What is the best way to advertise a mobile oil change business if you want to get 80 percent of your customers to come from corporate parking lots and fleets of vehicles and only 20 percent of your customers to come from residential services.

Sure, direct mail will work for the residential part of your business but if it is only 20 percent of your market mix then how will you advertise to get to do oil changes on all the fleets in your community and how will you reach all of the corporations in the area so that they will allow you on their property to change the oil for employees while they work?

There are a couple of things you can do which have worked good for our company; Oil Change Guys.com and those include putting a flyer insert into the Chamber of Commerce newsletter, which is a bright color and a half sheet of paper with your phone number in bold at the top. Another way to get to the corporations is to contact a human resource director and ask if there is an employee newsletter that you can advertise in.

If there is not they may invite you in to explain the services you provide and therefore you get in to talk to the decision maker. If there is an employee newsletter it will be some of the best money you ever spend to advertise in it. Please consider this in 2006.

Let's say that you are going on vacation. You're going to Vegas! Wednesday, Thursday, & Friday the store would be closed. You have 2 choices: Worry about how much money you are losing by not being in the store, or using your trip as a way to get a boost in business. This is what we did; About half an hour before we left for the airport, almost on a whim, I took a piece of typing paper & put a sign on the store's front door. Here's what it said;

"My wife Cheryl & I are on a vacuum cleaner buying trip ( & mini vacation ) to Las Vagas, Nevada. The bad news is that the store will be closed Wednesday, Thursday, & Friday. The GOOD news is; If you were thinking of buying a vacuum cleaner within the next year COME BACK SATURDAY! We'll have prices slashed & lots of FREE STUFF for anyone who buys a vacuum from us on SATURDAY. WARNING; When you get here Saturday, the store may be full of people looking for a vacuum cleaner at a great price. PLEASE WAIT YOUR TURN! The longer you have to wait, the better the price. WE ARE ONLY DOING THIS ONCE THIS YEAR. Saturday from 10AM-6PM. Monday, our vacuums go back up to our regular ridiculously high prices. so COME BACK SATURDAY! WE PROMISE IT WILL BE WORTH THE WAIT!"

That was the sign. After the dust settled on Saturday ( about 7PM ) we had sold $4,118.65 in Vacuum Cleaners. I wonder if I'll do the same thing next year?

If you will invest a few cents in a piece of paper (or two), place the sign by your door, you'll have a waiting mob of buyers, greeting you the day of your return. Won't that be fun?

Like I said there shall be enough material to make this ad busting into a series. In fact I have to restrain myself on most occasions when watching some of the “new” stuff on air at the moment.

Millions of Rupees and in some cases Dollars are spent on a few seconds and the following is sometimes what gets dished out. We start with the Fanta commercial with Rani Mukherjee making some weird sounds to an equally obnoxious soundtrack/jingle. The visual realm also suffers here with what seem to be the single most barf inducing graphics ever in an ad. There is no thought behind this project. If there is please let me know and put me out of my misery.

The high point of the ad is when they rhyme the words, “P.K. Bose” with, “Fanta ka dose”. How this ad ever got on air is anyone’s guess. My heartfelt condolences to the client.

Next on this list of shame is the latest Clipsal switch ad where, this lady seemingly a helper dressed in an over sized white frock is going about doing her dusting albeit rather grudgingly. We see a horrible Plaster of Paris statue scaring the crap out of her as well as us, and then for apparently no reason what so ever she flings some books towards this switchboard on the wall. Then again for no reason at all, the entire house begins to crumble. Things around the house come crashing down as if she has hit a switch that controls high magnitude earthquakes. Once again what’s going on here and more importantly why - has got me in a right twist. Maybe one day I shall have answers to my humble queries.

What has to be my favorite or should I say my anti-favorite recently though has to be the new Indica Diesel ad. You know the one that takes forever to setup and flashes you the actual product on sale so quickly that it seems like they almost don’t want to show it to you. Usually teasers are only 5 to 10 seconds long. What we have here is like a 50 second ad with a 45 second setup. And a 5 second product shot, which is so blurry that you, cannot see much anyway.

