on your advertising investment. You’re doing OK, so far.

Humm. Is just “OK” enough?

Imagine how customers would respond if you spoke to them in their own terms. How much more could you sell if your ads managed to resonate in the minds and hearts of your customers?

It doesn’t matter if you have a web site or not. The words customers use to describe what they’re looking for on the web are the very words they use when they’re looking in real life. They’re the words you should use in your radio scripts, in your newspaper layouts, in your Yellow Pages listings.

What do customers call what you do? Why aren’t you using those descriptions in your off-line advertising?

Perhaps a coffee break spent Googling keywords would be time well invested.

Do you know what your customers call what you do?

Do you dare to not find out?

Today I’m not offering perspective. Today I’m asking for your help. Today I want to know the one marketing question no one has ever answered to your satisfaction.

Would you take the few seconds it takes to ask the question?

Click here. And thank you.

Over the years I’ve stopped doing business with quite a number of companies. Sometimes it was because my needs changed. More often it was because I was tired of being ignored.

It always amazes me how hard most companies will work to acquire a new customer, and how little they’ll do to keep him.

So, let’s take a test, shall we?

Why Customers Leave My Business

In each blank, please write the percentage of your former customers who left because of:

1 _____ Price.
2 _____ Customer needs changed.
3 _____ Customer service.
4 _____ Quality.
5 _____ Convenience.
6 _____ Functionality.
7 _____ Other.

Go ahead. Take your time. Since there can be multiple reasons, don’t worry about making the totals add up to 100%.

Finished? Shall we compare your results to those of 369 other companies surveyed by Right Now Technologies*, as reported in a recent white paper?

48%—Price.
35%—Customer needs changed.
21%—Customer Service.
17%—Quality.
17%—Other.
15%—Convenience.
14%—Functionality.

Do your answers look anything like these?

Then you’re in deep trouble.

Because while you’re reacting to a perceived price issue, or assuming that customers don’t need you any more, the customers have their own reason for not doing business with you. And their reasons don’t look anything like yours.

Here’s what 300 customers said in that same survey:

73%—Customer service.
31%—Quality.
25%—Price.
15%—Functionality.
15%—Other.
09%—Convenience.
08%—Customer Needs Changed.–