Magnetic words that "super-charge" your ad copy

persuasive copywriting

It's true. Compelling adjectives transform mundane ad copy into hypnotic, magnetic business boosters.

Check it out.

How much does it cost to acquire a customer

Matt Michele who runs the Service Roundtable - a marketing firm for HVAC clients writes a very good newsletter titled Comanche Marketing. I find it helps me consider multiple aspects of marketing a service business. His latest edition walks through a brief calculation of the cost of acquiring a customer.


+++++++++++++++++


Customer retention comes first. The reason is it costs a fortune to get a new customer. If you'’re brave, take this test.

1. Determine Your Customer Acquisition Expenses

Get your general ledger and classify every expense you can as a customer acquisition expense. Your yellow pages expense is primarily a customer acquisition expense. Any mass media advertising is customer acquisition. Direct mail directed towards new customers is customer acquisition. Your service or civic club membership may represent a way for you to give back, but it'’s primarily a customer acquisition expense.

2. Determine the Number of New Customers

Add up the number of new customers acquired in the past year, excluding those you gained through existing customer referrals.

3. Calculate the Cost of Customer Acquisition

Take a deep breath. Make sure you’'re sitting down. In fact, you might want to have someone standing by with smelling salts. Are you ready? Divide the customer acquisition expenses by the number of new customers.

As soon as you stop hyperventilating, the first thought that’'s going to cross your mind is that this can'’t be right. It can'’t cost that much to acquire a new customer. How can you stay in business? The answer is you can'’t. It costs too much to acquire a new customer. It’s not unusual to find a service company’'s cost of customer acquisition exceeds $200. This is more than the gross profit from the average service ticket.

In other words, if you only do business with each new customer once, you'’ll go broke. You’'ve GOT to get repeat business. The cost of customer retention is typically 15% to 20% of the cost of customer acquisition.

You make money with your repeat customers. You'’ve got to get new customers to replace the customers you naturally lose because they move away or lose for some other reason. You’'ve got to get new customers to grow. You’'ve got to acquire new customers for the future. But you’'ve got to retain customers to make a profit. The better your retention rate, the better your profitability. That'’s why customer retention comes first.

Put a customer retention program in place before you ramp up your customer acquisition efforts. Customers are too valuable to lose.

How much does it cost to acquire a customer

Matt Michele who runs the Service Roundtable - a marketing firm for HVAC clients writes a very good newsletter titled Comanche Marketing. I find it helps me consider multiple aspects of marketing a service business. His latest edition walks through a brief calculation of the cost of acquiring a customer.


+++++++++++++++++


Customer retention comes first. The reason is it costs a fortune to get a new customer. If you'’re brave, take this test.

1. Determine Your Customer Acquisition Expenses

Get your general ledger and classify every expense you can as a customer acquisition expense. Your yellow pages expense is primarily a customer acquisition expense. Any mass media advertising is customer acquisition. Direct mail directed towards new customers is customer acquisition. Your service or civic club membership may represent a way for you to give back, but it'’s primarily a customer acquisition expense.

2. Determine the Number of New Customers

Add up the number of new customers acquired in the past year, excluding those you gained through existing customer referrals.

3. Calculate the Cost of Customer Acquisition

Take a deep breath. Make sure you’'re sitting down. In fact, you might want to have someone standing by with smelling salts. Are you ready? Divide the customer acquisition expenses by the number of new customers.

As soon as you stop hyperventilating, the first thought that’'s going to cross your mind is that this can'’t be right. It can'’t cost that much to acquire a new customer. How can you stay in business? The answer is you can'’t. It costs too much to acquire a new customer. It’s not unusual to find a service company’'s cost of customer acquisition exceeds $200. This is more than the gross profit from the average service ticket.

In other words, if you only do business with each new customer once, you'’ll go broke. You’'ve GOT to get repeat business. The cost of customer retention is typically 15% to 20% of the cost of customer acquisition.

You make money with your repeat customers. You'’ve got to get new customers to replace the customers you naturally lose because they move away or lose for some other reason. You’'ve got to get new customers to grow. You’'ve got to acquire new customers for the future. But you’'ve got to retain customers to make a profit. The better your retention rate, the better your profitability. That'’s why customer retention comes first.

Put a customer retention program in place before you ramp up your customer acquisition efforts. Customers are too valuable to lose.

Yellow Pages evolve, beef up online presence | ajc.com

This is a pretty good article about Yellow Pages and Internet search that appeared in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

It shows an advertiser who is not sold on YP, but he believes that it's necessary for now. He also doesn't believe that internet advertising is ready for prime time.