Why oh why is this happening. May be TATA has too much money and they don’t know what to do with it. Showing a guy setting up a fishing seat in the middle of a lake for so long and then barely showing the actual product that’s on sale seems like an unsuccessful attempt at hoodwinking the masses. Why do we have to be so clever? Why do we need to waste 50 seconds selling something we don’t actually show

There are many theories in Advertising, which we learned in MBA school, yet many fall very short in the real world, where there is competition, changing demographics, intense adjusting of consumer buying behavior and so many more methods of advertising than ever before.

Indeed it is truly amazing that the MBA textbooks can keep up with it all and really they can’t. If you wish to stay up on what is new in advertising you really need to read the research data and white papers on the subject and how the Internet is changing and evolving. For instance AdSense at Google did not exist during the last reprint of college textbooks in advertising and even it is evolving once again you see?

There are so many changes and well I hate to break it to you MBA’ers out there, but I am simply not so interested really in any of your guff, you see I built a small car washing empire and never used the conventional marketing or advertising venues. We built the largest mobile car wash company in the world, without blowing our money on the MBA advertising methods.

In fact I use to be an avid reader of “Advertising Age” yet even so I could have easily re-written a third of those articles with a reality check. No, I am not bragging, but rather trying to get you to think on where advertising theory so often falls short you see? Consider all this in 2006. And no you cannot reprint this article for you next MBA Textbook.

Is your company heavy on the advertising and marketing side of things? Are you able to insure that your customer is indeed getting the message? Are you properly getting the word out and are you able to make sure that your customer or target-market it indeed absorbing this message?

Perhaps you need to consider a strategy to make sure that the customers mind is indeed picking up your message and registering it. Perhaps you need a disruptor in your advertising; a way to single your ads out and increase your chances of being seen? Do you have an advertising disruptor strategy? Do people see and remember your advertising; is it registering? Well, one way to tell is if it is actually working?

What I am saying is your advertising is competing for the consumers eyeball and you need to know if it is working. Sure, you can put a scantily clad picture of a gal in a bikini in your ads, but is that relevant if you are advertising for a bank, accounting practice or a Karate Studio?

You see you need a disruptor to grab their eye. If you put a picture of a high kicking person in a karate outfit with a black belt on, well they will get the idea and then you can give them you on target simple pitch and message. You must consider a disruptor in your advertising. Consider all this in 2006

Many small businesses or even large corporations do not understand that you can market your wares on a relatively small budget. It is all about delivering the message to the target customers or target market and the more inexpensively and more efficient you can do that the smarter you are and the better marketer you will be.

Are you spending more than you would like on Advertising? Would you like to cut costs and save money? Do you believe that you can deliver your message for less?

Well, that should be your goal, even if you decide to use the money saved to deliver your message more times or too a larger percentage of your target market or target customers. You see; Advertising and Marketing on a Small Budget is possible and desirable, the key; Delivering the Message.

How do you deliver the message in your business? Do you spend a lot on advertising? Is that working for you? Are your customers getting the message? Have you set a reasonable budget for your marketing and advertising projects?

Are you getting the right exposure to your target market for that budget? Are you looking at more efficient ways always to deliver your message? Well, you should and you should indeed consider all this in 2006 when marketing for your company. Think on it.

Have you ever sat by the Television and saw a very funny commercial, which made you laugh and thought that was a really good commercial? Sure we all have, and then your business mind kicked in about 10-minutes later and you could not for the life of you remember which company it was that advertised the product - only the commercial itself.

Then you waited and saw it again and then 10-minutes later nothing, what the hell was the company running that advertisement. Then you saw it again and then made a conscientious effort to remember it. Oh it was Vonage, Ford, Taco Bell or some other large corporation.

Now then this brings us to a point of your advertising for your company? What is your goal; Are you Advertising your Company or Entertaining Viewers? Well any marketing executive would say you really want to do a little of both.

Indeed but there is a fine line and you must realize if you cannot afford to run hundreds of repetitive ads along the same themes then entertaining viewers is helping the ratings of the local cable television station and not so much your business establishment right?

Having been in the franchising business for many years and actually founding a franchise company I can say that our franchisees often had the best and most creative ads, but often they were not the ones, which pulled as much as the percentage shot ads. You see you need good advertising, clever, cute, cuddly and concise, but you must make sure they pull for you.

Consider if you will that advertising on TV is much like playing Tennis, you need to pull off the trick shots when you are up at the net now and again, but a good solid game of tennis will win you the most matches in the Tournament. So, think on this in 2006.

