1. Safety Needs (concern for child’s future money well-being)
2. Love – (parent loves the child, wants to ensure child’s future)
3. Esteem – (inner-directed esteem, not “pat-on-the-back’ esteem)

How To Write A Headline

As a small business, don’t worry about writing the ad that will sound the cutest or grab an award. Instead, write an ad that stops the prospect long enough to cause them to take an action.

Stock Photo Tip

If you haven’t used iStock photo, make sure to check them out. I recommend opening a free account. Why? Because it’s quite handy to set up different lightboxes and save the photos you like. For every one I or one of my clients buys we look at several dozen. They also have very reasonable prices on their stock images.

Now back to the task at hand …

Example Bank Marketing Campaign

Let’s start with some ads.

• Teaching the basics of reading and math is school’s job.  Teaching her to handle her money, that’s on your shoulders. Open a child savings account today; we’ll carry some of the load.

There you go.  Have fun with the campaign…and have fun writing your own campaign using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs! Also, if you have a favorite method or formula for writing a headline, make sure to share it with our readers.

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.

• Campaign -Encouraging parents to open a savings account for their children.
• Target Audience – Current bank customers who are parents of younger children.
• Media Used – In-branch posters, teller-helpers, statement stuffers, small landing page on website.

Three needs we will engage:

• Safety – I am concerned about child’s financial future.
• Love – I love the kids, so I want to do right and make sure they have a good future. Ties in with ‘duty’.
• Esteem – Maslow discusses two “subsidiary sets” of self-esteem need. “These are, first, the need for strength, for achievement, for adequacy, for confidence in the face of the world, and for independence and freedom. Secondly, we have what we may call the desire for reputation or prestige (defining it as respect or esteem from other people), recognition, attention, importance or appreciation.” It is the first type of esteem – the inner directed – that we will address in our campaign.

Our Target Audience

Next let’s consider our prospect. Although we are aiming at “parents” I find it is more effective for me to envision the actual decision-maker when creating the campaign. I don’t ignore the role of the influencer, but I find it easier to focus on the decision maker. For this campaign, I envision the mother as decision-maker, although I’m sure many fathers walk their kids to the bank to open their first account.

Our mother cares about her child but also knows that it is on her shoulders to take care of the family. Right here we can briefly consider the second half of the esteem need. She is not going to get a ‘pat on the back’ from anybody from opening up an account for her child. It’s one of the thousand little tasks she’ll take on in raising the child that will never draw a compliment.

Because of this they may feel even more alone, even though she has a strong sense of duty associated with the decision. Of course, she is possibly going to look at her friends and family as primary referral sources, but if she is new in town she may not have many strong referrers. Your campaign may be especially effective at parents who have not been in the community a long time.

Here is what you must do:

1. Acknowledge their alone-ness. (Esteem)
2. Acknowledge the importance of the decision. (Esteem)
3. Acknowledge the threat. (Safety)
4. Acknowledge the family (Love)

You need to do this with your:

1. Headline
2. Photo
3. Subhead or Tag Line
4. Body Copy
5. Combination of all of these.

Wow, there’s a lot to a simple ad, isn’t there?

Only if it’s done right. In our next post, we’ll look at some possible headlines, copy and photos.

I may appear a bit archaic in discussing Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. After all, it’s more than 65 years since he wrote the original article, and it’s been commented on many times by marketers and the psychology community. However, the Hierarchy of Needs can be a valuable tool in a sophisticated marketer’s toolbox. Quickly, the basic needs are:

• physiological
• safety
• love
• esteem
• self-actualization

Human Motivation and Marketing

Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs

An understanding of Maslow is more complex than what one gathers from a quick glance at any chart of the basic needs. Unfortunately, that is about all of us receive in most marketing books — if they mention him at all; which in my opinion is a shame. Why? Because in studying the Hierarchy of Needs you will find new perspectives when creating your ad campaigns. You will gain insight and understanding on motivation, leading to better conversions on direct mail, pay per click and other marketing campaigns. In the end the investment in studying Maslow’s hierarchy will help increase your campaign’s return on investment (ROI). However, what you will not find is a theory that answers all questions about human motivation. It is not an “end-all, be-all” answer to what motivates us.

Marketing Tool

There is no magic wand in marketing, there are only tools. I found Maslow is most useful as “one marketing tool among many.” For example, on those rare occasions I fix something at home, I often use a wrench, a screwdriver and a pair of pliers; sometimes a couple of different wrenches. I could try to repair everything with a pair of pliers, but that’s not very efficient and usually I end up marring a surface or stripping the head of a bolt. In the same fashion, if I am constructing a promotion for a client I may combine my understanding of the Hierarchy of Needs with Campbell’s explanation of the Hero’s Journey, and the Ries and Trout Positioning concepts. I might well consider a half-dozen others, depending on the scope of the promotion and the time I devote to it.

