As discussed in our last post, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is one tool you can use in your marketing toolkit as you develop advertising campaigns. This post discusses how to promote your business using the Hierarchy of Needs. Specifically, I will create one specific hypothetical advertising campaign for a financial institution; in this case, a bank.

Example Of An Advertising Campaign

As I mentioned above, in this hypothetical example our client is a bank. On the surface a bank offers services such as: checking accounts, loans, safety deposit boxes, brokerage accounts …and a whole host of other services. However, in this advertising campaign exercise I want to focus on using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to develop a marketing campaign that is designed to attract new customers looking to open a saving account. Read the rest…

FunMarketer Lesson of the Week

Craig, how much industry jargon should I use in my advertising copy?

The FunMarketer answer:

Before I blithely badmouth jargon and castigate any marketing copywriter who overdoses her audience with it, let’s examine why people use jargon. There must be a reason – or two.

Reason One – Jargon creates a useful shorthand for people within an industry. It’s much easier to say NCO or Non-Com than to repeat the entire phrase “Non-Commissioned Officer”. Military, government, medical and tech industries are especially jargon-heavy.

Reason Two – Jargon and slang binds people together within an “in-group”. There are often two types of jargon within an industry. “Official shorthand” jargon is listed in field or technical manuals. But the slang-like jargon members of an in-group between each other is often only spoken between individuals familiar with each other. This type of jargon is often a bit rebellious or naughty or slightly off-color; it binds the in-group together and keeps individualism alive.

So, where does all this leave the copywriter?

First, you must determine the marketing audience – the “people” part of the marketing transit triangle – you are addressing. Is it part of the “in-group” that will know a great deal of industry jargon? Or, is it part of an “out-group” that, while needing to understand the meaning of some industry jargon, also needs to be educated?

Usually in Business to Business copywriting, you can and should jargon. Because it’s B-B, your audience will already be comfortable with the terms in the industry, and your copy will make you look like an outsider if you don’t include industry “Official Shorthand” jargon. However, sometimes copywriters try and get too cute – or familiar – and insert the industry slang that’s the more intimate part of the culture of the in-group.

Be careful, here. If you are injecting some humor into the ad, or creating a headline/photo combination that really snags the audience’s attention, you may be able to pull it off. But there is a limit to familiarity in an ad – too much is a turn-off. Don’t overstep your boundaries by tossing about slang words just to impress the in-group you are targeting. They know you are a company trying to sell them something, so don’t overdo it. Many a great headline/photo combination has been ruined by jargon overkill in the body copy of the ad.

But what if you are targeting consumers? I find that in B-C copy it is best to educate the audience in context, rather than use definitions of jargon. Look at my earlier paragraph that begins with “Usually in Business…”. Note, I did not write: “Business to Business (B-B)”; rather, I left the full phrase, “Business to Business”, as a standalone in the first sentence, and then inserted the jargon within the context of the second sentence.

I find this a less offending way to convey jargon-laden info to an audience when one is writing advertising copy; it’s less offensive and yet they can still understand the meaning. Obviously, if you are writing a textbook or a glossary for a publication, you’ll use more blunt jargon definitions, but in marketing and advertising copy it’s so often the nuances of what we say that makes our ads work well.

Email me at funmarketer@marketinghawks.com or give me a call at 402-423-2444 if you have any questions or ideas.

FunMarketer Free Campaign Idea of the Week

Maybe I’m stuck on duos right now. I think these two ladies are excellent for an ad aimed at males and weight loss, possibly an ad in a men’s health magazine.

Photo: Istock #6795884

Headline: Are You On Their Radar? You Will Be, After 12 Weeks at ACME Gym.

FunMarketer Tip of The Week

Always let your marketing copy sit for 24 hours before sending off the final version. Copy, like wine or a well-brewed cup of coffee, needs to age well.

Happy Marketing!

Craig Lutz-Priefert

FunMarketer Lesson of the Week

Craig, what do you mean by “pulling inspiration from the past?

Ever experience a running-on-empty day when you are writing copy for an ad or looking for that ‘just-right’ marketing graphic? Maybe you’ve finished your brand check-up, but find your inspiration fuel tank is a couple gallons low.

