SHORT TERM ADVERTISING VS LONG TERM ADVERTISING
by Bill Platt
"40% Off of Everything in Stock: Friday, Saturday and Sunday."
"This beautiful sofa is only $349.95 while supplies last."
"Our Burger and Shake special is only $1.49. For a limited time only."
"Our sheets are all 50% off during our Annual White Sale."
We have all heard advertisements like this. As a matter of fact, we hear them every single day, don't we? Turn on your radio or your television, and count the ads featuring these short-term advertising methods and the total number of ads you hear or see. Do this exercise for a day; the results may surprise you.
There are real advantages and disadvantages to advertising of this type.
The advantages are clear, your customer will fill your store on "Friday, Saturday and Sunday" with their wallets open, ready to buy now. Your cash registers will ring, and you will add sales to your bottom line.
This is good right? Of course it is, but at what cost?
There are several offsetting costs to a short-term advertising campaign
like this.
One, your customer has placed your ad in their short-term memory bank. After all, the good prices end on Sunday, right? What happens on Monday or next month when your potential customer decides it is time to buy a sofa, a burger and shake, or a set of new linens. Do they think of you?
It is not likely, because their short-term memory bank has already been cleared. But, what if they do remember you, will they decide to wait for your next sale, or will they decide to come on down to the store? Chances are, if they know you have regular sales, they will wait for your next sale to save themselves a bunch of money.
When your potential customer waits to come down during your next sale, what happens then? They will buy the product they have been waiting for, for the last three months, at a much-reduced price. Ooh. is it possible that the 20% discount they took today, took 20 cents of your 30-cent profit margin away from you? Is it possible that you cheated yourself out of 67% of your profit margin?
My own personal Advertising guru Roy H. Williams, the famed advertising executive and the author of "The Wizard of Ads" had this to say about business owners who choose Short Term Advertising methods:
"The business person looking for a financial quick fix will soon discover the habit forming act of advertising, a four-letter magic chant: Sale! Sale! Sale! Sale!"
Williams says that good advertising is painful at first because you don't see immediate results. An impatient business owner will usually get in the habit forming practice of continuous sales and then get defensive about it: 'How can this be bad for me? I've never done better!'
What the owner does not realize is that he is destroying the profit base to the point where there is no profit. Now where is the good
in that?
"Successful companies don't spend their ad dollars training their customers to wait for a sale? Do you?" asks Williams in his book.
Just as the local business owner is indulging his habit and placing his radio, television and newspaper ads promoting his great new sale, new marketers on the Internet have taken this concept to a new extreme in order to earn their $30 per day.
"Stay in bed all day long, only get up.and dine on steaks, never work another day in your life, don't worry about turning on the computer, AND MAKE 4 MILLION DOLLARS PER DAY! GUARANTEED PROGRAM! Only $29.95 to the first 50 buyers. And please don't pay attention that I am spamming you and that I
have used a bogus return email address to contact you." (Disclaimer: I am simply exaggerating ads that we see every day in our email boxes, to make my point.)
This is the Internet's version of a Short Term Advertising Campaign. They will sell you the world for your $29.95, if only you are willing to purchase today! And you had better purchase it today, because you will not be able to find them tomorrow!
I know that if you are reading this article today, the above example does not apply to you, because you are serious about doing business on the web. My point in bringing this up is that if you have been on the web for at least six months, you have become numb to this type of advertising. As a result, even those of us who are legitimately working to find a market on the web, our Short Term Advertising Campaigns will fall flat, because the scam artists have made the customer wary to Short Term Advertising on the Internet.
Another nugget of gold that I took from Mr. Williams is that he interviews all potential new advertising clients before he even considers taking their money to advertise their product or service. In the interviewing process, he is looking to gauge what kind of advertising project they want to undertake and what kind of results they expect from their advertising.
Experience has taught him that folks who want Long Term Advertising and Short Term Results, or vise versa, folks who want Short Term Advertising and Long Term Results are easier to contend with if they are not his clients. He will happily send them down the road, rather than take on a misguided advertising campaign. He has discovered the hard way that for his own Long Term Advertising agenda, that folks who possess unrealistic expectations of outcome to match their advertising campaigns are more trouble than their money is worth.
The purpose of Long Term Advertising is to plant your company's name in the long-term memory banks of your potential customers so that when they are ready to buy your product or service, they think of you and buy from you.
Professional marketers on the web have all heard the statistic that the average buyer will not purchase your product until which time the customer has seen or heard your ad seven times! What does this tell you?
It tells me that if you want to be successful selling your products or services on the web, you must plan to utilize Long Term Advertising strategies on the Internet.
To see the big picture of what the difference is between Short Term Advertising and Long Term Advertising campaigns, remember the examples given at the beginning of this article, and then try these on for size:
"Avon Calling!"
"Just do it!" (Nike)
"Sprint PCS the Clear Alternative to Cellular."
Motel 6, We'll Leave the Light on for You."
With these four companies, you buy their products and services when you need them, not when they go on sale. These four companies truly understand the power of long-term memory and long-term advertising. There is nothing in their ad encouraging you to run out and buy their goods and services today, but, when you need their goods and services, you will think of them, won't you?
These four companies know that they want you to feel free to buy their products any day of the week or year. They know that they do not want you to wait for their next sale to make your purchase.
So, what will it be, Short Term Advertising or Long Term Advertising? Well, I think that all depends. Do you want to be in business for the Short Term or the Long Term?
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© 2000-2004 Bill Platt
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