" When deciding on the media source, use common sense for your demo and concentrate more on reaching this audience in a cost-effective way."

"THE THREE COWS"

If you're a wizard, you already know that the three sacred cows of advertising are dead. If not, then please continue reading... and I'll explain the fallacy behind the cows and how this relates to your business, and ultimately--your bottom line.

Demographic marketing: This is targeting a specific media source based on a pre-determined demographic. The theory sounds simple enough, but many times people over-analyze, and usually paralyze their advertising. For instance, I've had clients buy a certain station or channel because of their personal preferences. Try to imagine running Volkswagen ads on a sports talk station, not because this is the VW audience, but because you listen to sports talk. Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?

The fact is that people don't make buying decisions in a vacuum. People are people, and some brands have a wider demo than others. When deciding on the media source, use common sense for your demo and concentrate more on reaching this audience in a cost-effective way.

Gross rating points: By definition, GRPs are the summation of the overall rating points for the campaign. What does that tell you? Not much. Using this strategy, there is no way of measuring how many people you've hit or how many times you've hit them. And ultimately, you can't manage what you can't measure. If you want to move the needle, focus on the reach and frequency of the schedule.

I've heard people say, "Radio is a frequency medium." I agree with that, but let me expand. I think marketing is a result of proper frequency, regardless of the medium. Frequency with the right message can be like steroids for your media buy. If you're confused now, let me ask you this question: Would you rather convince 100% of your audience 10% of the way to your store, or 10% of your audience 100% of the way to your store? Your answer to this question will tell me if you need to market or advertise.

Media mix: In the old days, we had three TV channels, four radio stations, and one local newspaper... and you had to actually get up off the couch, walk across the room, and physically turn the knob to change the channel. If you ran a schedule across the board and put a little money everywhere, chances were that you could reach the same audience multiple times through a media mix.

Now days, we've got Internet banners, spam and pop-ups, dozens of radio stations formatted to specific demos, six or seven broadcast stations in almost every market, and literally hundreds of cable stations split between multiple providers and various satellite dish networks--all at our fingertips. Have I mentioned all the print publications we can now choose from?

Here's the point: media mix assumes frequency by hitting the same audience through multiple media sources. And with today's media being more fragmented than ever, it is imperative that dealers don't spread their ad dollars too thin. How many mediums are you in? Is your spending enough to effectively cover all of those areas?