Local Advertising & Marketing 2014 Henry E (Hank) Scott Publisher, WEHOville.com

Essential First Steps Define your product Define your audience / market Define your competition Define your USP (unique sales proposition) Craft your message

First Steps / What Are You Selling? Are You Selling an Item, an Experience, Service or Glamour?

Who is Your Market? How far will someone drive to shop with you? Male, female? Gay, straight? Young, old? Style- conscious/value-conscious? Exercise: Sit with your sales staff and together define your ideal customer -- sex, age, education, other interests, etc. Give him or her a name: Steve Shopper, Suzy Shopper

Who is Your Market? Compare that ideal customer with the customers you have now What customers are you missing? What do you need to do to expand your customer base?

Who is Your Market? Remember key characteristics of WeHo: – Predominately single – Predominately renters – 40 percent gay male – Parking difficult But while WeHos population is 34,000, dont forget the total population of the Zip Zones that encompass WeHo is 120,000 And tens of thousands of visitors, from as far as Berlin and as near as Culver City, visit every day

Who is Your Competion? Look at Yelp and use Google Look at a competitors website What does your competition market: Value? Style? Brand? Parking? What do you offer that your competitors dont? What can you offer that your competitors dont?

Craft Your Message What can you tell your market that will motivate its members to become your customers? How do you test the effectiveness of your message?

What Do You Want to Achieve? Is your goal to build brand awareness or sell product? Its hard to do both with one campaign Brand-building is harder to measure Brand-building media/tools include magazines, websites, publicity, events, stunts Product sales media/tools generally are newspapers, websites, contests, events

Essential Second Step Find a medium/tool that reaches your audience: Newspaper Magazine Website Facebook Page Twitter Account Contest Stunts Event Publicity

Established Media Advantages They already have an audience that you would have to build They already have a reputation They provide audience-building content so you dont have to BUT Their audience might not coincide well with yours They are expensive

Established Media/Evaluate Content/design/reputation: Will it enhance or hurt the value of your brand? Audience size/Print: What is the circulation? Where is the circulation? What is the readership? Distribution: If its a free publication, is it distributed at places where your customers are likely to be? Audience size/Digital: What is the number of monthly uniques? What is the page view number? Where is the audience?

Established Media/Evaluate Digital publishers, like unaudited print publishers, exaggerate their audience size Most authoritative sources are ComScore and Quantcast, but they are expensive A free solution is Alexa.com

Established Media/Evaluate Alexa stats on local websits

Established Media/Evaluate Ask about zoning/targeting Los Angeles Times has only two local zones. So an advertiser in WeHo pays to reach people in Venice and Laguna LA Weekly has three zones. The WeHo zone stretches to Long Beach and South Central LA. There is no regularly published local print medium that targets West Hollywood and environs only

Established Media/Evaluate Compare different media using CPM When calculating CPM, consider only the audience you want to reach Unless you are promoting a sale, dont buy just one ad insertion. It takes time to reach eyeballs and make an impression NEGOTIATE! Dont pay the rate card price

Established Media/Evaluate Set an expectation and discuss with ad rep: You want xx new customers in your shop You want sales to increase by xx percent You want your presence to rise in a Google search Consider offering coupons or using special phone numbers to see if customers come from your ad

Social Media/Evaluate This will be a quick overview, given the complexity of social media. First, you should have a website. And it neednt be expensive. Find a template on Wordpress and have a designer modify it to suit your needs. Make sure your designer is SEO-optimization smart.

Social Media/Evaluate Create a Facebook page Create a Twitter account Pinterest, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Google + etc are optional

Social Media/Facebook Your Facebook page is effective only if you: Grow a meaningful audience, and Communicate regularly with that audience. Both take time and energy.

Social Media / Facebook Growing an audience: First create some content. If your business is design, consider posting regular links to interesting design stories on your page. If your business is a salon, consider posting links to articles online about beauty

Social Media / Facebook Growing an audience: Second, develop an audience Ask your customers to like you on Facebook in exchange for a one-time discount Pay Facebook to advertise your page Be wary of third-party services that offer to get FB likes for you Post regularly on Facebook so that you are top of mind with your FB likes Consider special offers or promotions that are FB only Be aware of optimal posting times; dont overwhelm your likers with posts

Social Media/Twitter Your Twitter account is effective only if you: Grow a meaningful audience, and Communicate regularly with that audience. Both take time and energy.

Social Media / Twitter Growing an audience Look on Twitter for others in similar fields or influencers with large Twitter base Follow them, which means they may follow you Retweet them, which means they may follow you Tweet links to stories relevant to your audience and your products and services

Other Platforms/PR This town is full of PR folks. Not many of them are good. What should you expect from a publicist? A plan that states an objective, states a message, defines your audience(s) and describes the media best suited for reaching those audiences. An explanation for how that plan will be executed. Consensus on effort will be evaluated.

Other Platforms/Contests Once youve established a following on Facebook or Twitter, or found an ad medium that works for you, consider a contest to attract new customers. But consider that there are rules that must be followed.

Other Platforms / Events Events are a great way to come face-to-face with customers. Best to join other events rather than do the work of launching your own. But before you buy a booth or table, check: How will the event be promoted? What is the attendance at past events? Who are other vendors? Think in terms of CPM in deciding on what youll pay for a booth. What will you offer customers at your booth, table?

Other Platforms / Events Some small events might make sense for you to host yourself: A wine-tasting evening at a wine shop A dog contest at a pet supply store Hosting a small non-profit groups regular meeting off hours if you have the room