Yellow Pages evolve, beef up online presence | ajc.com

In the early 1960s, AT&T coined a phrase, "Let your fingers do the walking," to promote the advertising vehicle that many local small businesses can't seem to live without.

Take Summit Auto Service in Decatur, which services and repairs about 300 vehicles each month.

"I keep thinking we might get rid of the Yellow Pages — but I'm afraid to," says Marc Eson, who opened the garage, which specializes in foreign makes, 14 years ago with partner Ty Nguyen.

"People do call," Eson says. "We don't do a good enough job of keeping track of the number of calls. But I know there are plenty of calls."

But while fingers are still walking through the Yellow Pages, they also are waltzing across computer keyboards and cellphone keypads, pressuring the industry's revenue and fat profits.

That's prompted BellSouth and other publishers to beef up their fledgling online directories and strike alliances with Web search engines expanding localized pay-per-click listings.

Earlier this month, BellSouth and SBC Communications — which jointly own Cingular Wireless — created a venture to acquire www.YellowPages.com. The carriers plan to fold BellSouth's RealPages.com and SBC's SmartPages.com into YellowPages.com.

"We'll co-brand for the next 15 to 18 months, then we'll go to the single nationwide brand of YellowPages.com," says Elmer L. Smith, president of BellSouth's advertising and publishing group. Last year it posted revenue of $2.05 billion and net income of $600 million, or 17 percent of BellSouth's bottom line and 10 percent of its revenue.

The unit also recently announced an agreement to resell advertising on Google.

Rather than butting heads, the rivals are linking up, taking advantage of the strengths of each — technology with the search engines and a proven, effective, commission-based sales force with the publishers.

"Our 1,600 professional salespeople calling on customers and building relationships, that's our biggest advantage," Smith says. "It's hard [for online competitors] to replicate that."

Besides Google, BellSouth plans to partner with eight to 10 other search engines for "keyword" traffic, Smith says.

A keyword search, for example, might include typing in the words "Atlanta florist" in a search field. That not only brings up an index of content but also relevant ads on the right side of the screen.

"We have a group that buys keywords such as 'Atlanta florist' from Google," Smith explains. BellSouth then sells those keywords to local advertisers.

"So we market both the print Yellow Pages as well as the online Yellow Pages," Smith says.

Online advertising is growing rapidly. It's estimated that such advertising rose 20.2 percent last year to $7.3 billion, according to Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a merchant bank specializing in the media, communications and information industries. The increase was driven by keyword search advertising, which more than offset declines in banner ads and other forms of graphical image advertising.

To compare, U.S. Yellow Pages advertising rose just 1.3 percent last year to $14.91 billion, according to Simba Information. That was propelled chiefly by the growth of independent publishers not connected to phone companies, such as Atlanta-based Metro Directories.

In three years, the privately held firm has become the largest producer of independent phone directories in Georgia, distributing more than 2 million copies and generating annual revenue of $18 million to $20 million, according to President Gary L. Fascilla.

This year, Simba Information predicts U.S. Yellow Pages advertising will increase 3.9 percent, to $15.49 billion, helped by better economic conditions.

Yet the industry's share of total U.S. advertising spending is shrinking. It's expected to account for 5.7 percent of the market this year, down from 6 percent last year and 6.2 percent in 2002.

Still, few are prepared to predict the demise of the printed Yellow Pages just yet. For one, online searches can be painfully slow for the majority of Americans still on dial-up service.

But as providers cut prices and boost speeds, more consumers are adopting broadband service.

"Sixty to 65 percent of homes are projected to have broadband over the next six to eight years," Smith says.

That could spur small-to-medium-size businesses to build Web sites, which can be linked to online directories. Only 30 percent have Web sites now, according to the Kelsey Group research firm.

It notes that small-to-medium-size businesses last year spent 46 percent of their advertising dollars on the Yellow Pages. Only 3 percent went into keyword advertising.

Marc Eson of Summit Auto isn't yet convinced of the merits of online advertising.

"Maybe it would be more useful in a few more years," he says. "At this time, it probably wouldn't be worth it."

He bases his opinion partly on the advice of his brother, Jud, a computer systems analyst.

So, for now, Eson will continue to advertise in the printed Yellow Pages. Summit has three one-column, one-inch ads in BellSouth's Greater Atlanta Yellow Pages, which has 17 pages devoted to automobile repair and service.