Hello, YouTube.

Old commercials that haven’t ran in years – or even decades – are now available on YouTube. Just a few searches for terms like “old tv commercials youtube” and you’ll find dozens of great ads–some classics and some lame-o’s.

Once you’re done enjoying a few moments of nostalgia – if you are old enough – or have stopped laughing – if you’re young enough – it’s time to see how these old spots can inspire a few new ideas for your current marketing mission.

Yes, it’s tempting to pick apart everything the ad creators (many of whom are gone to that great agency in the sky) did wrong. Ditto on commenting on how fashion was atrocious way back when. Instead, see how they used elements of the ad to:

* Pull your eye toward the product
* Tug your emotions
* Make you want the product
* Cause you to take some action

Note – I don’t advocate that you clone anybody’s ads from the past, but with the advent of YouTube there’s suddenly a deeper well of inspiration to draw from.

Call me for more ideas at 402-423-2444 or email me at funmarketer@marketinghawks.com

FunMarketer Free Marketing Campaign Idea of the Week

Here’s an idea for a pain med targeted at older males. Especially for guys who want to still act 25…even if they’re 50.

Photo: Istock #6691673

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/people/6691673-senior-man-giving-woman-piggyback-ride.php?id=6691673

Headline: Acme Aspirin – We Won’t Tell Her If You Don’t

FunMarketer Tip of The Week

AIDA – Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. Every salesperson learns this early in their career. It’s still a really useful refresher acronym for marketers.

FunMarketer Phrase of The Week

“Hope Springs Eternal”. Speaking of old ads, check out this Irish Spring ad from the 1980s. See how many emotion-loaded elements the ad creators inserted to pull you closer to the brand – dogs (two, including a puppy), kids, good-looking people and even some bare skin.

Check out the signature demo of the knife cutting through the bar of soap – it almost feels like an apple being sliced in the Garden of Eden.

Happy Marketing!

Craig Lutz-Priefert

FunMarketer Lesson of the Week

Craig, where do you weigh-in on the debate between long and short copy?

The FunMarketer answer:

Our ongoing discussion on Brevity in Marketingleads to a good question: how many words is “just right” for good advertising copy?

OK, part of finding your marketing voice is making each word count. For most of us, this means slicing the number of words we use. Think Gettysburg address. But after we hone each phrase and sentence, then what? How many words do we need? Is the briefest copy always best?

No, of course not. Copy length depends on:

* the medium you are using – TV? Radio? Direct Mail?
* the product/audience combination – Tech-savvy B-B niche audience? or retail signage?
* placement in the overall advertising package.

For example, a Direct Mail Package aimed at a consumer might contain a 1,500 word letter, a 600 word brochure, and a 45 word lift-letter.

And the five most important words might be the teaser copy on the envelope. Think those aren’t critical? We’ll, the prospect will never see your brilliant 1,500 word letter if your five word teaser copy doesn’t tug them inside the package.

There is no ‘magic’ number.

Good Luck as you develop your own voice and sense of timing.

Call me for more ideas at 402-423-2444 or email me at funmarketer@marketinghawks.com

FunMarketer Free Campaign Idea of the Week

Anybody looking to put the word “excitement” into any ad campaign need look no further.

Photo: Istock #6543160

Headline: Mom, How Soon Can We Go Back to Acme Supply?

FunMarketer Tip of The Week

If you don’t have a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, please pick one up.

FunMarketer Phrase of The Week

“Rock Solid”. Remember our value and trust themes during the economic slowdown. Weaving this phrase into your ads will reinforce trust and traditional values with your audience.

FunMarketer Lesson of the Week

Craig, You sometimes mention surrounding the customer with your brand. Is this possible? Can you overdo it?

The FunMarketer answer: How many ways do you tell your kid you love him or her? Sure, you say it. But more important, you show it. You show it with every sandwich you packed away in her lunchbox and every time you waited in the car outside school so she didn’t have to walk home in the rain.

Think that kid didn’t notice? She noticed.