Maslow, then, provides a useful foundation to work from, especially when we try to gauge what set of needs our target audience is apt to be searching for. “Man is a perpetually wanting animal” Maslow notes, and yet we need to determine which of the needs we think are already satisfied (mostly) in our target audience. Then we can determine which of the “unsatisfied” needs to focus on as we develop our campaign.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Applied To Marketing

There is an important principle I missed when I first encountered Maslow in a simple “chart form”. He indicates that only percentages of the needs are filled at any one time. Most people simply don’t neatly fill each stage entirely, and then move up to the next stage.

This fact, that only a percentage of the needs are fulfilled at any time, allows us to craft unique, focused marketing campaigns targeting multiple needs. This key point is only one of the critical lessons learned by studying Maslow.

Other Marketing Tools

The next post will focus on specific applications in creating a marketing campaign. For our campaign, we will use the concept of Duty (as part of the Esteem needs) and combine it with the Safety and Love needs to illustrate a campaign for a financial institution…a bank.

Have you used Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” in your marketing campaigns? Or do you have a favourite Marketing tool you would like to share? We would like to hear from you.

Craig, what else should we measure besides After-Click behavior on Google AdWords?

Impressions.

Frequent readers know I’m huge on After-Click (AC) behavior. Why? Because this indicates what people do after they click on your Google ad. Measuring clicks as your benchmark of success is like measuring how many people walk through the front door of a retail store; valuable info, but hey it’s the cash register that measures success.

Remember, if you are fortunate enough to be able to measure a Conversion, using Google AdWords, that metric must be your primary indicator of success. If you drive traffic to the phone, you can’t always measure a conversion, but at least you can compare the success of different ad campaigns using Google Analytics measures like Page Views Per Visit or Average Time on Page.

But, what if you are trying to measure trends? What if you want to uncover how much interest is in your product during the month? Maybe you are two weeks into the month and you want to see how well you are doing. Are people still shopping, or are they starting to slow down compared to last month?

Try Impressions. If your daily budget is the same during both time periods, you’ll get a very good indication of how much interest there is in your product.

A couple of caveats:

1. You must segregate your keyword search and your content network campaigns. If you don’t, then start – immediately. Content impressions are not as reliable of an indicator of interest in your product or product category. Keyword Impressions are what matter.

(Note, I’m not anti-Content ads, I make money with them, but I do not use them as an indicator of consumer interest.)

2. Make sure your daily budget setting as well as any time of day settings are the same. You need an apples-to-apples comparison.

There are dozens of other reports to run, but impression share is a good snapshot. 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 Time. Doesn’t this little girl just look like somebody you’d like to buy something from or help out? What a great smile!

Photo: Istock #5793448

Headline: Get Her Ready to Win This Fall – Our Back-To-School Sale is On Now!

FunMarketer Tip of The Week

Need some creativity? Force yourself to pull up one or two creative ideas a week – when you are tired. Yes, it sounds crazy, but when you are tired is just when your defenses are down. Let the crazy ideas roll in, whether it’s a headline or an idea for a new campaign.

Sure, many will be sub-par, but you’ll unearth a couple of gems buried inside your creative side that otherwise would never see the light of day.

It works. Try it.

FunMarketer Phrase of The Week

“Rock On”. This phrase can still resonate for people over forty. If you are looking to inspire your customers, or bond with them in a common mission, or possibly salute them, then this is an excellent phrase to keep in your quiver.

Happy Marketing!

Craig Lutz-Priefert

Craig, What is “Piggybacking” a campaign on Yahoo or Google? Can it really give me an extra 5% or 10% in sales?

Everybody who has read Positioning knows the classic story of how Avis positioned themselves against Hertz. Avis “tried harder” from its Number Two Position. Trouble was, Avis had to spend money on TV and in print to get that message out there.

Today the internet supplies us a way to piggyback a succesful alternative position to a market leader – and use that market leader’s ad budget to our advantage.

Note – this is one time where your Yahoo PPC results may surprise you. Many of you probably get discouraged if you start your Pay Per Click campaigns on Google and then try to achieve anywhere near the same success on Yahoo. I know I certainly have. But, I have found that in some cases I can successfully piggyback my Yahoo paid search campaigns off of a competitor’s banner-ad in addition to their TV ads. Since Yahoo runs banner ads all over its network, if the market leader you target is running banner ads on Yahoo, they are all the juicier target for a piggyback campaign. And I’ve had success doing this with both keyword-based and content-based campaigns.