For its three ads, plus three mentions in the white pages, Summit pays $948 monthly.

Eson and office manager Jane Bashinski can usually identify Yellow Pages callers, who ask if they've reached "Honda Auto Comprehensive Maintenance & Repair," or the similar headings Summit uses.

While Yellow Pages users are ready to buy, they don't necessarily turn into the best customers, according to Eson.

"A lot of Yellow Pages customers are just one-time customers," Eson explains. "But word-of-mouth customers are ready to become regular customers. They come to you with confidence because their friend recommended you and they trust their friend. They wouldn't call me if they didn't trust their friend."

Yellow Pages Can Be Sued For Misrepresenting Doctor's Qualifications

This is old news, but I just came across it. The YP sales rep needs to be very careful about what headings a professional is listed under and what the ad copy says.


Yellow Pages Can Be Sued For Misrepresenting Doctor's Qualifications

A woman who was injured by a negligently performed liposuction can sue the local yellow pages for publishing a misleading advertisement about the doctor, the Oregon Court of Appeals has ruled.

The doctor was a board certified dermatologist with some training in performing liposuction. In the local yellow pages, he was listed under the category of dermatology. When he told a yellow pages representative that he performed liposuction, the representative recommended that he also be listed under the category of plastic and reconstructive surgeons. The advertisement stated that he was "board certified," even though his only board certification was in dermatology.

The plaintiff found the doctor's name through the yellow pages ad. She argued that the publisher negligently led her to believe that the doctor was board certified in plastic surgery.

The publisher argued that because each page of the yellow pages included a "disclaimer," the plaintiff's reliance on the ad was unjustified.

But the court said that "although the yellow pages included the 'disclaimer'…they also contained statements that the yellow pages provided 'the most complete information about all the businesses and stores in your area,' and that the yellow pages 'make it easy for you to select the one who can serve you the best.' Such statements can certainly be viewed as promoting users' reliance on the contents of yellow pages advertisements. When allegedly 'disclaiming' language is…indefinite…it must be viewed in the context of other representations made by defendant, and its meaning and effect are not susceptible to summary judgment."

Knepper v. Brown (Lawyers Weekly USA No. 9923803) Oregon Court of Appeals No. A110172.


Lawyers Weekly USA: Archives

Hispanic Business - Dogged Persistence: Ambassador Yellow Pages

I've had the pleasure to know the Ms. Hipple and several other membersof the executive team at Ambassador Publishing in New York. This is one smart lady. Several Ambassador folks and I sat in a bar at one of the industry meetings, and she was able to immediately hone in on the issues facing her company and seek information on ways to solve them. I included an article by her VP of Internet, Rich Hargrave in the latest YPcommando news. Rich and I serve on the ADP board for Internet Yellow Pages. He's a very insightful guy, and runs a progressive team.

Hispanic Business - Dogged Persistence: Ambassador Yellow Pages: "Dogged Persistence: Ambassador Yellow Pages

PR Newswire

NEW YORK, Nov. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Word has already hit the street that powerhouse Ambassador Yellow Pages, who is shaking up the directory business with their rapid growth and innovations, is again one upping the competition by launching the first ever stand-alone Spanish-language directory in Manhattan, its Manhattan Paginas Amarillas. A painting by Puerto Rican born artist Jose Caraballo, considered one of the leading pioneers of the 'Puerto Rican Art Movement' in Manhattan, will grace Ambassador's launch edition.

This is par for the course for New York City-based Ambassador, who takes its cues from CEO Kathy Hipple, a former journalist and Wall Street executive who blends a savvy eye for a financial statement with a newsperson's grasp of what makes for a good story. And once she has put her finger on the pulse of the community she serves. Ambassador's goal is to meet the needs of all segments of the metro area, connecting buyers and sellers.

Ambassador has targeted the growing community of nearly 500,000 Manhattanites that have defined themselves as of Hispanic origin in the 2000 U.S. Census, making NYC home to the second largest such population in the United States. Ambassador's Manhattan Paginas Amarillas will be distributed throughout Manhattan in residences and businesses, and will contain a complete listing base of all borough-based businesses.

Ambassador CEO Hipple juggles a busy schedule as head of Ambassador with being a devoted Manhattan mom and a dog owner. A typical day has her bringing her kids to school, walking her dog, Cubby, and grabbing a cup a joe before heading to the boardroom.