First, thanks to the good folks at Yahoo! for their Long and Winding Road summit series they presented here in Dallas this morning. They are a class act and man are they on brand. My name tag looked professionally printed and my name was even in the Yahoo! approved font.

The main topic of this cooperative effort by Y! and OMD was the purchase cycle and how it has been affected by the internet. I agreed with most of it, although the majority of the findings were affirmations more than discoveries. Actually, the most exciting part of the presentation for me was that a key take away was nearly identical to something I wrote about in my 6/6 posting: Create your media plan around the consumer's daily behavior rather than starting with one medium and filling in around it. A very bright gentleman named Mike Hess, Global Research Director at OMD, presented this and other findings. Mike, I'm glad we're on the same page ;)

Speaking more big picture, one of the two topics/findings they covered ties in wonderfully to this week's Ad Age poll (Thanks to Tammy Cancela at New Media Gateway for this forward.) The findings indicate that there are four different "roads" to a purchase. Quick, Winding, Long, and Long & Winding. Now let's revisit that Ad Age poll. The question posed is whether or not Clear Channel's idea of creating one second long radio ads will work and stay around. Maybe for the "Quick" road described in Yahoo!'s study, but not likely for the other three. In other words, for very low dollar purchases where there is a clear category leader - this might be fine. For the rest of us, it's useless.

This appears to be nothing more than pain management medication for a medium that is bordering on the terminally ill. Radio simply can't counter a) cell phone use at times when radio used to fill the time, and b) Ipods and music download services that allow you to listen to whatever you want, whenever you want. For a year that has featured "engagement" as the marketing buzzword, this sure seems to be a step in the wrong direction.

In our last post we talked about Yahoo! and OMD's findings of their recent consumer purchase pattern and behavior study. In it, Mike Hess mentioned a term that made me stop and think: Channel Planning.

I thought about this and thought Isn't this just a new buzz term for Media Planning? The only reason we re-name things is because the current term has developed a negative connotation. Does media planning have a negative connotation? Maybe it's because it's become formulaic and outdated to the point that it needs to be rethought.

On that same train of thought, I just started reading a recent Tom Peters book called Re-Imagine. A great guy from my former Y&R days recommended it, but I had put it aside until now. One of the main themes in Re-Imagine is "destroy and rebuild." As Peters notes:

It was easier to build Wal*Mart from scratch than to destroy and rebuild Sears It was easier for two geeky guys to build Microsoft from scratch than for IBM to re-invent itself

Additionally, while Microsoft is less than 25 years old, it might be already easier for Google to build itself from nothing than for Microsoft to re-invent itself and be an agile competitor.

Is this the case with the media agency giants? We've talked in past posts about the inability of the TV networks and newspapers to re-invent themselves, but the thought that the media agencies might be in the same boat is different and frankly scary. Lucky for you, if you're a client working with one of these large firms, you can quickly determine how up-to-date your agency has kept you and the rest of its clients in "channel planning." Simply look at how your agency spends its clients' money by medium, and compare that against your demographic's media usage. If it's in line, they're doing a fantastic job for you. If they're planning TV at 80% of your budget and your consumer only spends 30% of its media consumption hours with TV, email me - jay at goodwaygroup dot com - and we'll talk.

If you can’t find a banner that meets your needs, and can custom design your own. You can customize your banner and distinguish yourself from hundreds of banners seen everyday. You can then submit your specification to a banner production company; they will produce it for you.

Make your design simple – the simpler the design, the easier it is to read. People glance at banners as they are passing or driving by. They will not take in minute details, so the less said the better. If you’re advertising for a road race, give the facts like name, date and location. Also include a number or location to go to for more information. Attractive designs with direct to the point or edgy captions work best. Consult a graphic designer or ad copywriter for advice on this point.

Captions or any words printed on your banner should be in large fonts, and a combination of contrasting colors will work well. The key is to outline the letters with white to separate the colors. If you have at least a sentence to print use a banner that is a horizontal, rectangular shape. This will allow you to maximize the surface of the banner. Drop banners, or those placed vertically are usually for one-product advertisements, with very short captions. Squares are also used for the same purpose. Again, stick to simplicity. A professional artist can help you transform your bright idea into a life-sized banner. To save time and fees, be as specific and detailed as possible with your directions.