You will be most successful if your ad asks a question or pulls the audience in with a challenge. You need to get the prospect to think: “This looks interesting; I’d better click and check out what this outfit has to say.” The idea is to get the individual to first click through to the landing page. Then on the landing page you present quick, compelling information to them that causes them to take some action – call a sales rep, fill out a request for more information, etc.

What I have found:

1) these ads must be different than your regular keyword or content ads
2) You must use a different landing page than your usual landing page – Critical for Success
3) Don’t try to be in the top 4 positions – it’ll kill your cost per conversion
4) Build your traditional search campaigns first, benchmark them, then integrate this piggybacking tactic

Remember AIDA – Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. You really need to capture Attention and some Interest in your ad. The person is already aware of the market leader, now you have to pull them away from the market leader and towards you. A pure benefits statement usually isn’t sufficient, here. Try seeding some doubt in their mind. Doubt works well and it is fast, because so many consumers on the internet are in comparison-shopping mode, anyway.

Alternatively, if you can position your product as healthier, or faster, or somehow superior to the competition in your ad, then that’s even better. But, I have found this can sometimes be accomplished more easily on the landing page than in the ad. That’s why I like to use doubt in the ad – it is quick and effective.

Note – although I have not extensively tested price, you can use price as a bit of an urgency factor to push the person over the edge. Sometimes a simple: “Sale this weekend” at the very end of the ad can help.

Again, this “piggybacking” tactic can’t be the foundation of your campaign – it won’t be a grand slam. But you might just might get a few singles from it. Let me know.

FunMarketer Free Campaign Idea of the Week

Here’s a great one for anything travel related – hotels, airlines, city desinations.

Photo: Istock #6328435

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/sports-and-leisure/6328435-little-girl-at-a-camp.php?id=6328435

Headline: Mom and Dad Said They Wanted Some Alone Time In Our Tent.

SubHead: When Your Ready to Step Up Your Next Vacation, Give Us a Call.

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

Keep the focus on value and trust right now in your marketing messages. There is a ton of distrust out there – people are scared. Couple this with the fears of the recession and the prices in the supermarket and at the pump creeping up and up – plus all the bad news coming from ordinarily stable companies like banks – and the need for trust is evident.

It may sound really basic, but trust and value are big themes for the rest of this year.

FunMarketer Phrase of The Week

“Cash It In”. Here’s a phrase that is recession-ready! Just do a search (with quotation marks) on the types of businesses that use this phrase. People are money-constrained right now and it is only going to get worse as we head toward the Fall and Christmas. You can play off both greed and fear with this phrase, if you use it right.

Remember: Brand (who you are) + Package (your Face to the Customer) + People (customers and employees) = Marketing Success.

Craig Lutz-Priefert

The FunMarketer answer is: Suprisingly little!

Direct Mail Envelope “Teaser Copy” and Google AdWords Ad Copy occupy the same function in the parallel universes of Direct Mail and Paid Search. Both push the prospect into taking the next action – either open the envelope or click on the ad. Yes each has important differences, but the savvy marketer working in either universe can learn from experts in the other.

The key rule in either universe: “Know Thy Audience…and what they are doing.”

1. What they are doing…

Craig, what’s that second half mean: “…and what they are doing”? Well, that’s the key difference – behavior at the time of the ad encounter.

OK, for AdWords Copy your prospect is searching for something. For right now, let’s ignore content ads – the copy may end up being slightly different for these, especially if you are coat-tailing on a bigger competitors ads (more on that in a later post).

So, they are searching for something and see your AdWords ad…and you want to reinforce as close as possible what their fingers just typed. If they were searching for a “Brown Hat” and your AdWords ad mentions “Brown Hat” then you have a better chance of a Clickthrough.

What’s the person looking at the teaser copy on the envelope doing? That person is qualifying the mailpiece – does it live or die? They are in a totally different frame of mind than the AdWords searcher – your Direct Mail prospect is sorting, not searching.

So guess what – you need a different message in your envelope teaser copy. There aren’t any ‘key word phrases’ lingering in their mind you can then repeat back to them. Instead, you have to literally tease them into opening your envelope.

2. Know Your Audience – then write the copy

OK, for the envelope teaser copy, you will know something about the audience because you will know what lists have worked for you in the past. You have some idea in your mind about who the potential customer is. You then use your copy skills to get them to act. Experienced Direct Mail copywriter Dean Rieck has some great advice on envelope teaser copy. (Check out what Dean says about Business to Business teaser copy.)

For the AdWords copy, in addition to the repeating of the keyword phrase in your text, it’s also important to have a clear Call To Action (CTA). You must tell the person exactly what they should do.

Also, AdWords Maven Jeremy Schoemaker has a neat little trick – his AdWords arrow. Check it out on his Shoemoney post.

Will Jeremy’s arrow trick work for you? The answer is…

3. …Test.

