Winning In A Down Market

Just a few years ago I presented some new elevated concepts to some of the top advertising agencies to get their opinion. This centered around the idea of creating digital based media for mobile devices to get the word out. I knew the Michigan economic landscape was in dire straits and I wanted to create something new for the business community.

Every single one of these companies failed to see the light. But I pushed on while businesses around me continued to go down the tubes. I have had a lot of business owners in many industries challenge me on how I choose to get my messages out. Real estate professionals have long argued that putting up bandit signs was the way to get a prospect interested in what they were selling.  But the problem with bandit signs is that you run the risk of getting into being fined by the county. Placing signs on somebody else's property in hopes that they will see your home listing is a very risky idea. Although it can work in some cases I find the entire process to be a headache generating one at best.

Michigan had a very interesting challenge due to the fact that we were losing people on a weekly basis. Last year alone we had 30,000 people leave the state. The job scene here has dwindled and we have had continuous bad news on our auto industry. Still, even though we have fallen into incredible hardship I found business owners stuck with three choices.

•1.       More radio spots

•2.       Full page news paper ads

•3.       Postcard advertising

Each one of these disciplines came with new problems. Radio here in Metro Detroit was very expensive to the independent business owner. It rang in to the tune of $40,000 for three months. Depending on what season you were in you could easily expect to pay extra for airtime. You had to time your product and service in such a way that people would actually hear it and take action. Even this was hard to gage  due to the fact you had rush hour traffic to contend with. The real question is would people really take the time to scribble your web site information down on paper while driving on the freeway during rush hour? If you have ever navigated a car during rush hour in Detroit I think you may already know the answer to that question. My guess is that they probably would not.

End of Part 1