Screw the rebate, I'm holding out for a "bonus" check

What's in a name? Or any word, for that matter? A lot, it seems.

Take those rebate checks Uncle Sam will soon start mailing out. If the government really wants us to stimulate the economy by encouraging us to SPEND that money, they need a better name than "rebate."

Like "bonus."

In a recent experiment, social psychologist Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business discovered that by calling a rebate a "bonus" recipients spent twice as much. That's a 100% increase!

Reason: A "rebate" was perceived as getting your own money back, so you were less likely to splurge. But a bonus -- hey, that's new money -- found money! Source: Marketplace.org

Wait a minute, you're thinking. You mean you can DOUBLE someone's spending -- just by substituting one word for another? Yes!

Finding and using exactly the right word(s) to stimulate spending is precisely what makes a good copywriter worth the money.

Your mustache doesn't match your garter belt, pal

Who says winters in Maine are boring?

Shocker: "Botox" contains BOtulism TOXin.

Another brand shoots itself in the foot. Botox, the popular anti-wrinkle drug, and its competitor, Myobloc, have both been officially linked to dangerous botulism symptoms. In a few cases, the symptoms were so bad that children given the drugs for muscle spasms have died, according to the Food & Drug Administration.

This should not be a shocker. Don't these wrinkle-challenged women (and men) realize that Botox stands for "botulism toxin?" Score one for truth in labeling, at least.

Don't they realize they're letting (in many cases, encouraging) their doctors to inject a deadly poison under their skin -- all in the name of vanity?

Is it the doctors? Haven't plastic surgeons been diligent enough in informing their patients about the risks?

Or is it those damnable TV ads for pharmaceuticals, the ones aimed directly at consumers. You know the type: "Ask your doctor whether this crap is right for you."

This kind of advertising is outlawed in every country in the world -- except two. (The other, I believe, is New Zealand.) And it ought to be outlawed here. Creating a demand for your product or service is one thing. Creating a demand for dangerous drugs is another. It seems to me it's only a short hop from there... to the creep dealing smack or crack on the street corner. He's creating a demand, too. "Psst. Hey, man -- the first one's free."

Where do you clean up a "dirty" brand? On the Internet!

Waste Management is not in the garbage-hauling business, thank you very much. It's actually an environmental services company. That's the brand-bending message contained in the $25-30 million a year the company spends on print and TV ads. To reinforce its message, the New York Times report, the ads highlight:

"... the amount of energy it generates from burning trash each year (enough to power one million homes), the amount of acreage it has set aside for wildlife habitats (more than 17,000 acres), the number of trees it has saved by recycling paper (41 million last year). It printed some of those facts on the sides of its trucks — all of which are now painted green, of course."

From a marketing standpoint, the company has its work cut out for it. Not only must it overcome a Tony Soprano-style image, there are still memories of those embarrassing Enron-style accounting strategies it employed in the 1990s. And WM's target audience is about as fuzzy as they come: influencers:

"(They're) the people who attend public hearings about landfill expansions, who try to have recycling legislation enacted, who lobby their churches or municipalities or school districts to be customers of “green” companies."

Now the company is pushing its message beyond TV to the Internet. It's buying ads on several leading newspaper sites including the NY Times, and is negotiating with broadcast and cable stations to put links to its site on their Web pages.

The broad reach and accessibility of the Internet is important, said a company spokesman, because “our goal is no longer just to educate, but to also create a preference for our company over our rivals.”

Sounds like marketing to me...

Do your online ads irritate instead of sell?

I'm a big fan of intelligent marketing. You know, giving the customer credit for being intelligent, not treating him/her like a total dunce. And using facts and information to make a persuasive case for why you should buy.

I hate ads that are annoying, intrusive and insulting. (Just like you, I suspect.) So I was delighted when PC World recently spotlighted the Ten Most Annoying, Frustrating, Irritating, and Sinister Online Ads. Author Tom Spring nails 'em:

"Some of these ads flash, blink, vibrate, and somersault around your browser window. Others expand, pop open a window (even if you have a pop-up blocker), and play sounds or video. The most sinister don't appear to do anything at all and quietly attempt to hijack your PC."

Call me old fashioned, but pissing off prospects doesn't seem like a smart way to do business. Sure, you might lure in a few suckers -- once -- but it's no way to build a long-term relationship.

The article even has the guts to mention annoying ads on their own website.

"I asked one advertising insider (who didn't want to be identified) if he would confirm my suspicion that some advertisers intentionally make it impossible to find the Close button. His response? 'Of course they do. These advertisers know they are getting away with something. And that 'something' is not about making your life easier.'"

That's why I urge my clients to attract clients by offering them information of value -- rather than using old-fashioned marketing tricks. Would-be customers want to study and learn what makes one product or service better than its competitors. And the closer they are to a buying decision, the more eager they are to learn, and the more details they want. After all, their goal is to make a decision, place their order, and move on to the next thing. Why not give them the facts and figures they want?

