Month: September 2012

Good Marketing is Like Good Lawn Care

/ Duane Christensen / 2 Comments

Good marketing is like good lawn care…

Even though some of my friends would call me a “lawn freak”… I still don’t really like to do the fertilizing and weed control. In the past, I had taught myself through a book I bought and reading online tips about creating a great lawn. But there is so much information out there, I was never sure what the right combination of nutrients were. And fertilizing is time-consuming. It is worth it for me to have someone else do it. A pro. (Like Green 4 Ever in Sioux Falls – they’re awesome!)

My lawn. It didn’t always look this nice. It needed some help. All I had to do was find the right company. How about you? Looking for someone to trust with your local marketing?
-Duane Christensen

Quick lawn tip: Want a great lawn next year? Start this fall! Healthy lawns need food for the winter!

Back to marketing and lawns…

So, if you’re a small business in Sioux Falls that wants a good marketing plan, sometimes it’s nice to have some help. You might not like to “do” marketing. But some people do. Like me. I love it. Why I do… I’m not sure. I just do. And marketing is essential to your growth. If you hire me at Results Radio, the knowledge and expertise is built right into the cost of your advertising. No extra charge for writing commercials, doing research, or coming up with ad strategies that help you stand out from your competition. No extra charge. It’s built in. And our training is so good. Its weekly. It never stops. We’re always learning. And it’s all for our customers. For you.

Kind of like your lawn pros. They know their stuff. They give you tips. They want you to have a green, healthy lawn… just like I want you to have a profitable, healthy business.

Sure, I could do all the lawn fertilizing myself, but that takes a lot of time. Plus a lot of “know-how”. How much? How often? What kind? I’d rather take the extra time I save to ENJOY my lawn.

AND… of course YOU could do all of your marketing on your own, too. But that takes time and a lot of “know-how”. Wouldn’t you rather have more time to do the things you love?

A smart, consistent radio campaign can take a lot of your marketing troubles away. Especially, when it has good local BRANDING at its core. It drastically reduces the need for sales, promotions, and gimmicks. A consistent, branding radio ad plan educates the public on why they should choose you instead of picking someone eenie-meenie-miney-moe from an Internet search (or Yellow Pages). We’ll “get in their heads” so YOU are the first they think about, and the one they feel most comfortable contacting and buying from.

Part of a business owner’s trouble is finding the right marketing people to trust. I hope you’ll give me a chance to see what I can do for you. What’s it worth to you to attract a few new customers every day, week, or month? And what’s it worth to you to NOT have to worry about where your next new customer is going to come from?

Local advertising success will come from finding the right person to help out. Kind of like finding the right lawn care company for your lawn. Some are good, others are not. Some care, others couldn’t care less.

Have a great day!

Sioux Falls Radio Advertising blog

You’re a Darn Good Business

/ Duane Christensen

You bet! You’re a darn good Sioux Falls business… and you take care of your customers! But you might also wish you could tell people about all those great things before they make the decision to buy from someone else.

Have you watched the singing show “The Voice”? It’s phenomenal. It kicks the living tar out of American Idol… and any other singing competition out there. In my opinion, it’s because of a few of things…

1) They pick the qualifiers based on their voice. Not their looks.

2) The coaches are sincere. They actually care about the singers. They connect with them. So, it seems very real.

3) And the stories that are told are inspiring. The best singers seem to come from some kind of adversity or some other fascinating stories. We love those. All people love a good story. We get caught up. We tear up. It’s emotional.

Which brings us to telling people about your business. Advertising. You consider “advertising” a bad word if you’ve never figured out how to do it right. Or if you haven’t found the right person to help you.

Your advertising needs to be more like “The Voice”. It’s real. It’s fairly raw. It shows the emotion. There are real connections being made. It moves audiences.

The advertising that you usually see is none of that. It’s usually fake, fluffy, and full of clichés and “safeness”. And a big, fat waste of money. We are emotional beings. That’s where great advertising can start. Arouse something in us. Make us wake up and smell the roses.

We want to connect. We want to “feel” something. We love naked TRUTH. When your advertising shares a message with the public that truly SHOWS who you are instead of just trying to tell people what you are… you can “move” audiences.

You’re a darn good business. And you take care of your customers. Don’t hide that behind something you “think” is advertising.

Duane Christensen

Sioux Falls Radio Advertising blog

Do You Love To Talk About Your Business?

/ Duane Christensen

One of the best things that can make your future radio ad campaign bust loose into high gear is if…

YOU LOVE TO TALK ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS!

There’s nothing that busts through all the advertising clutter more than a business owner or local manager who loves to talk about their business.