Professionally presenting your products in an ad copy can make the million dollar difference in your results. You can literally turn a mediocre product into a successful one - with the right ad. Research has shown that without the right ad an outstanding product will go relatively no where. The right ad is everything!

In this article you'll discover a guaranteed method that you can use in turning your product into one of the best money makers online. This is a method that I've used and continued to use in marketing my products. The good part about it is its simplicity. It is a method you can profit with - every time!

Here is a method that works any time.

This method which I call the copy-cat technique is one of the easiest and effective ways of increasing the success of your ads. When you browse advertising sites you'll discover that there are many ads that are poorly written and presented. On the other hand, there are some that are very creative and incredibly effective. These are the ones that the marketer has taken some time and experience to create. And these are the ones I want you to focus on really good.

By simply copycatting those ads you can increase the success of your ads incredibly. Whether you're running classified ads, pay-per-click ads, ezine ads etc. the guaranteed route to success is the copycat technique.

Now I'm not advising that you go out there and copy another person's ad word for word. No, no, no! Remember copy right laws exist!

However, you can copy the ideas, techniques, and selling strategies used by the advertiser. You must understand that a successful ad is a workable combination of some essential elements. These are the ideas, techniques, and selling strategies that you can easily copy to sky-rocket the success of your own ads.

To effectively use this technique, take time to go through classified sites, pay-per-click listings, ezine ads (sure you're subscribed to a couple few). Note the presentation of the ads. Note also the content included in the ads. Observe carefully the descriptive words used. Take note of the meaning or feeling conveyed by the ad's text.

As you browse through these ads, copy out those ads that you discover to be successful. Now as I mentioned earlier you don't copy someone else's ad word for word. This is where the diversity of the English language becomes useful. By simply rearranging that ad or changing the wordings, you can essentially say the same thing in a different way. You can also convey the same message or idea through the same process.

Using this copycatting technique you can project the same thoughts, emotions, and information in someone else's ad into your own ads. You don't have to duplicate the ad directly. Simply playing with the words you can easily get the same point across and therefore achieve the same, if not a better, result.

When it comes to small business marketing and advertising, I am amazed at how many local advertisers squander their money. I wish I had the money they wasted. I'd be a rich man.

Let's talk about your typical retailer with 1 - 5 locations.

One of the biggest problems I've seen is that most retailers have no idea of which media to use when running a campaign. In fact, some don't even know WHY they are running a campaign.

They know they should advertise, but they don't really know what they are trying to accomplish.

Let's clarify the TOP 10 obvious reasons you should advertise.

1. You are opening a new business

2. You are closing a business

3. You have a problem selling sufficient quantities of your product or service

4. Your competitor has started a price war

5. You have taken on a new product line or phasing out a product

6. Your business is expanding with new locations

7. You need to renovate but don't want to lose business

8. Sales are dropping and you need to create a new buzz

9. You are moving your location

10.You want to go public

All these reasons to advertise are born of typical "problems" and Advertising solves problems!

I prefer to see problems as challenges and recommend that mindset for everyone. It makes it more of a positive game and stimulates the problem-solving areas of the brain instead of bringing on the worry & depression when you're scrambling to generate sales or save a business.

Now. Which media to use?

Let me give you the bigger picture of the Top 5 advertising vehicles.

RADIO

Need to get a message out fast? Nothing works better than radio!

Radio Pros: This is the sizzle. Hollywood. The Buzz. Entertainment. Excitement. Light my fire. Theatre of the mind. Fast turnaround. With the right production your local burger joint can come across like MacDonald's. Fairly inexpensive. A "word of mouth" medium that taps into the trusting subconscious that "A friend told me about such & such...".

Radio Cons: Sausage factory radio spot production and mediocre creative copywriting due to time constraints and poor client communication. Limited inventory of spots means there's nothing to buy when station is in a sold-out position.

In business the point of an advertisement or a commercial on the radio or TV is to teach you to do something; either to get you to buy a product or make a decision. If you make a decision then we all know that psychologically in human nature is to reinforce that decision. Therefore the media and commercials can be a very valuable tool for getting someone to make a decision or convincing you of something.

