The Wizard Chronicle
How to Attract, Convert, and Delight CustomersBy: Wizard of Ads Partners Editor: Craig Arthur
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2008: Year of Transition
By Roy H. Williams. Hear Memo "2008: Year of Transition."
In January of 2004 I launched a public presentation: Society’s 40-year Pendulum. Audiences from Stockholm to Sydney to Vancouver to Myrtle Beach will recall my statement, “2003 was the first year in a 6-year transition from the Idealist perspective to the Civic.”
2008 will be the sixth and final year of that transition.
Labels like Baby Boomer and Gen-X and Soccer Mom assume a person’s outlook is determined by when they were born. This is a very foolish assumption.
Look around and you’ll see that Baby Boomers aren’t Boomers anymore. Most have adopted an entirely new outlook and are becoming part of what’s happening now. By the end of 2008 there won’t be a Baby Boomer left in America. The last, reluctant holdout will finally admit that Woodstock is over, Kennedy is dead, and the Idealism of the 60’s was a wistful dream.
Jan 21, 2008The Glass Ceiling
Hear the Memo... "The Glass Ceiling."
"People never really change their mind. They merely make new decisions based on new information."
Every business that tries to rise to its full height will bump its head on a glass ceiling they didn’t realize was there.That glass ceiling is created by the business owner’s core beliefs about the customer.
Traditionally, 5 out of 10 customers will be in transactional shopping mode. The other 5 will be in relational shopping mode.
Shoppers in transactional mode are looking for information, facts, details, prices. Their thoughts revolve around the product itself, not the purchase experience.
Relational-mode shoppers are looking for a pleasant experience. They want to find the right place, the right person from whom to buy, an expert they can trust. Meanwhile, the transactional shopper is gathering the information that will allow them to be their own expert.
2008 Business Forecast - from high atop Wizard's Tower
America split into 3 camps last year.
Those camps came sharply into focus at Christmas.
1.The Hunker-Down crowd cut back their purchases, uneasy about dwindling dollars and rising debt. Traffic in non-discount retail stores was sluggish as a result.
2.The Full-Speed-Ahead crowd did business as usual. God bless’em. “Damn the torpedoes! I choose not to participate in a recession! The only thing to fear is fear itself!”
3.The I’m-Too-Rich-To-Worry crowd spent somewhat more on Christmas than last year, almost enough to offset the penury of the Hunker Downs. While the total number of transactions was down for December, the average sale was slightly up, due to the largesse of this group.
Here’s what to expect in 2008:
We’re going to see an increasing number of purchases influenced by the head instead of the heart.
Danger Signals: Sounds of Circling the Drain
These are the noises companies make as they're going down the tubes:
1. "Our only problem is traffic."
Slow traffic is a symptom, not a disease. Look for its cause. WHY is traffic slow? Is it because the public doesn’t know about you, or is it because they do? Is the problem with your advertising, or is there something wrong inside your business?
2. "That’s not our customer."
The businessperson who says things like, “Our customer doesn’t care about price,” is usually surprised by how quickly he runs out of prospects. Are there customers out there who don’t care about price? Sure there are. But what percentage of the population do you think it is?
3. "Our advertising is reaching the wrong people."
I’ve never seen a company fail because they were reaching the wrong people, but I’ve seen hundreds fail because they were saying the wrong things. Do your ads speak to the felt needs of your customers, or are you answering questions no one was asking?
Hiring an Advertising Consultant - 4 Questions to Ask
1. How will you get to know me? A good consultant doesn’t necessarily have to have experience in your industry - what they do need to have is the ability to dig deep to understand who you are (at the Wizard of Ads, we call this “uncovery”). Your consultant should require a minimum of one whole day with you, in a location away from the “office,” where they get to know you, your values and the history of the company. You should be pumped for information, from your life story to your vision for the future, and everything you know about your competition.
2. How about my competition?
Thrive in a Recession. How to.
So here’s what to do if a recession happens: (And I’m definitely NOT saying one’s coming, remember? Let’s be clear about that.)
1. Evaluate your risk orientation. “Got guts?”
2. Summon your staying power. “Got tenacity?”
3. Think forward, into the future. Ask, “What will I wish I had done?”
(Answer: You’ll wish you would’ve grabbed market share while it was lying unprotected for the taking.)
4. Return in your mind to the present time.
5. Do what you wish you’d have done. Grab that unguarded market share while everyone else sits on their hands and waits for Good Times to come home.
Market share is easily won when your competitors are cutting expenses. The big frustration comes when you learn that growing your market share doesn’t mean an immediate increase in revenues. Here’s an example:
Diagnose Your Marketing Problem
The average business owner feels their business should be growing faster, but few know how to isolate the problem. Today we’re going to fix that.
The elements that affect the growth of your business will fit into one of four distinct categories. Understand these categories and you’ll have a framework for self-examination.
1. Share of Voice: What is your percentage of the total exposure for all the businesses in your category? How much of the total signage is yours? TV advertising? Radio advertising? Newspaper? Direct mail? Web traffic? If there are news stories related to your category, do they mention your brand or someone else’s? What percentage of the word-of-mouth advertising is yours? Each of these things contributes to your total Share of Voice.