I came to a carpet cleaning company with excellent ideas. A great campaign. He's gotten many hits since the start of the month, but feels he may have "gotten too excited at the start of the month."
As I said, he's had many hits since the ads started April 1, but he is getting discouraged because "no sales have closed solely from the radio ads."
Not sure how he has figured that, but I know he has not given the ads enough time to gain full momentum.
Still quite fresh to this, I would love some advice on how to let him know he has not given the ads enough time to fully take off.
Any help is very appreciated! Thank you
One thing your client needs to remember is this: Your job as the advertiser is to essentially tell as many people as possible about your client's business, where to find them and what services they offer. At the end of the day, that's technically where our ability to affect change in their business ends.
Once people walk through the door, it's up to the client to close their own sales. No sale will ever close solely from an advertisement, regardless of the medium...and your client needs to remember that. If he's getting a number of hits and potential customers are contacting him, it means the advertising is working; its reaching people, they like/understand/hear the message and they're reaching out to your client. We cannot, however, do their job for them; if they are unable to close sales...the blame ultimately has to fall on their shoulders.
I would attempt to explain the situation to him, making sure to frame it as positively as possible while reminding him that the ability of advertising to draw people into a business ends right at the door. Once those potential customers cross that threshold, it's entirely up to the owners, management and staff to take care of the rest.
Thank you Clifton
This reply is spot on!
"No sales have closed solely from the radio ads."
Did he say that with a straight face?!
People don't call the carpet cleaning company because they heard a radio ad. They call the carpet company because THEY HAVE DIRTY CARPETS!
Running an ad schedule doesn't get carpets dirty. Foot traffic gets carpets dirty.
How often do homeowners get their carpets cleaned? Once a year? Maybe. More frequently? Perhaps. Less frequently? Possibly. The purpose of the radio campaign is (or should be) to position your carpet cleaning company as the one people think of first and feel the best about when the need arises. If you'll indulge this absurdity: theoretically the carpet cleaning company could telephone every homeowner in town every week or two and ask, "Do your carpets need cleaning today?" IF they could do this, there would be no need to spend money on advertising. But since they cannot make -- or are unwilling to make -- all those calls, the next best thing is to make sure they're on the air every day asking the question and reminding listeners why they should call for a cleaning.
By the way, it takes between 3 and 6 months for a good advertising campaign to take root and start paying consistent dividends. The advertiser's responsibility is to WAIT - just as the farmer has to wait for those seeds he planted to germinate, sprout, grow, grow some more, and finally yield a harvest - and not lose heart because he hasn't got his "crop" after a month or two.
Brittney, may I respectfully suggest that you get this and watch it -- and then watch it again with your client? You'll both be the better for it. (Trust me. After doing this dozens of times myself, I still benefit from the repetition. Your clients will become much better advertisers.)
If you're not familiar with the Marketing Bridge look it up and show it to every client. Advertising accounts for only 20% of what leads to a sale. Help your clients overcome their Marketing Bridge issues.
No one is going to go into a business and say, "I'm here because of your great radio, print, billboard, etc. commercials." Have you ever done so? Me either. As a matter of fact, when someone starts to quiz me about how I learned about them it infuriates me as a customer. This just delays my transaction.
Always stay on the business side rather than the advertising side with the client. The only measurement that really matters is increase in foot traffic, phone calls, web page views or sales. It sounds like the campaign is working but for some reason it's not translating into sales. If traffic is up already you're ahead of the game. Help him figure out why he's not closing and become a resource he can't live without.
Jack makes a good point -- your campaign seems to be generating activity but not sales. Something may be going wrong that has nothing to do with your idea. It needs fixing. If you can help him fix it, you win.
You mentioned that the client has "gotten many hits" since the start of the month. I'm assuming that you mean hits on the website. So, some questions:
1. How does the number of hits compare to what he was getting before the campaign began?
2. What's happening after the hit -- in other words, what is the potential customer expected to do after arriving at the website, and how easy is it for the prospect to figure out what to do?
3. Is there an offer in the ad? If so, are people asking about the offer?
Sometimes a campaign can "work" without generating money for the advertiser -- the website can sometimes be a barrier to a sale. If your strategy is driving people to a bad website, the campaign will fail. It may not be your fault, but the cancellation will hurt just as much.
I wrote a blog post about this not long ago: http://philbernstein.com/how-to-grade-a-website-will-it-flunk-the-m...
Rod is absolutely correct that people won't make contact with your client -- on the web, on the phone, or in person -- until the carpet gets dirty. Once that triggering event happens, your campaign will cause them to investigate your client. But if they get confused once they begin that process, they'll go find something easier.
There are those who will disagree with me on this, but I think it's incumbent on you to think through the path to a sale, look for obstacles in that path, and point those obstacles out to the advertiser.