By chance, two fellow dog lovers, Hipple and Rene Caraballo, curator of the Jose Caraballo Collection, met in the neighborhood, and began to chat. When Hipple began to speak about launching the first Manhattan-only Spanish Ye"

Article on Yellow Pages and Local Search from WSJ

I received this today in "Cool News" which is a quick email snippet of great information. This article appeared in the WSJ.

Yellow Web Pages. It would appear that search engines and Yellow Pages publishers might be headed for a pitched battle for the ad dollars of local retailers, but in fact they are forming alliances, reports Kevin J. Delaney in The Wall Street Journal. The potential for conflict is evident in the numbers. Some $22 billion was spent on local advertising in the U.S. last year, according to Morgan Stanley, and about half was claimed by Yellow Pages publishers. Search-related local ads "accounted for only $700 million of the total," but of course Google, local.google.com, Yahoo, local.yahoo.com, and Ask Jeeves, local.ask.com -- big engines all -- are actively pushing local search engines that could take ever-bigger bites out of the Yellow Pages.

In fact, The Kelsey Group, kelseygroup.com, a Yellow Pages consulting firm, projects that by 2008, "local search-related advertising in the U.S. will total $2.5 billion." This online-offline skirmish is underscored by the apparent advantages of the search engines over phone books: "For instance, instead of wading through the restaurant listings in a phone book, you might have a better chance of finding what you're looking for by searching for 'romantic Italian restaurant' in your area on a local search site." Why, you'd be able to pull up "a list of restaurants, with addresses and phone numbers, accompanied by ratings ... a photo and a map, a brief description of the restaurant, a price range and hours of operation." The allure would likely only increase as cellphones enable on-the-fly access to such information. Says Matthew Berk, founder of local-i.com, a local search start-up: "There's oodles of content that's locally relevant, it's just a matter of making sense of it all."

That's exactly where the Yellow Pages publishers, buyyellow.com, come in. While they can't easily match the sophistication of a Google, Yahoo or Jeeves online, they do have something the dot-coms don't have -- sales organizations. "We've got close to 2,000 sales people contacting 2.5 million businesses in just our nine states," says Elmer Smith of BellSouth Advertising and Publishing, adding, "That's pretty expensive to replicate ... We consider every one of the eight or ten major search engines our partner," he says. Equally key to this opportunity is "the fragmentation of the market," making it difficult for local merchants to figure out where it makes most sense to advertise. That, says Ken Cassar of Nielsen/NetRatings, is "ground combat," and a no-tech challenge. In the meantime, Yellow Pages continues to dominate local search, and that's not likely to change anytime soon, as even Sukhinder Singh, Google's general manager of local search admits: "Users will continue to use multiple delivery options for a long while."

Marketing Makes the Difference

Marketing Makes the Difference

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~







I was watching "The Apprentice" last night. That's the reality TV show where Donald Trump has a dozen or so contestants tackle business situations while dodging personal responsibility for their mistakes.







Last night's challenge was to organize a four-hour bridal fair to make as much money
as possible.




Both teams loaded their respective spaces with plenty of bridal merchandise. The difference was that one team was much more effective in getting people in the door. The winning team sold 27 dresses and earned $12,800 and the losing team sold 2 dresses and earned only $1,000.







The winning team rented a list of email addresses from theknot.com, a bridal registry
website. They sent an email to registered brides in the New York area and informed them of this limited opportunity to save big bucks on their gowns and things. It was the right message sent to the right people at the right time.




When the doors opened at 5 o'clock, the winning team had a line of 40 or more brides waiting for their chance to come in to save big bucks. The losing team had only two people waiting.




Think of the psychological pressure on the brides who were standing in line. They were much more predisposed to buy, because they knew that if they didn't act quickly, one of the dozens of other brides would buy "their" gown.




You might have the greatest selection, prices, and service, but if you have no customers, people will wonder what's wrong.




Conversely, a business that is teeming with customers reassures the shopper that it must be a really great place because so many other people are there.




Companies like Krispy Kreme, Chick-fil-a and IKEA invest heavily in generating first day crowds. They inform the news media that there will be traffic jams and potentially unruly mobs of shoppers in the area. This gives the news people something interesting to talk about, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.




In Yellow Pages sales, I often hear the objection, "I already have too much business to handle. I don't need to advertise." That's short sighted.





My family owned furniture stores for 40 years. In 1989 we bought a competitor's store in a nearby city. We ran a going-out-of-business sale to clear out their old merchandise and re-launch the business with a new format. The store was mobbed with people waiting in long lines to get in.

