Billboard Advertising in San Antonio

Human beings are designed to make choices based on a lack of information. This is typically done by using assumptions to economize on information. This is a healthy habit - leading to action rather than inaction.

Several weeks ago I was at a professional breakfast event winning some friends and influencing people, and I struck up a great conversation with a director of an apartment complex. In the course of conversation I was both surprised and disappointed. I was surprised when he told me his company attempts to rigorously calculate the true cost per filling a room. He added that they take into account their advertising dollars and try to pay attention to correlations between alterations in their advertising strategy and changes in their net occupancy. It sounded like they have had good luck using sophisticated methods to measure certain metrics that are important to the apartment business.

Amazing! I finally found a marketing director who gets it - this man knows well that local advertising can be made into a science. However, my awestruck gaze quickly turned into a frown when he mentioned the number 1 false assumption marketing directors make:

We get most of our non referral business from advertising in the yellow pages and local paper.

I am not knocking yellow pages or the local paper - they have a different purpose than outdoor advertising. I am using this example to illustrate my point:

This phrase demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding regarding the principle of cause and effect. The cause of your prospect walking into your business was not because of your print advertising. The root cause of your prospect calling you on the phone stems from the customer’s motivation to go seek out information on your product in the first place.

A customer’s buying cycle goes something like this:

1. The customer realizes they have a need for a product/service. This stage is purely a mental exercise. For whatever reason, they make the decision that they want your product or service.
2. The customer engages in research as long as the cost of the research is worth the benefit. This way they make the final decision regarding price, brand name, and correct product.
3. The customer now knows exactly what they are looking for, so they go online and actively look up addresses, phone numbers, and websites to get a good feel for who they want to do business with.
4. After the customer gets a good vibe from a company, they make the purchase… cha ching!

Advertising is not the source of your sales

So, to make the blanket statement that your advertising is the source of your sales is incorrect, and assumes that the original motivation of the customer to buy your product was from your advertisement. In reality all your ad did was subconsciously create a front of mind awareness about your product so when the time came for the customer to research, they went directly to you.

A prospect does not see an automobile or real-estate ad in the newspaper and later that afternoon become the proud owner of a new beach-side condo or DeLorean. Your ad merely inserted itself in the brain of your prospect, and once they became your target market, he decided to do business with you.

As I will prove in a later blog posts, your customers have no idea what actually brought them into your store. Therefore, it would help you to isolate what motivated your customer to start looking for your product in the first place. Do not waste your time asking your customers what brought them in, and certainly do not change any of your advertising based on based on what your customers say brought them into your doors.

I am a huge fan of economizing on information, but I want to warn you that when you start your advertising campaign the only way to measure its effectiveness is to hold it accountable by asking, “Is it increasing my foot traffic by x amount?”