After 35 years in the advertising agency business, Hanson Marketing is the oldest agency in Colorado Springs. People new to the industry ask questions about the keys to our success. Our focus has always been to create campaigns that drive sales. If you’re creating campaigns hoping to win awards, remember that awards are nice but the client is spending their money with you to generate new and better business. Keep that as your focus and you’ll have longevity in the business.

Generating sales is the campaign goal, so include all the necessary elements. You need a theme, a time limit, an exclusive selling feature – explaining why they should buy from this particular business. Do you have an understandable brand statement in the copy? Is there a target market? You need to know when and how to reach them, and if the budget is large enough to get it done. A budget that is too small to accomplish success will backfire on the client and on the agency. Spending too little can be just as wasteful as overspending. In the current economy every dollar must work to drive sales. Ask the client for enough budget to get the job done right.

Television has proven to be our best media for giving good return on investment. With remaining budget, we like having the luxury of backup media to boost our television buys and increase the reach and frequency of the message. Shorter radio spots – :10 or :15 seconds in length – can work, or a series of small ads in the newspaper can be placed in multiple sections. That being said, tv remains our go-to media. A successful campaign generates another campaign to follow. That consistency helps us gain market share for our clients.

Sometimes we forget the importance of market share, but in this current economy it is more critical than ever. As every business battles for every available dollar, there’s little value in coming in second or third in market share. Everybody likes a winner, and being tops in market share is a big win. Make it happen for your clients.

Should you just buy ads on local networks, or should you look at other options? Should you buy cable, or satellite tv? And if you purchase satellite advertising, will your ads show in your town?

Clients ask us these questions often. Everybody has an opinion on what to buy – until it’s their own money. Then it becomes serious business, and they want reassurance that the budget is being spent wisely. Before a single dollar is spent, ask a few questions:

1. Geographically, who does your business serve?
Are your potential customers within the city limits or are they spread out over several counties?

2. Do you want to bring in new clients from a broader area?

3. What percentage of your city is served by cable? Is that enough?

4. In a political year will one tv option be sold out? Will your ads be aired? Are there other alternatives if this happens? This is a real issue every 4 years.

5. Are the television options in true 1080 HD? This can be critical for your creative: brilliant color and clarity make your product look good. Substandard definition reflects poorly on it.

6. Will satellite ad schedules air in prime time, or focus only on local news? Know where your commercials can be inserted. What’s the percentage of satellite coverage for your market?

By asking the right questions, you can get the information needed from the stations and tv providers in your area. Consider changing your television buy with the seasons: cable viewership is greater in the summer, and network viewership is lighter then. Why? Networks are airing more reruns then, and the large variety of channels on cable offer fresher programming options to viewers.

We like NFL football in the fall, and it’s available Sunday, Monday and an occasional Thursday. The ratings are good, and the demographic watching professional sports is desirable. These viewers rank higher than average in education and in income, making them an excellent audience to capture for our clients.

In general, we have learned to build ad frequency with cable buys and reach big audiences with targeted network shows purchased locally. A combination of great reach and consistent frequency is a winner for our clients.

People just entering the marketing business sometimes ask us “how have you made it for 35 years?” With some soul-searching, it seems the simple answer is that the difference between this agency and other ad agencies that didn’t last comes down to one thing: we always ask the client if the ads are working. Are they selling? How did the weekend sale go? What did you sell and how much? What could we do better? Who came in, and who didn’t show up? Were they real customers or just “tire-kickers” looking for a free hot dog? It’s our job to find out and make adjustments to creative, themes, times of day to start a sale, incentives in financing, and yes…media.

As an ad agency we can use any media, or combination of media, to improve sales for our clients. But we need media to DRIVE SALES.

There – the cat is out of the bag: we need media. Ad awards are always nice, but not the point. Ad agencies are in business to generate new business for clients. Never forget that. Yes, you should brand, have a theme, and get good voices and music to compliment strong creative. But don’t forget to sell the product. Help your client make money. If you fail to do that, they will rightly lose interest in the campaign and ultimately in the value of advertising. It’s your job – don’t let them down.

Over the years we’ve done hundreds of our own case studies and tested all of the main media to understand which has the most success for our clients. We’ve come to the conclusion that for getting customers in a client’s door, making their phones ring, or driving people to the client’s website television advertising gets the job done. It works for general campaigns and for the new client just starting out. We can back it up with radio and newspaper, but ultimately it is television that we rely on to sell and to communicate.

We like the idea that television viewers are measured in thousands and other media are often measured in hundreds. Our clients have products and services that need to be displayed to show real value or to communicate unique selling features.

How do you sell wood furniture without displaying the beauty of the product? Selling a great vacation spot means showing it. How do you show great results with a before and after without seeing the old and comparing it to the new? Can you show the true value of a medical procedure if emotion isn’t used? How do you drive sales and get into prospective buyers living rooms if you don’t use tv?

If you’re considering giving television advertising a try, remember a few guidelines for the creative. Can the campaign or sale be put on a billboard in 6-8 words? Reading it should take no more than 3 seconds, otherwise it’s too complicated. Read your copy for a television ad to some of your peers. If there’s any need to explain it, it’s not good enough. Can you turn the audio off and have the ad still communicate with the visuals? Are you making educational advertising that doesn’t sell? Not good enough, and very expensive. Always remember that your job as an agency is to drive client sales.

