‘Supporting the community’ can be a bad business decision
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Business owners and managers know what’s coming three seconds into the call. The voice is uncomfortably friendly, like a complete stranger coming up in a public place and behaving as though you’ve been lifelong buds. And you know you’ll be poorer by the end of it.
“Our newspaper has a special high school football preview, and we’d like to include your ad for just $250.” “We’re running a special commercial to thank veterans for everything they’ve done, and we know you’d like to have your company’s name appear for a fraction of a second for just $100.” “We’re producing a special calendar to support the police department, and you can have a space every other month for just $375.”
You’ve already stretched your marketing budget and don’t have much discretionary cash on hand. But it is just $100. Or $250. Or $375. And it’s for a good cause, right?
Sales reps call these opportunities by names such as “special sections.” I prefer to call them “guilt sections,” because that’s how they convince you to participate. “You don’t want to support the boys on our high school’s basketball team? You don’t think patriotism is important? Are you saying you don’t appreciate our firefighters?”
Then they sharpen the guilt: “You know, (your big competitor’s name) is going to be in there.”
Avoid these “opportunities” like the plague. Most do little or nothing for the cause, nor offer real marketing value to your company.
Can’t handle the guilt? Well, the truth is your absence probably won’t be noticed by the group being honored. “If only Hometown Insurance had run an ad, Jimmy Smith would’ve hit that game-winning three.” Won’t happen. Come to think of it, the only people who are likely to notice your absence are your competitors. I convinced a client to stop advertising in a particular monthly feature, and within six months, four competitors who had been running ads there followed suit.
If you’re still considering it, think it through. I once refused to include a bank client on their local paper’s special anti-drug page. A one-line mention of the bank’s name would cost just $50, and the paper planned to donate 10 percent of the proceeds to the local school’s D.A.R.E. drug-education program.
The sales rep was beyond furious with me, fighting back with guilt. “You mean to tell me the bank doesn’t care about keeping kids off drugs?”
I gently explained the bank was as concerned about drugs as anyone, but they’d rather not attack the problem by making her boss wealthy. She didn’t quite grasp that, so I took her through the math. Say the actual production and the time it took to sell each of those lines of type cost the paper $5. The paper collects $50 from my client, gives $5 to the cause, and after expenses, pockets a nice $40 profit. If all 25 one-line mentions sell, the D.A.R.E. folks get a photo opportunity and a check for $125, while the publisher walks away with a healthy $1,000. By the way, a full-page ad in that paper normally cost $800. (Mind you, I’m a fan of publishers. Writers kind of rely on their existence. But everyone needs friends we can trust to point out when we’re not being our best selves.)
There are many great causes out there, and if you want to support D.A.R.E., the Humane Society, the girls’ basketball team, or the local food pantry, either hand them a check, or call them to find out what they need. Supporting them indirectly by buying an overpriced ad is like offering a transfusion and spilling all of the blood. It really doesn’t do either of you any good.
Be particularly wary when someone from out of town offers something they claim will benefit the local high school’s athletic department, the police department, or another local organization. Several companies that claim to do so send just a tiny percentage to those groups. I always contact the school’s athletic director or someone at the police department to find out whether it’s a legitimate, officially sanctioned fundraiser. Usually, it’s not.
If you do decide to advertise, use ads that promote your services and products. Running a “Go Boll Weevils!” message with bad clip art of a straight-armed running back is the advertising equivalent of dropping your wallet in the toilet.
Approach your advertising expenditures with the same consideration you put into other business decisions. Start with a long-term plan and follow it faithfully. Take the time to review opportunities carefully and critically, and you’ll find that you’ll waste far less money. And, as all those sales reps start to discover that you’re not a pushover, you’ll get fewer of their calls, too.
Scott Flood creates effective copy for companies and other organizations. To learn more, contact him at sflood@sfwriting.com and visit his blog at sfwriting.com/blog.