So… if you love to talk about your business… then what would you need me for, right? Well, I’ll help you say things that your customers care about. I’m the person who helps you step outside your business for a few moments and helps you say things that will get your future customers’ attention. I’ll help you sound even more sincere than you already are.

That’s it. If you love to talk your business, you have a head start in giving your radio advertising in Sioux Falls some teeth. When it’s YOU on the radio, it’s personal. It’s sincere. It’s laying it out there allowing people to see you as a human being, not a business owner just trying to make a profit. They want to know you understand them and you care.

I have a nice handful of clients who voice their own ads. It’s fun getting to know them. It’s fun learning how they speak… and then writing to the way they speak. It feels so right when an ad is done and it sounds so good. I’m not satisfied until I hear the ad… and I know people will be moved by it. Moved closer to doing business with YOU.

Do you love to talk about your business?

Have a great day! Call me.  : )

Duane Christensen

Sioux Falls Radio Advertising blog

I work for Results Radio in Sioux Falls. I’ve been camping out and hammering away here since 1998. I love what I do. 

FIVE PROBLEMS to overcome before you advertise…

/ Duane Christensen

I get a lot of business owners asking me about what it would take to advertise on the Radio. Meaning cost. Which kind of surprises me a little bit. Shouldn’t the question be, “How can I make my advertising actually work this time?” Even if you buy the cheapest advertising available, it’s still expensive if it doesn’t work. Right?

Here are five problems to overcome before you spend another PENNY on advertising:

 

First problem: You don’t have an ad budget. You don’t have a percentage of your revenues set aside for advertising. Get a number. Get comfortable with that number.

Second problem: You don’t think about the lifetime value of just one new, good customer. How much will THEY spend with you in their life? How many people will they tell about you? That all adds up to a pretty nice number usually. Figure out what you’re willing to spend to attract that new customer.

Third problem: You look at advertising as a necessary evil. Necessary evils are mandatory. Bad advertising is not mandatory. When you advertise smarter, when you have a plan (stop shooting from the hip), your necessary evil becomes an accelerant for your biz that you wouldn’t want to be without.

Fourth problem: You want instant returns on your advertising. If you air 10 radio ads a day for a week for a special event, and it brings you a healthy group of buyers… you want that to happen every time. Of course you do… that’s understandable. So, why wouldn’t you do that every single week? Deep down, I think you know that it’s not possible to keep working miracles week in and week out. But you still want to be able to flip a switch and release the flood gates at a moment’s notice. You think that just by letting people know about you and your special offer… you should get a nice return. It doesn’t work that way, does it.

Fifth problem: You know that creating a solid relationship with a person and gaining their trust gives you the best chance of them buying from you —– but you don’t feel your advertising should be used to do the same exact thing.

Duane Christensen

 

Results Radio – Townsquare Media

duane.christensen@results-radio.com

605-940-7984

The Trust Ladder

/ Duane Christensen

The Trust Ladder

Let’s talk a bit today about the power of a local radio campaign. One that brands a local business (makes people think of you first in your category… and they know exactly what you’re about and what you stand for). It essentially can make a business or a business owner somewhat famous in his or her community. Someone like you. And isn’t that what you really want for your business? …for it to become famously popular with a large group of people?

A radio ad campaign is made up of individual ads. Ads that are changed every so often. About once a month for most of my radio customers. Most have an ad schedule of 3 or 4 weeks of ads each and every month. Sometimes every week.

The success of a radio advertising campaign comes from the series of ads. Not just that ONE ad that I’m trying to write. So, I guess there’s technically not a perfect ad. There’s just a series of really good ads aired over time that makes a much bigger overall impact than the sum benefit of each ad tracked individually (if you think you can accurately do that).

There’s an ad for you that might seem perfect if you know which ad finally turns somebody from a non-customer into a customer. But that ad won’t be the same one that finally tipped someone else off the fence. We all react differently to ads.

And just because one particular ad makes a few people come and buy something from you… doesn’t mean that the 6 different ads they heard in the 6 months prior, didn’t move them closer and closer to buying from you. A good radio ad campaign will constantly be moving people closer to doing business with you. Some people are closer to needing what you sell than others. Your ad campaign is constantly working for you. Constantly moving people up the TRUST LADDER.

When you’re trying to convince someone to buy from YOU instead of someone else, they need to be at an unconscious trust level with you before they’ll buy. It’s a process. And it doesn’t happen overnight… or with ONE ad.

Your radio advertising campaign (that says something people actually want to listen to) moves people of all different types up the TRUST LADDER constantly. Some get to that coveted top few rungs of trust sooner than others.

Thanks for reading. Have a great day!

Duane Christensen

Results Radio Townsquare Media

Sioux Falls