Same with the customer. You must absolutely encase her with positive marketing messages that reflect your brand and your brand’s promise. When I review a client’s shop the first place I go to is the wash room to see what it’s like. Is it clean? That’s prerequisite number one. If you want to get an F on a Marketing Hawks review just have a dirty loo.

But OK, so you’ve hired folks that can pickup the trash. Yea! Now, how about a few flowers in that rest room, or maybe just a hint of something that makes it fresh. How about some lotion?

There, that wasn’t too hard. What, no push for a big old poster announcing CD rates or what’s on clearance this week? Maybe…it depends on if that promotional style reflects the personality of your store. Perhaps just a couple of nice prints hanging on the wall can bond you closer to the customer.

See, it’s the little things in marketing that your customers pick up on. Ever listen to a great story teller? Does she scream? Does she speak loudly? No, she knows the value of a pause, of just gracing her audience with a few seconds of silence. We require relief from the communications assault.

Sometimes the mind appreciates a breather from the overt marketing we are all exposed to. That’s the idea behind a Customer Respite.

Call me for more ideas at 402-423-2444 or email me at funmarketer@marketinghawks.com

FunMarketer Free Campaign Idea of the Week

It’s back to school, which means that many people are joining clubs and groups. These two young ladies look happy together – you can almost feel their arms around each other in a warm, friendship hug.

Photo: istock #4537186

Headline: Make a Friend for Life at Acme Girls Club
Alternate Headline: Find that Friend You Can Always Count On – Visit Acme Girls Club Today

FunMarketer Tip of The Week

Last week I discussed brevity in our marketing efforts. One way to keep your writing brief is to not worry about the number of words in the first draft. The first draft should cull out the ideas from your mind. Some of the perfect phrases we search for will start pecking their way out of this rough copy.

But, if you are like me, the first draft will contain many extra words and long phrases. Rather than trying to make the perfect first draft, just accept that it will be a bit wordy. Then, go back and slash out phrases and words that you can make simpler in subsequent drafts.

FunMarketer Phrase of The Week

“Silence is Golden”. In keeping with the brevity in marketing theme, here’s a phrase that we can certainly stick in the back of our mind as we construct our copy and our layout. Silence in a spoken ad is analogous to white space in a print ad. Like the ear needs the unspoken pause, the eye needs the unseen. Sometimes the presence of the blank space in an ad allows the emphasis on your headline or photo combination.

Happy Marketing!

Craig Lutz-Priefert

FunMarketer Lesson of the Week

Craig, What is the right relationship between Story, Benefits and Features?

The FunMarketer answer: Story reinforces you as you market your Company Brand, Benefits (and Features) reinforce the Product.

This might seem academic, but it’s not. Think about it – when you shop at a retail store, you expect that store to treat you a certain way regardless of what you buy. If you are at Wal-Mart, you expect cheap prices, clean stores, smooth checkout and not much else from the staff. If you are at JC Penney, you anticipate that somebody in the sales department will assist you.

It doesn’t matter what product you are buying at Wal-Mart or at JC Penney, you walk in expecting the company’s brand to be stable and aligned with what you’ve previously experienced. Story should always reinforce the brand. That’s why the combination of photos and headlines or imagery surrounding the customer in retail is so important. It is also why it is beyond Herculean for a retailer to occupy both the Upscale and the Discount position. It is nearly impossible for the imagery in the store to shoulder these two loads at the same time.

But when you are buying a product, you need to immediately convey what that product will do for the customer. Quick – parade your benefits out there: fast, front and center. Don’t assume listing the features will be sufficient. Computer and tech products are especially guilty of this. Processor speed, ram, etc – just listing all that in a long litany of features won’t convince anybody. If that new Model 500 processor is 50% faster than the old Model 400, announce that fact after you scream: “Get your work done in 1/2 the time!”

Hint – The photo/headline combinations Marketing Hawks dreams up each week for FunMarketer are intended to jumpstart your creative mind for either story or benefits. You can use these suggestions as a launchpad for ideas to enhance and reflect your brand, or that latest product you are pushing.

