Me and My Man Morris
Do you know your company's percentage of unaided recall? In other words, what percentage of your prospective customers will think of you as a possible option when your business category is named?
If less than 10 percent of your prospective customers will think of you as a possible option then you definitely need to be known by more people – you need to advertise. Create a memorable message and deliver it with sufficient repetition to be instantly recalled when the customer's need arises. Do this and watch your business grow.
But if 30 percent or more of your prospective customers already think of you when your category is named then you have an entirely different challenge: Your limiting factor isn't that customers don't know about you. Your limiting factor is that they do.
If your business is successful, but no longer growing, let me ask you this: What does the public believe about your company? Chances are, you don't really know. You know what you'd like them to believe. You know what you're telling them to believe. But you don't know what they really believe. Am I right?
People never change their mind. If you keep giving them the same information you've given them in the past, they'll keep making the same decisions they've made in the past. In other words, they'll continue not doing business with you.
When a person appears to have “changed their mind,” what they've really done is made a new decision based on new information. What new information are you giving your prospective customers in your ads?
Morris Hite was born in 1910 and he died 20 years ago at the age of 73. Here are a few words that my man Morris left us to ponder…
“Advertising is salesmanship mass produced. No one would bother to use advertising if he could talk to all his prospects face-to-face. But he can't.”
“There is no such thing as national advertising. All advertising is local and personal. It's one man or woman reading one newspaper in the kitchen or watching TV in the den.”
“If an ad campaign is built around a weak idea – or as is so often the case, no idea at all – I don't give a damn how good the execution is, it's going to fail.”
“It takes good clients to make a good advertising agency. Regardless of how much talent an ad agency may have, it is ineffective without good products and services to advertise.”
“Advertising does not cause people to buy bad products. Nothing will put a bad product out of business faster than a good advertising campaign. Advertising causes people to try a product once, but poor quality eliminates any possibility of a repeat purchase.”
So let me ask you again; What does the public believe about your company?
If you don't know, find out as fast as you possibly can. Your future depends upon it.
Roy H. Williams