PS: If you use Firefox with the AdBlock Plus extension, you may never even have seen these aggravating ads. (grin)

Why you should be grateful for your competition

Wouldn't it be nice if your business had no competitors? Imagine -- if customers wanted to buy what you were selling, they'd have to buy it from you. Or do without.

Think again. If your small business really had no competition, something would be very wrong. It could mean there's simply no market for your product or service. Maybe others tried it and failed, or customers simply don't want it. As old-time movie mogul Sam Goldwyn put it, "If people don't want to go see your picture, nobody can stop them."

Besides, people often grow to hate companies that don't have competition. Look at Microsoft (especially in the past). Look at the growing grudge many people have against Google. (Not only for their past privacy intrusions but now -- yikes! -- their takeover of DoubleClick. If that doesn't prompt you to start dumping your browser cache and deleting your cookies, I don't know what will.)

Maybe the best example is cable television. You could hear the cheers all over New York after the stranglehold monopoly of cable systems within apartment buildings, condos and co-ops was struck down by the FCC.

Now if only those of us living in small cities had the same choices. For many of us, we have two options: one overpriced cable system -- bloated with hundreds of channels we don't even watch -- or rabbit ears. Do I really have to pay $100+ a month to watch Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert a few times a month?

I wish I had a competing cable system to choose. I know that would drive down prices. Or maybe someone will finally introduce something all cable systems hate and fear: a la carte pricing. That is, you pay only for the channels you want. For most of us, that would probably be 10 or 20, not 200.

Actually, when it comes to television, this guy probably has the best idea.

What you can learn from Hollywood

Southern California isn't the only place that's burning. A big chunk of Hollywood box office is in ashes, too. Sunday's New York Times examines the cause of several of this fall's big-name box office disasters.

“Gone Baby Gone” tanked, despite star Ben Affleck appearing on virtually every talk show except "Wall Street Week." The heavily-promoted "Rendition" also went into the crapper, despite its cheerful theme of torture. “Things We Lost in the Fire” starring Benicio Del Toro and Halle Berry also sank with barely a bubble.

The culprit in all these big name failures: lack of focus. They're not targeted at any particular audience. As the Times put it:

"That doesn’t mean they’re bad pictures. It means they have no obvious appeal to any of the four big demographic groups at which Hollywood has typically aimed its wares: males 17 to 24 years old, males 25 to 49, females 17 to 24 and females 25 to 49.

What has this Hollywood stuff got to do with small business marketing and attracting more customers? Everything. Your small business needs to do exactly what these movies didn't do. You need to focus on entertaining -- uh, I mean serving -- a narrow niche audience.

The headline of the Times piece says it all. It's "How to Find an Audience? Try a Zoom Lens." link

The quickest way to failure is to try to be all things to all people. If you stand for everything, you're remembered for nothing. If you don't create your marketing message for a tightly-designed market, you're doomed to fail -- whether you're a CPA or a Hollywood producer.

"... if the movie business is to keep making these smart little dramas in which ambitious actors and prize-hungry filmmakers take their annual shot at the (Oscars), it will have to start doing what car makers and packaged-goods companies have always done: sharpen the message and narrow the targets.

Where'd he go??

I apologize for disappearing. I have been trying to post but something got screwed up -- I believe a Blogger setting somewhere -- and as a result, nothing I wrote actually showed up. Very frustrating. After a while, I just gave up. Oh, I'd hack at it now and then, but seemed to be getting nowhere.

It's hard to type this because I have my fingers crossed, but I SEEM to have fixed the posting problem. I'm still having a problem with the Atom/RSS feeds, but I'm working on it! (Attention, geeks: Your help is most welcome!)

To everyone, thanks for your patience!

Tom "What happens if I do this?" McKay

Sales letters, brochures and e-mail marketing

Seth has a cogent observation about the differences between direct mail, brochures and emails. Basically, most direct mail pieces -- and this includes those long direct response Web pages -- try to make the sale in one step. The famous (and challenging) "one-call close." The copywriter tries to think of every possible objection you might have, then shoot it down. That's why the copy in direct response is so long.

Brochures are different. They're not trying to make the sale, but simply to move you along to the next step in the selling cycle. Brochures are supposed to make you take some kind of action. (With many, it's hard to tell exactly what, but that's because they're poorly thought-out or badly written.) A brochure, as Seth put it, needs to be "engaging and hopefully viral. But its only job is to keep you in the running, not end in a transaction."

Then there's e-mail selling (with permission, of course). That has a whole different zeitgeist. It's meant to spark a response, "to move a conversation forward, to help you learn a little bit about the person you're engaging with."

If your emails read like direct mail letters or look like brochures, Seth observes correctly, you're wasting time and effort.