When we are asked to make a presentation to business owners and managers, the first question we’re asked is always “what type of media works best” and “what media should we choose?”We tell them our opinion: a combination of media is best in the long run, but our recommendation for most accounts is first and foremost Television. TV in all its forms works. Yes, to local network tv, yes to local cable tv, and yes to local satellite tv. Why television first, versus the other forms of media?
TV communicates with sight, sound, motion and color. This impacts human understanding and retention. If you only hear an ad or just see an ad, you don’t remember it as well. The job isn’t accomplished until the audience remembers.
We need to brand, change the perception of value, develop name awareness, and have that information remembered so the recall score improves. All this is to improve sales – whether it is for a restaurant who wants diners today or for a local implant/denture dentist looking for new patients and ways to develop his/her practice.
How do you put together a great television commercial? Consider these guidelines:
1. Get viewer attention through creativity

2. Hold the viewer attention with an understandable message they can relate to –
perhaps using emotion or humor

3. Test copy length. Can it be spoken in :10 seconds or less? If not, it may be too complicated.

4. State why your company is the best – what is your exclusive selling feature?

5. Through audio and video, state your Brand in three words or less

6. State action and time frame. Drive them to your website as well, where again, they can act.
To expand your dollars and your media buy try making a :10 or :15 second commercial for tv, and use the audio version on radio. Radio will sell ads these lengths in drive times and midday. Because you continue to build the brand on tv, the image transfers to radio and can stretch your campaign dollars.To optimize use of your television commercial, post it on your website for reinforcement. It’s good for people seeing your website, but also keeps your employees up to speed. They’ll feel included in your marketing efforts and can use the information in their client dealings.

A final consideration: Television advertising works because it drives sales. It is not a soft media…it is far more direct than social medias. Whereas we choose where/when/how to interact with social media, television – and your advertising – are more intrusive. TV comes right into a viewers home. And that’s exactly where you want your message to be.

That huge group of people in the United States born between 1946 and 1964 have been dubbed the “Baby Boomers.” Is this a major target for advertising professionals? Yes, and for so many reasons. Think of just one statistic: baby boomers alone will double the size of Medicare coverage in 10 years (2011-2021). As we all know, this is driving politicians crazy, because they just can’t grasp the magnitude of the issue while attempting to do their most important job, getting re-elected.

What does all of this have to do with you, the advertising guru? It is new business! This group of baby boomers is much more mobile than previous generations, and they have money to spend. They may also have a real underlying incentive to move; they have been taking care of kids and grandkids and now they want to find their “happy place,” that next stage in their life.

At this juncture these baby boomers are moving from their old home to a new one – maybe with fewer stairs and less square footage to upkeep, less outside maintenance – and perhaps a new location in the south or southwest for warmer weather. OK, some of us move to be closer to the grandchildren, because they need us, right?

No matter what the reason for the move or how you perceive it, this migration is a growing opportunity to an astute advertiser. It is new people and new money moving to your part of the country, and they will need new services. That’s where you come in! You introduce them to the services that you represent. You brand or re-brand those services for a living, and this is your big chance for the next 20 years of opportunity. Another thing to consider regarding baby boomers is that they carry with them a lot of predictable media habits. Sure, some will change…but they accept a certain type of media into their lives each day, sources they’ve come to like and trust. They want their news a little bit more on the conservative side, and they like prime time programming like NCIS, 20/20, Grey’s Anatomy, and a lot of prime time professional sports. Their news is often preferred early in the day rather than late at night, and movie choices could be all over the map.

In a nutshell, baby boomers are a big market, on the move with a lot of money and some predictable media habits that are affordable for advertisers. All you have to do is put together an ongoing advertising campaign to reach them! Now get started!

We are an advertising agency in a top 100 market. If, like me, you are in the business of advertising, you’ve been to dozens of self-serving presentations on how to your client’s sales. Are the presenters the solution because they have the answers? Think back. Doesn’t it always come down to using one media or research company or an over-used formula for success? Why don’t we take a fresh approach!

Let me give you that fresh approach. It’s one that makes sense, and is very believable for both you and your clients. MOVING. Yes, people moving. Those people moving into town, out of town, and around town…for whatever reason, are a great opportunity. They may be moving because of the grandkids, or it may be for warmer weather, a job opportunity, or another significant change in their family or lifestyle. But whatever the reason for this annual turnover in your town, it may be the biggest and easiest advertising opportunity in the country because it is believable.

How do you get started? Check out your town’s turnover rate, and see if it might be the best thing you can focus on for advertising effectively. Who can argue with migration into and out of the area? Whether people are coming or going, businesses can benefit from knowing about the movement, and why shouldn’t the information come from you? It makes you sound smart!

Check the county offices for available data, and check out the telephone companies for changes in white pages listings year-to-year. Check county property tax data, and trusted media research services for their annual turnover rate figures. You’ll get some answers and can run with the ones that will be accurate and believable to business owners. With these results, begin presenting to your clients, then move to potential new clients who will need the information.

For example, in our metro area of approximately 600,000 people, we have fluctuated from 22% to 28% per year population turnover. That averages out to 25% annually and 2% per month. In just two years we turnover 50% of the whole population. Yes! One-half of our town moves every two years, and that has been the case for 30 years. Are the lights going on upstairs? That’s a very big deal, and everybody needs to know that figure in order to run their business better. You can be the hero, the expert, the advertising person with the answers. Older companies in our town absolutely need to replace 2% of their customers monthly, and 25% every year. New companies starting up therefore have an untapped market to pursue because new residents have no established loyalties to the old established businesses. You benefit either way, because you have answers and valid solutions on how to brand or re-brand both old and new companies in the minds of the consumers. You win, and the clients win. You just have to do a little homework and put some programs together for advertising campaigns that reach the new residents quickly.

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