To Advertise or Not to Advertise. That is the Question

– Rick Segel

I received an interesting e-mail and call from Sandy Brown, the Executive Director of The New England Jewelers Association. She was concerned about her retailers that have taken the attitude that business is slow and that they don't want to spend any money to advertise or promote their businesses until the holiday season when there are customers out there that want to spend. Sandy asked, "What should I say to them to get them to do something before they start losing their businesses?"

Sandy is of the belief that out of sight is out of mind. I couldn't agree with her more but there are many people who believe you only advertise when there is business to capture. Another way to justify that position is the budget approach. Spend 4% (or whatever number makes sense to you) of your sales on advertising consistently, which means if you project to do $40,000 in sales in a month you spend 4% or $1,600. If your sales for a month increase to $100,000 then you spend $4,000. As one retailer put it, you cook the meal when the oven is hot.

Many retailers believe that even if customers don't buy from you, at least you shared your message when the prospective customer was most interested in listening to it. Fertile ears would be one way of putting it or why talk about something when people are tuned out?. But are they really tuned out? There is no sense of urgency to purchase immediately but people only get tuned off when the message is inappropriate or uninteresting.

The one phenomenon I have observed over the last 34 years as a retailer and the last 15 years of someone who evaluates retailers is that the best stores build their businesses not on price-item advertising but more on solid brand building image advertising. PLEASE don't think I am against sale ads or price promotions. Absolutely NOT. They serve a purpose but they are the quick fix and can get immediate results. However they rarely build a brand or create the long-term effect we want.

There must be a mix of advertising. I built my successful woman's specialty store with one small institutional ad that I ran in varies forms for over 22 years. The headline of the ad said it all, "Mothers Are Our Specialty." In 4 words it said who we were and what the customer could expect to find. We specialized in Mother of the Bride or Groom dresses. (I know it's not glamorous, but find a niche and you'll get rich.) We would run a small space version of that ad throughout the year. That did more for us than any of the thousands of price or sale ads I ever did.

Remember 3 things:

1. Word of mouth advertising is what builds businesses. We want our customers to be able to say, "I've heard of that store," not really knowing from whom and from where they heard it. Out of sight, out of mind.
2. Whoever said that you have to promote your business by spending lots of money? It just isn't so. There is a whole world of little to no cost ways to promote your business to keep your name in front of a customer. From creating a blog (100% free) to a press release about something happening in your industry or town, celebrating a celebrity's birthday (by the way, Martha Stewart's birthday is August 3rd, which is great for all the home décor and craft stores) to sponsoring events that cost little and are fun.
3. Lastly, always remember one thought that motivated me every year I was in the retail business and that is, THERE IS ALWAYS SOMEONE DOING BUSINESS. My job was to find out what they did and adapt it to my business. The frustrating part was that the stores with the strongest business didn't seem to be doing anything different. They just built their businesses by always keeping their name in front of their customer throughout the year.

Thanks Sandy. I think we all needed that.