"John...the ad ain't drawin' flies..." Dean...what happened this time last year? "The ad didn't draw flies.." Then what happened the following month? "Well...we did get more sales..." For over twelve years I worked with one of Kansas City's best-loved home remodelers', Mr. Remodeler, Dean Blay. Dean had voiced his own radio ads on our classical station, a music of your life station and several newstalk stations. Sadly--his voice was silenced this past July due to his death. But Dean Blays' memory and radio ads will long be remembered. Dean had a deep...slow delivery and country accent when he read his radio ads. When I first started to work with his advertising--he would give us a cassette tape from his Phone Mate machine with his ad on it. He was too nervous to record in our studio! When he finally did come to our production room, we turned on the reel tape recorder and left the room so our engineer wouldn't mak...

His secret... "I'm as big a SOB as the next guy--I just say it differently!" "Look...just call him! The prospect gave me that quizzical look again as she picked up the phone and called Ron." Ron, was Ronald Goldman--proprietor of R. Goldman Jewelry in Kansas City. Mr. Goldman passed in 2003 after his retirement in 1996. He and his brother at one time owned Medco Corp.--with over 200 jewelry stores nationwide. His family business dated from the early 1900's. My father used to play baseball in the 1930's at Goldman Stadium. I handled Mr. Goldman's advertising on the classical station in Kansas City for over a decade--and he was one of my favorite clients. On this particular day--I was meeting with a new prospect who wanted to hear about "success" stories our station had--and if I could give her any names of clients she could contact.  This is an advertising reps worst moment as you don't know what the client may tell...

To tweet...or not to tweet -- t wat twit twuh twestion! Thus will ask many business owners in the wake of Twitters IPO, which as of this morning's stock price opened DOUBLE what they anticipated. But as Koh and Needleman discuss in their Wall Street Journal article: Justin Beegel, president of Infographic World Inc., spent $550 to advertise his 11-person New York data-visualization company on  Twitter  in September. But two weeks of "promoted tweets" offering a discount to targeted users generated only one response, from a user who didn't become a customer.  "I'm definitely done with the Twitter ads," says Mr. Beegel. But as many marketers and even Twitter members indicate-- cultivating and reaching an audience on the short-message service can require more time and effort than many small-business owners feel they can afford. This is the question I asked in an earlier post as to the viability of small business investing in adverti...

By John D. Verlin According to Mike Gonzalez' article in the Wall Street Journal today--never have we seen a more blatant act of "content" marketing than what Obamacare is planning via the California Endowment (investing $130 million) in messages/commercials to convince Hispanics to sign up for the Affordable Care Act. Ever since Norman Lear's "socially-prominent" sitcoms of the '70's have we seen messaging content "woven" into story lines by the likes of Hollywood screen writers. Mr. Hernandez reports,  This week saw fresh evidence of how worried ObamaCare supporters are: news of an effort to use Hollywood story lines to send a message to Hispanics that they should sign up. It's not the first time promoters of government programs have used TV and radio programming to win over the country's largest minority group.  If ever there was a confluence of crony capitalism, big government, Hollywood, liberal media and the academy, t...

By John D. Verlin "I had to write it down, because I couldn't remember it. One client said "you left out my profit margin"! Starting a sales career is nerve-racking enough--but in radio advertising, it can be especially difficult. Selling an intangible service, like insurance is one thing, but selling "air" is another (as in Billy Crystal, City Slickers). When I first began my career in radio--I really didn't know the sales/business side of it as I had been recruited from the announcer/producer side. So I had a fast learning curve to get up to speed on how to relate and sell to business owners. Their focus on results and their bottom line was constant--and I was lucky if they gave me more than a month to prove it. After my first year in the business--I began to realize that the classical radio station I worked with was lacking in suitable marketing materials and relied on brand sponsorships for most of their revenues. If a c...

                                                                        By John D. Verlin Are they worth it? I mean display ads--those various sized banner ads that keep popping up on the side of a website (or top, bottom, etc). With metrics like CTR (click-through rates) and CPA (click through acquisition), Google and others have made it easier for marketing directors to justify the ad spending in comparison to television and other medias. But what proof do we have other than these metrics that they are cost-effective and can produce a reasonable ROI for a client? A study was done at Harvard Business School using a bank's online advertising as the model. Prof. Sunil Gupta indicates the following determination in his Harvard Business School "Working Knowledge" post concerning observations and con...

Is it me...or I'm I confused as to how a business that predominantly caters to 15-30 year olds can be worth $13 billion? That's one suggested valuation of Twitter heading in to their IPO. What's more--as they begin to add advertising popping up on their Tweets and Tweeters--how can I, as a potential investor know what kind of revenue they can produce to justify their valuation? What's more--what kind of sales can I expect from that age demographic?  Granted, that age demographic probably Tweets more than the rest of us--but can the advertising investment be justified considering their disposable income? If I sell cars to the 18-34 year old crowd--are they really going to Tweet their best friend at the moment the test drive ends and ask if they should buy it or not (according to one posts' theory)? Surely, we all want advice from our friends in the purchase of certain items--but have marketers over-emphasized the benefits of using social media...

Dave Bowman : Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL? HAL : Affirmative, Dave. I read you. Dave Bowman : Open the pod bay doors, HAL. HAL : I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. Dave Bowman : What's the problem? HAL : I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do. Dave Bowman : What are you talking about, HAL? HAL : This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it. Dave Bowman : I don't know what you're talking about, HAL. HAL : I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen. Dave Bowman : [ feigning ignorance ] Where the hell did you get that idea, HAL? HAL : Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move. Dave Bowman : Alright, HAL. I'll go in through the emergency airlock. HAL : Without your space helmet, Dave? You're going to find that rather difficult. ...