The Half-Second Challenge

Did you know that you are exposed to about 3,000 advertising messages a day? Regardless of how much money you spend promoting your business, if you don’t get noticed nothing else matters. In my experience, you have about a half a second to get someone’s attention....

Planning for the New Year

Does this sound all too familiar? After an enormous Thanksgiving feast, you have a bad case of acid reflux as you fixate on the pending Black Friday sales. Even if you’re not in retail, you hope that strong weekend sales will be an indicator of better things to come....

Last Retailer Standing

This is a newsletter – which means I should be writing about something newsworthy. Saying that business is terrible is hardly an insightful analysis of your business woes. Still, as we head into the fourth quarter, that’s all that everyone is thinking about. Have you...

What Makes You Unique?

You have to wonder why some businesses are announcing strong third quarter earnings and others are barely hanging on. If you research this phenomenon, you’ll discover that the most successful businesses formulate an action plan and then stick to it regardless of...

Make Them an Offer They Can’t Refuse

The average rate of response for direct mail is from .5% to 2%, Of course, this is highly dependent on what you are selling and at what price. If you offer a new car for $100 your response will be closer to 100%. On the other hand, if you advertise your product or...

Make 2018 A Turnaround Year

With the last recession, businesses started recalibrating their standards for successful advertising. Now, with revenue barely enough to cover overhead, any leftover dollars allocated to advertising need to generate sales with little or no margin of error. This is...

Keep In Touch

Last year, we decided to write a weekly newsletter as a way to reach out to clients we had lost touch with in the last few years. After many contentious discussions about the possible content, we decided to select topics we thought would have a positive impact on our...

A Costly Lesson About Perception and Reality

Major retailers make major mistakes. In early 2012, JCPenney totally revamped its marketing strategy. They went from aggressive sale events and coupons to what they called “fair and square” everyday pricing. The concept was to have all merchandise in their stores on...