Tag Archives: marketing

Entrepreneur mountain of paperwork
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Benefits and Challenges of Being an Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur mountain of paperwork“You must love being your own boss.”

“It must be great running your own company.”

“I bet you make a lot more money now that you’re the boss!”

“A lot less stress, huh?”

These and a few others are some of the well-meaning but uninformed comments I’ve heard in the last month as I re-launched my company, Arkside Marketing.

I fully admit that there have been many moments of pride, excitement, enthusiasm, and optimism on this journey. But it has absolutely not been stress-free or easy. Despite the fact that this is not my first trip down the road of entrepreneurial employment, it is the most challenging and fluid in my life. Let me explain what it means to be an entrepreneur.

The Sleepless Entrepreneur

If you are currently an entrepreneur or considering that path, I hope you are embarking into something for which you are passionate. You need an innovative product or service that you wholeheartedly support and understand. If that is the case, you can forget sleep. Your life is built around ideas, meetings, deadlines, expectations of others, regulations, taxes, paperwork, and inspirations.

Guess what? They don’t all arrive between 8am and 5pm.

If you love what you do, you will have dreams about the company. You will have nightmares about every client firing you on the same day. There will be projects you didn’t plan, schedules you have to move, people you want to meet, solutions that pop up from simple inspirations, and contracts that need to be signed. Oh, and don’t forget those all-import “to do” lists. You’ll be making those until your fingers bleed.

The Organized Entrepreneur

If you love paperwork, be an entrepreneur. Vendor contracts, employee paperwork, tax documents, accounting, bills, receipts, notes, and client documents will have you in a never-ending sea of paperwork.

You get to organize it however you want and that presents a whole new challenge: where to put it all. You have the esteemed privilege of creating your own filing system for all of these various categories of “stuff” and make sure that all documents are properly filed throughout the day. Every day. By everyone who works for you.

I suppose it isn’t fair for me to only talk about “paperwork”. This same organization requirement applies to all of your digital documentation as well. Apparently, if you put all this “stuff” in the “cloud” it can still rain back down on you. Darn.

The Rich Entrepreneur

Between 50% and 75% of all new businesses fail within the first 1-5 years (the published statistics vary widely). The entrepreneur community is one that wants to make a difference and make a profit at the same time. Both of those goals take time.

Your company (and you) may not turn a profit for the first 2-3 years. You are incurring substantial costs and it will take time to grow your company.

I’m not rich and I’m not making a ton of money with a brand new company. But this is where patience is a virtue because short term victories are stepping stones to long term success. I knew that going in and I’m prepared to live on ramen noodles for a while to reach bigger goals.

Are You An Entrepreneur?

If you have a passion for a new and innovative product or service, are ready to make some difficult choices, raise some money, and throw your life into a tailspin, you might be an entrepreneur. Someone in a multi-level marketing scheme or network marketing endeavor is NOT an entrepreneur. They are a salesperson. Don’t get me started.

Personally, I look forward to helping organizations achieve their goals through marketing. I enjoy the challenge and exploration of new solutions for each custom project. Despite all the hurdles, I also enjoy growing my company, offering people employment opportunities, and being an active part of my community.

I signed on for the benefits and challenges of being an entrepreneur. I’m okay with that. My new venture is not stress free and I’m not instantly wealthy. But it is great running my own company.

A Jew and Christian in Ireland

Two beggars are sitting on the pavement in Ireland. One is holding a large Cross and the other a large Star of David. Both are holding hats to collect contributions. As people walk by, they lift their noses at the guy holding the Star of David but drop money in the other guy’s hat. Soon one hat is nearly full whilst the other hat is empty.

A priest watches and then approaches the men. He turns to the guy with the Star of David and says, “Don’t you realize that this is a Christian country? You’ll never get any contributions in this country holding a Star of David.”

The guy holding the Star of David then turns to the guy holding the Cross and says, “Hymie, look who’s trying to teach us Marketing.”

QR codes void
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Why I Stopped Advertising With QR Codes

The emergence of QR codes in the American marketplace has been precarious at best. Arriving (in earnest) about a decade after their adoption in Japan and partially in Europe, they were never sufficiently presented to the public. No mass adoption by advertisers and the lack of an education campaign from a large proponent all helped to hinder their acceptance by John Q. Public. Slowly, but surely, large advertisers began to include QR codes in their campaigns. A few cutting edge real estate agents began including them on home listings.  Best Buy asked employees to scan a QR code to declare the mood they were in. Macy’s actually produced a :30-second national TV ad telling people what they were and how to use them to get more information on their “Backstage Pass” promotion.

According to a Feb. 2011 study by MGH, they found that 65% of smartphone users have seen a QR code and 32% of smartphone users have scanned them. Serving as more encouragement to advertisers, 72% of respondents said they would be more likely to remember an ad with a QR code in it. However, comScore’s study in August 2011 were -I think- more realistic. It showed that 6.2% of mobile phone users in the United States had scanned a QR code.