This is why most political figures who win elections have the most airtight on TV and the media knows this and also knows that costs a lot of money and this is how they can make huge revenues during political season. It also doesn't matter if it is a large or small market it still works the same way for politicians.

In local markets a politician can advertise on the cable TV channel and expect to get a large number of votes from people who sit by the television set during certain peak hours and watch their TV. It works and this is why politicians do it.

Of course it also works to get you interested or committed to buy a certain product and this is why the businesses and corporations use commercial advertisements to get you to do something. It doesn't matter which medium that the advertising or commercials are in the still serve the same purpose; that is to say that their job is to get you to do something.

Is print advertising headed for extinction? No way, but I am seeing more and more companies pulling dollars from their print advertising budgets and moving them into other alternatives. The reason? To brand their product or service more effectively by balancing their ad campaigns and reaching their targeted demographic audiences from different angles. And even within the print medium, the playing field appears to be changing. Newspaper and Yellow Pages advertising has suffered a blow from the growth of the internet. Googling, Yahoo-ing and online news sources are pulling from their numbers. With internet research more easily available, more advertisers are targeting their prospective customers with direct mail campaigns which gives them the ability to pinpoint the demographic they are trying to reach by age, gender, income and location.

The internet is a growing alternative. Google Ads and Yahoo Sponsored Search "Pay Per Click" advertising is grabbing a growing share of ad budgets. This new medium gives you the ability purchase a keyword and only pay for it if someone clicks on your website. The way it works in a nutshell is, when someone does a search using your keyword, your website url and a three line promotional ad appears on the right side of the search results page. It can be as inexpensive as a nickel per click and you can limit what you spend per day, so that Google/Yahoo shuts off your ad campaign for the rest of that day when your budget "limit" is reached.

Outdoor advertising and signs on buses and transit systems is often in the mix of successful advertising budgets.

Radio utilizes the magic of music and imagination to reach an audience in a lasting way. Of course this is one of my favorites because music, jingles and ad production are what I do. But all bias aside, radio is a way to reach a broader audience with the ability to drive home a message.

Many people sign up for affiliate programs with the hopes of making some serious money. They advertise a few places and then wait for the money to start pouring in. When it doesn’t, they blame it on the program and quit.

I am convinced the only way to make money online is to have a consistent Advertising plan. A plan you are willing to work hard on and commit to for a selected period of time. When making this plan, you need to do two things. First, you should pick a few affiliate programs that are of interest to you. Second, you need to decide how long you want to work these programs. Once you decide on a time period (I recommend 6 months to a year), you must make a promise to yourself that you will not stop advertising until that time period is up. This is perhaps the most important factor in your success.

Next, you need to consider your advertising options: traffic exchanges, classified ads, e-mail campaigns, ezine articles, posting to forums or message boards, chatting with others who are interested in what you have to offer, and posting flyers around your town. Now you see the many possible advertising avenues you can choose from. I recommend doing all of them. It may sound like a lot of work, but when broken down into a plan, it is not.

One possible plan may look like this: Traffic Exchanges-1 hour per day. Post 15 classified ads per day. Make 5 posts to a message board or forum per day. Submit an article once per week to an ezine. Visit chat rooms and distribute flyers as you have extra time during the week. This all can be accomplished by spending 2-3 hours per day. You will be surprised how much you get done when you have a plan. You may also choose whether you will work 5 or 6 days per week. Make a checklist for each day of the week, and mark each task off as you finish it. That will keep you on focus, and will make you feel good that you are one step closer to reaching your goal.

How to sell things has become a science more than an art in the last few decades. Crowds of people of different professions work hard to find the way to be ”different”. They use all their creativity to be appearing.

New tendencies in advertising seem to be based on the idea “the first impact should be long-lasting and conservative”. The more shocking an advert is the easier it remains in one’s mind.

Ideas in advertising often rise depending on the kind of customers you are referring to and based on a complex market analysis.

Some tips for a trendy advertisement :

- Be short! Be creative!;

- try to have strong visual impact;

- put yourself in the customers shoes;

- use “scientific” messages (e.g : use “scientific acne treatment” instead of “acne problems”);

- use statistics;

- express freely your own personality, beliefs, philosophy and values;

- be funny, even humorous.

One of the new tendencies in advertising is to avoid focusing on a small percent of people. If you are selling an acne treatment product you should not design your advert for the adolescent target group