Yes, AdWords is much easier to test than Envelope Teaser Copy. Your results are quicker, A/B splits are easier to control. Remember, don’t just focus on Click Through Rate as your benchmark for success. Conversions and Cost per Conversion are critical to review when you are evaluating your success.

FunMarketer Free Campaign Idea of the Week

Save this one for a campaign or ad that runs just before the Beijing Olympics start, when all the media coverage is focused on Beijing but before everybody is burned out on hearing about the games:

Photo: Istock #5832009

Headline: Missed Your Flight to Beijing? Race Over to Our Olmpic Sale!

Alternate Headline: Forget Beijing – The Real Race is to Our Store for Olympic-Sized Values

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

Develop a corporate Measuring Mentality–even if you are a corporation of One. It’s tough, but if you hammer away at it, you can infect your company with this healthiest of habits. Learn which marketing metrics matter most in your company, then create ways to make sure you measure whatever you can.

One of the best new technology companies for measuring inbound calls generated through paid or natural search is Voicestar. I have worked with them and they are excellent at helping companies capture value. Shoot me an email at funmarketer@marketinghawks.com for more info on them.

FunMarketer Phrase of The Week

“Campaign Trail”. I am a bit weary of this presidential campaign. The phrase ‘campaign trail’ tugs up images of the old west, of the Chisolm or Oregon or some other ‘trail’ to the frontier. You might say I personally feel like a cowflop on the campaign trail.

Maybe it’s time to put a widget on your website …. a counter that counts down, not to when Dubya leaves the White House, but when the election is over.

Happy trails….and

Happy Marketing!

Craig Lutz-Priefert

Craig, what should I measure on Google AdWords Paid Search?

The FunMarketer answer is: Measure “After-Click (AC)” Behavior. There are a few powerful indicators of AC behavior:

#1: Cost per conversion – IF you can. Why? Because Cost per Conversion shows you Action; it lets you know what people are doing once they click on an ad. Some of my clients have it rather easy; they define a Sale as a conversion. If your clients order online, then you can label your sales as conversions and see what ad groups work the best for you.

If you don’t sell online, you still need to try and find something After-Click behavior that can become a conversion. Maybe it’s a sign-up for a free newsletter, or for a sample kit. Does your industry have a long sales cycle where people ask for a product sample or DVD sent to them prior to ordering? You can define one of these actions as your conversion. Then, over time – and it may take six months or a year – you will begin to see what % of your conversions actually turned into sales. Then adjust your Ad Groups accordingly.

#2: What if you just don’t have anything you can use as a conversion? The next After-Click metrics to use are:
a) Bounce Rate
b) Avg Time on Site
c) Pages Per Visit

You will find these reports in your Google Analytics account. If you didn’t sign up for Google Analytics at the same time you signed up for AdWords, please absolutely do so this week. It’s not tough.

Why Bounce Rate or Avg Time on Site or Pages Per Visit? Again, these indicators tell you what potential customers are doing after they have clicked through to your landing page (make sure you have a real landing page). This indicates behavior once they are on your site. I’ve found myself elated over keywords with a fantastic Clickthrough Rate but then dug deeper into Google Analytics and found those keywords actually had a lousy Avg Time on Site. Why? Because people were searchers were clicking on an ad or keyword they only thought was leading them toward the product they wanted. Sometimes you can adjust Average Position downward to combat this, but we’ll discuss that another day.

You may ask: “Craig, why didn’t you put Clickthrough Rate (CTR) up there at the top of the list?” Because CTR, although vital, leads more people astray than any other AdWords metric. Relying on CTR alone is like only looking at the speedometer on your car and ignoring the flashing “check engine soon” light; both can lead to financial disaster–and that’s no fun at all.

FunMarketer Free Campaign Idea of the Week

Hey, if you work for a local courier service, or if your agency is engaged by one of the big express shippers like DHL or FedEx or UPS, this week’s Funmarketer Free Campaign of the Week is for you:

Photo: Istock #4074876

Headline: Our Operators are Standing By

SubHead: Acme Courier – Just a Hare ahead of our Competition

Got any great ideas of your own? Just reply to the 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

Whenever you write a first or second draft of any piece…LET IT SIT OVERNIGHT.

Trust me on this one – your creative brain will keep on editing and recreating the piece overnight, even if you’ve had a nice cuddle with your partner. (No prying for details now; Mrs. L-P will scold Mr. L-P…)

FunMarketer Phrase of The Week

“All-New”. I love Ford. I have owned many Fords. But the “all-new” Fiesta press release does overwork the phrase a bit…See the Ford Press Release

I suppose Ford is trying to completely erase the image of the 70s Fiesta in the minds of those of us old enough to remember that car?

Happy Marketing!

Craig Lutz-Priefert