In 30 days, we sold more than
the previous owners had sold all year. In 60 days, we made enough to pay off the loans. The crowd mentality pressured the shoppers to act quickly before the best deals were gone.




Sometimes business owners need a gentle reminder that customers will pay more, wait longer and be more satisfied when they feel like they're competing for a business's attention.

In your presentation, use examples of local businesses that routinely get people to wait in line to buy. Crowds attract crowds.



Yellow Pages can't generate the type of short-term excitement like newspaper or radio. However, a powerful Yellow Pages program will build a valuable, steady flow of customers throughout the year. It's the hustle and bustle of the crowd that makes one business better than another.

IYP Article from Dan Russell at InfoSpace

Dan Russell has a straightforward article on the benefits of IYP vs Paid Local Search. It appeared in the DMNews.

What Is Internet Yellow Pages’ Role in Local Search?
Nov. 12, 2004

By: Dan Russell
InfoSpace Inc.
daniel.russell@infospace.com



As the Web revolutionized marketing, search has revolutionized Web marketing. Specifically, paid search has enabled more precise targeting of ads based on users’ own self-selection. Coupled with pay-for-performance pricing, detailed reporting and ROI calculation, this is the foundation for Google’s rise and the still-growing search marketplace.

While Google has rightfully gained its share of attention, it is Internet Yellow Pages that represent the most compelling and accessible advancement in the development of targeted marketing.

According to The Kelsey Group, 22 million small- and medium-sized businesses spend 46 percent of their advertising budgets on Yellow Pages marketing and put only 3 percent into search engine keywords. These companies are not only the backbone of the U.S. economy, they also have helped make the traditional Yellow Pages into a $26 billion industry worldwide. And most of them don’t have a Web site, so they are beholden to and more familiar with

a directory-style model that drives phone traffic, not just Web traffic. This is where the bulk of new business in local search will come from in the next five years.

IYPs benefit from a “feet-on-the-street” sales force. While search engine attempts to localize content are extremely impressive — and are increasingly regarded as simply part of the directory industry — their models are patterned after the Yellow Pages, with one key difference. Search engines offer Yellow Pages-type content/results and often link to online Yellow Pages directories in their most relevant results, thanks to the kind of structured search that is a key differentiator for IYPs. It is this structure search that drives better, more precise results to user queries online. In other words, Yellow Pages content is still the gold standard for local search.

That’s the benefit to consumers. But to marketers, IYPs focus the benefits of search through more precise targeting at the local level and a more qualified audience of ready-to-buy consumers who arrive on IYPs specifically to purchase products and services.

This precision is one of the reasons behind IYPs’ cost-effectiveness for marketers, which is supported by current research from leading data providers. According to Kelsey, the cost per contact generated by a print Yellow Pages reference is just over $1. Recent data gathered by Piper Jaffray puts the same figure for a paid search listing at 43 cents. But the cost per lead for IYP listings, according to Kelsey, is estimated at 14 cents.

One way IYPs can deliver leads so efficiently is through programs that enable national and franchised marketers to target their ads locally with more precision. To create a better local search experience, local search will become a hybrid of Yellow Pages and search engines, combining the strengths of content and distribution.

For the many users conducting more of their local searches on IYPs, the structured data of an IYP search usually makes their local search take less time than it would on any other medium. It also makes these results show up in more precise search queries on the major engines. At the same time, to a local advertiser who is paying for clicks, IYPs make the most sense because only users who have sought listings within a given region will click on this advertiser’s listing. There are no mistaken clicks or wasted dollars.

Perhaps best of all, buying an ad such as this on an IYP requires none of the difficulty some users encounter with self-serve sites. All a marketer need do is pick up the telephone.

Dan Russell is vice president of sales and business development at InfoSpace Inc., Bellevue, WA. His e-mail address is daniel.russell@infospace.com.
DMNews.com | News | Article

Verizon Pulls Plug on Cincinnati

Verizon has announced that they are pulling out of Cincinnati after only 6 months.

Verizon has aggressively entered 26 markets with directories where they do not have local telephone service.

I think this may be the first of many markets that they retreat from. It's much harder being an independent than Verizon brass imagined. From what I hear, none of their new directories have had a serious impact on the competitive landscape.

In Cincy, the Old Cincinnati Bell was bought out by management three or four years ago. The management is very aggressive, and they're rocking and rolling. The other local publisher is Yellow Book, who is no cream puff either.

I think that it was pure arrogance on Verizon's part to go into Cincinnati in the first place. No market is served simply by having more directories.

Can you hear me now?

The Cincinnati Post