Call me for more ideas at 402-423-2444 or email me at funmarketer@marketinghawks.com

FunMarketer Free Campaign Idea of the Week

Here’s one that will work well for just about anything you are selling to families – from food to fashion.

Photo: Istock #4669594

Headline: Swing into Fall with Savings from Acme! This week only, 10% off…

FunMarketer Tip of The Week

Sometimes a bit of creative help is as close as your kitchen’s pantry. Need marketing ideas for an ad or campaign? Go grab some inspiration from some of the best packaging around – the cans. Just look at how little space these marketers have to work with – and how much they pack in. Pull down three or four cans – and drink in some inspiration. Hey, don’t forget the generic ’store-brands’. Plus, your writing might even become more honed by learning the importance of brevity. Why?

People who create graphics and words for the cans often must condense benefits into just one or two words. Look at the phrase: “Packed Fresh”. If you were writing copy for the internet or a print ad – maybe even a coupon – you would write: “Packed fresh so you enjoy the good health you deserve.”

Brevity works. Try it.

FunMarketer Phrase of The Week

“Heavenly”. Wow, talk about a phrase that is malleable. You can run with cloud images, food images, happy close-ups with eyes shut and smiles and faces uplifted in anticipation or enjoyment.

It’s one of the best one-word sentences you can end an ad with. And, if you’re clever enough, you can create a little mini-story around it.

Happy Marketing!

Craig Lutz-Priefert

FunMarketer Lesson of the Week

Craig, Can you recommend an easy-to-maintain retention program?

The FunMarketer answer is: Go where others don’t. If you:

a) Depend on Repeat Customers and
b) Have your customer’s address

then a low-maintenance method to bond your customers to you is send them cards in the mail when nobody else is. High-value times could include:

1. Birthday Card
2. July 4th Card
3. “Preferred Customer Event” special invite

You say: “Oh no, Craig, we can’t send out cards to customers. It costs too much.”

Really? Acquiring a customer costs between 10 and 50 times what a Card-based retention program does. And if you are like most businesses, it is your repeat customers that support your company. It just make sense to bond them to you with a very basic retention program.

Also, my experience strongly suggests you should OUTSOURCE this function. Send your database to a good service provider and let them take care of this vital marketing function.

Can’t afford to send everybody a card? Then just choose the cream of the crop. If your business follows a classic 80/20 Pareto rule, then you can just peel off the top 20% of the customer list and mail them.

FunMarketer Free Campaign Idea of the Week

Summer is here and the beach is a great place for inspiration!

Photo: Istock #1693130

Headline: Acme Remodeling – No Job’s Too Small

Alternate Headline: Acme Architects – Practicing Great Design Since 1975

Got any great ideas of your own? Just reply to the Funmarketer blog with your istock number and your headline and subhead (Clean Only, Please).

Oh, if you do use the campaign, make sure you give credit where due.

FunMarketer Tip of The Week

Use Google Suggest. For those of you who haven’t tried this tool, Google Suggest is a powerful way to explore which phrases people are using on the web. Google will actually tell you what’s popular, PLUS supply you with ideas. Think that coold search phrase you want to use in your copy or headline is the latest and greatest? Maybe, but by using Google Suggest you can find out how many people are actually searching for it.

FunMarketer Phrase of The Week

“Supplies Are Limited, so Call Now”. This phrase is one of the more powerful calls to action you can use in your copy. Yes, it may seem a bit timeworn, but remember that this phrase is battle-tested through thousands of campaigns. Remember, a good Call To Action leverages fear to push people into an action – which is often greed-based.

Happy Marketing!

Craig Lutz-Priefert

FunMarketer Lesson of the Week

Craig, should I use Greed or Fear in my copy?

The FunMarketer answer is: Often you can combine Greed and Fear into a one-two punch that is just about unbeatable. It is fast and it works.

A powerful formula is to leverage the OFFER to play on GREED (2 for 1, fifty percent off, etc) and then have the Call to Action push the Fear button.

This is a powerful, tested formula. The best copywriters and retail salespeople use it all the time. I bet you’ve ran into this in a retail store or when you were buying a car. It works.

But why?

