243What Business Are You In?When your advertising helps people trust you more, you win more. There are
several ways to do this as we will see later, but it must include information about
how knowledgeable you are and that people can rely upon you when it comes to
their money.
A key part of this is that the bigger the purchase or, the money at stake, the
greater is the potential for fear in their mind. Your advertising, positioning and
branding needs to help lower that level of fear in their mind.
Your advertising needs to make you stand out. Don’t miss the emphasis here. We
mean YOU. So often you create great marketing materials and you sell everything
else but you. Product pushing doesn’t work anymore, not like it used to.
In addition, you need to somehow be seen by the consumer you are seeking to
reach. When they listen to so many radio commercials, not to mention television,
email marketing messages and direct mail, it’s no wonder that you have to work
ten times harder to get your advertising in front of them. Just getting them to see
it is a major task. But it must be done. You have to find a way for your advertising,
your sales efforts and your marketing to stop them and have it say “Here I am... pay
attention to this!”
Shelf life is another obstacle your advertising needs to overcome in today’s
marketplace. It’s expensive! But too often it’s here today and gone tomorrow.
Newspaper advertising is gone after just a few hours, the same with radio and TV.
Flyers and direct mail don’t fair any better. Magazine ads are thrown out many
days before the end of the month. So what is one to do?
Buy shelf life, that’s what you need to do. That’s one of the reasons a book is such
a great advertising tool. It keeps you, your company, your message in front of the
prospect for days, weeks, months, even years. The perceived value of a book is
enormous. People don’t throw out books.