Even if the number was as low as five percent, I would love to capture that attention and bring them to our content.

Setting Up a QR Codes Test

As the Director of Marketing for Moss Bros. Auto Group, I decided that QR codes were worth a test for us in 2012. I devised a plan to utilize cross promotion for our social media efforts. On our websites, we created a page that provided links to all of our social media sites. The goal was to make it as easy as possible for people to find us, then Like us (or Follow, subscribe, etc.) without having to search their favorite social media site for our Page.

We then created QR codes for each store that linked to that webpage. They were inserted in key test media: newspapers (to determine usage among older, more affluent shoppers), direct mail (to test more general market usage) and in-store posters (to determine showroom activity). The test was launched in January 2012. To alleviate any “education” issues, the codes were almost always shown with instruction to “scan” and what they would be scanning for (how to join us on social media) with the promise of exclusive sales or service savings.

QR codes voidThe Success Stories

None. (That was easy.)

The Challenges

Throughout the entire test period, we never registered more than single digit scans each week per media. Keep in mind, we are the largest automotive advertiser in our local newspaper which boasts a circulation of 100,000+ daily copies and up to 140,000 on a holiday weekend. We run half-page or full-page ads depending on the dealership and they are run each weekend. After eight months of testing, results never improved. Direct mail scan rates were nearly identical to newspaper. In-store scans usually registered a big donut on most weeks.

Now that we have passed the two largest automotive sales weekends of the year (Memorial & Labor Day), I can sufficiently say this idea has been tested. Despite the implementation of QR codes across multiple media, the usage by the market was nearly flat line. Prominent position, instructions for use, and incentive to scan resulted in a disappointing test result.

The Decision to End the Test

Shortly after lunch this afternoon and a review of the usage patterns, I made the decision to end the test. There is no question that a better usage of the real estate once occupied by the QR codes could be found. It will give us additional room in our ads for layout, less clutter in an already busy automotive ad campaign, and more time for my website administrator who was creating the QR codes and generating reports for me.

I certainly don’t view this as a failure. It was a test. A learning experience. My take away lessons are:

  1. QR codes are still not generally known, accepted, or used by the mass market, especially on a local level.
  2. The average newspaper reader may not be a good demographic in which to eventually implement a QR code campaign
  3. I can improve an eventual inclusion of QR codes with greater promotion and education.
If you have a different experience with QR codes, I’d love to hear about it. Please leave your story as a comment below. In the meantime, I’ll be trying to scan the new augmented reality (AR) tag on the Mars rover, Curiosity.
stock ad agency image
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Advertising Isn’t Boring – You Are

It is a real joy for me to meander through the advertising world and see what other folks are doing. What are they excited about? What new approaches are working or blowing up in someone’s face? What are the advertising legends reminiscing about? These and other questions can start me down new paths of adventure for my own efforts and the benefit of my employer.

I came across an Orange County, CA ad agency website yesterday with an entertaining and colorful layout that -in my opinion- was intended to appeal to small- or medium-sized companies. I clicked on “the company” and began to read their brief history.

Soon enough I came upon a typical statement that shows they are trying to come across as revolutionary idea generators:

After spending more than twenty years in the marketing industry, working for large firms and corporations, the B Scene staff all agreed that marketing and advertising had become “vanilla” – boring and lacking in impact.

Somehow, this collection of “twenty-two friends, family members, and associates” became bored with modern advertising. In the 1990’s. During the dot-com era. During an Olympic year. During a Clinton election year. When huge advertising profits and high creativity were ripe for the picking.

They claim they were bored, but I think the adjective is incorrect. It is more likely that they were boring. Staring into the kaleidoscope of advertising activity during that time and seeing nothing inspiring shows a lack of awareness and understanding of the world around them. Was the birth of the internet not amazing? Did the pageantry and cross-promotion of the Olympics interrupt their nap? The pent-up excitement of the pending new millennium fail to excite them.

So they started an agency. But this is an ideal example of why a business hiring an ad agency needs to be cautious about accepting status quo. Your company’s reputation, product, revenue, and even personnel are affected by the advertising and marketing efforts you embark upon. Look for unique ideas. Seek out talented teams with passion for creation and innovation, not bigger ego and bigger wallets.

Here are some things to look for in an ad agency:
1) An idea that you don’t completely embrace – Let someone take you down a new path and explore a different opportunity for your brand.
2) Excitement for their industry – if they are “bored” with advertising, find someone who isn’t!
3) Quality instead of quantity – Don’t overlook the small agencies simply because they have a small team. Let their ability carry greater weight and make sure they understand the word “freelance”.
4) Understanding – It shouldn’t be necessary for them to have worked in your industry before, but make sure they understand it. They need to know what your customers are looking for, who they are, and what they will do with your product once they have it.

Ad agencies can be a very wise investment. After all, if you were great at advertising, you would work in advertising. Hiring an ad agency can let you do your job better while bringing in a talented and energetic team to maximize your advertising return on investment.

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