Part of Greed/Fear effectiveness relates to Maslow and the hierarchy of needs. When you employ greed and fear as motivators, you can play directly into the basic, physiological needs without requiring your copy to engage the higher needs, such as esteem. Let’s look at trying to:

1. Get somebody to buy a hamburger
2. Get somebody to buy a diet-drink
3. Get somebody to eat healthy.

With One, the hamburger, you simply play on greed: “I’m hungry and I’ve got to eat now!” Greed isn’t always about money – sometimes it’s about food. So, you super-size the burger (a double layering of greed) and then you garnish with a limited-time offer that they won’t want to miss out on.

Using Two, the diet-drink, you just play on the basic hunger need, barely touch on the esteem need (a higher-level need), and then garnish with sex. It is no secret that “skin is in” for so many diet ads. With the diet ad mix-in the basic need for sex with the basic need for hunger–you are playing to the prospect’s Greed with two powerful basic needs. For the fear factor, you can either play off the fact that they won’t be thin in time for swimsuit season, or that they will be left out from their friends. Here you are bouncing up the ladder to the esteem needs again, but it’s almost inevitable in a diet-drink pitch

OK, how about #3 – eating healthy? With the hamburger, you apply techniques to play on the the greed for the basic physiological need of “hunger”. With the diet drink, you must consider the esteem needs, but you can double-down on greed by leveraging the basic sex need. But, to incent people to eat healhy, you must kick in the higher needs, needs for esteem. But beyond that, you also must involve the safety needs.

Much harder.

Now your copy and graphics must be muscular enough to go two or three levels higher up the ladder. #3 is much tougher sell to a general audience. It is why it is so important that when dealing with a #3 type of customer, you already have them thinking about the higher needs already.

So, if your audience for #3 is reading a health-related magazine, they are already predisposed to eating healthy and already engaged in thinking about the need for esteem and for safety.

Here the “greed” you are going for is more life. In reality, you are probably going to use “salvation” more than greed in this sell. I suppose one could say salvation is being greedy for more life. Here’s a link to a Denny Hatch article that has solid info on eight copy “emotional hot buttons” put together by Bob Hacker and Axel Andersson.

What if your #3 target is reading a general interest magazine? Now you may need to reverse the Greed/Fear order I’ve suggested above and lead with Fear. Your headline and graphic may have to jolt them into instantly afraid for their health, and kickstart their mind into immediately thinking about the safety needs.

There are other examples when we can lead with Fear, but those we’ll discuss another day.

FunMarketer Free Campaign Idea of the Week

Photo: Istock #5012478

Headline: I Just Spent My Last Buck and Now You Tell Me Acme Burgers are on Sale?

Alternate Headline: The Tooth Fairy is On Strike?
Subhead: At Least Acme Burgers are Still on Sale -

Got any great ideas of your own? Just reply to the Funmarketer blog with your istock number and your headline and subhead (Clean Only, Please).

Oh, if you do use the campaign, make sure you give credit where due.

FunMarketer Tip of The Week

Boredom is your enemy. Anytime the customer is anywhere near your store, your website, or your presentation, you must surround them with distractions to keep them from being bored. Boredom puts the customer into a negative mood.

Isn’t your kid happier when she’s coloring or playing with a doll? If you want her to do something, such as pick up toys or help tote in a small bag of groceries from the car, won’t she be much more likely to perform such a chore without backtalk if she is seamlessly sliding from a pleasant activity rather than sitting at idle bored out of her mind?

It’s the same with your grown-up customers. Whether they are going to buy something from you, return something to you, or complain to you, your chances of a positive customer expereince are much better if you can keep them from being bored before they interact with your company.

Remember, not everything you have to engage them with to shoo away that spectre or boredom has to be sales-related material. A nice cup of coffee and a tv and a magazine to browse through is better than nothing.

Remember that little girl with the crayons that took in the groceries? She’s your customer, now.

FunMarketer Phrase of The Week

“Scared Speechless”. Oh, if only it would happen to the presidential candidates. Have No Fear of that happening any time soon….

Happy Marketing!

Craig Lutz-Priefert