Mai Tais make more profitable ads

Aloha!

I’m sitting in Waikoloa Village on the big island of Hawaii, listening to Pandora and waiting for the day to begin. I just heard an ad for Unicorn Jewelry.

Only the jewelry store isn’t in the 50th State, and odds are I’ll forget the ad by the time I return home.

It reminded me of retail magnate John Wannamaker, who once observed, “I know I’m wasting half my advertising dollars…only I don’t know which half.”

And it made me wonder about lost marketing opportunities, since the jewelry business paid for an advertising impression that, in this case, was completely wasted.

Though I’m far from being technologically savvy, I’m guessing Pandora can solve this issue by making their ads specific to each listener’s location.

They’re already using GPS to target the ads I hear to my home base, so how hard can it be to follow me with ads as I move around the map?

This technological tweak would ensure I’d hear ads for Harbor Gallery rather than Unicorn Jewelry during my island vacation.

Regardless of whether you advertise on Pandora, your business may also be missing marketing opportunities.

However, you can help yourself by tracking the results of every marketing effort you make to see what ads are profitable and what media is wasted.

This isn’t as hard as you may think, and is always well worth the effort. You can begin with the following:

▪ Have special landing pages for each website promotion.

▪ Sign each direct mail letter with a different name.

▪ Direct print ads to unique phone extensions.

▪ Always ask where customers learned about you.

You’ll quickly see patterns evolving, with certain types of ads or media generating better results than others. This will allow you to stop guessing which advertising works best for you, and increase your future successes.

Of course, no marketing vehicle is perfect and you’ll never get 100% response anyplace. You may even find great results despite the occasional missed impression.

But some extra effort today is guaranteed to increase the efficiency and profitability of your business for many tomorrows to come.

With that said, I wish you a week of profitable marketing.

Ho’omaika’i ko kuleana ia (for better marketing, contact) www.askmrmarketing.com.