How Advertising Works
1. There is no direct correspondence between dollars invested and results gained. No mathematical formula can be devised to answer the advertiser’s question … “If I spend this much on advertising, what can I expect to happen?”
The amount of money you spend … and what you get for it, have virtually nothing to do with each other. Two businesses can spend an identical amount of money to reach the identical group of people; one advertiser gets rich, while the other advertiser fails miserably. So what was the difference?
2. The variable, which prohibits a mathematical formula, is the power of the message. Two advertisers can reach precisely the same audience with exactly the same repetition … one advertiser is successful, while the other fails miserably. The difference? The Message.
One advertiser spoke to customer in the language of the customer about what mattered to the customer, and the customer said YES, YES, YES, YES. The other advertiser spoke about himself, answered questions the customer wasn’t asking, and the customer said, “Hey, here’s 35-cents ... call your mum ... I don’t care!”
The media: newspaper, TV, and radio, are not “the answer” to successful advertising. The media is purely a delivery vehicle on which your message can ride into the mind of the customer. Only after you have uncovered the correct message, determined your ad budget, chosen your strategy, and only if that strategy calls for mass media advertising, do you then choose which media vehicle is the most appropriate. Never before.
3. When a message has been uncovered which generates a positive response, a mathematical pattern does emerge. The benefit experienced in Year Two will be twice the benefit experienced in Year One, provided everything else remains equal and the core message does not change. The benefit in Year Three will be three times the benefit of Year One.
Our Wizard of Ads clients have seen this proven over and over again since we started in 1987. (But only after you’ve figured out the right thing to say.)
As a marketing consultant, I want to uncover the right message for my client ONE time. Then we can both get lazy, knowing that this is going to take off and grow exponentially. My new challenge will then be helping my client stay on top of his growth.
At the end of about 36 months, new variables have entered the equation and now it’s anyone’s ballgame.
A client in Milwaukee Wisconsin has been in business for 20 years, and a Wizard of Ads client for ten. In the past ten years, this clients company has grown to *43 times the size it was when he first got together with our firm.
Can this miraculous growth happen to all businesses? No … of course not!
The growth of your business will be determined by the following five factors:
1. Total Market Potential: How much will be spent by the public in your product or service category this year? What is the depth of your current market penetration? How many dollars remain on the table?
2. Message Development: How well do you tell your story?
What is the Impact Quotient of your ads?
3. Media Plan: How efficiently are your ad dollars being spent?
4. Competitive Environment: How good are your competitors at what they do?
5. Competency: How good are you?
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