And we’re back with Part 2 of your Advertising Crash Course with Jim Doyle of Jim Doyle & Associates!
Miss Part 1? Listen here.
Eric Elliott:
So we’re back for part two of your Daily Development with Mr. Jim Doyle. Man, I hope you did not miss the first episode with Mr. Jim Doyle. If you did, you can still go into the iTunes Store, Google Play, or SoundCloud or wherever you listen to your content and listen to Episode one, but now let’s go into Episode two, our interview with Mr. Jim Doyle.
Welcome to your Daily Development with your host Eric Elliott. You’re running away from the future, man, you’re going to get caught up in the past.
Eric Elliott:
Welcome back to another episode of your Daily Development, and I am pumped about today’s show. I have a friend and a mentor joining us today. His name is Mr. Jim Doyle of Jim Doyle and Associates. I actually go way back with Jim from my broadcast years. But just a little bit about Jim and Jim Doyle and Associates, they are a national sales training and marketing consultant firm. Jim is partnered with broadcast stations and cable companies across the country and I think you’ll get a lot out of today’s episode. So let’s welcome Jim Doyle.
Eric Elliott:
You talk to people across the country, Jim. You talk to TV stations, you talk to business owners, advertisers across the country, how would you advise them on how to measure their results, because I know there’s a lot of business owners that have never set up KPIs or key performance indicators before they launch a campaign, they just say “Oh, I spent $20,000 and this didn’t work,” or “I spent $10,000 and this didn’t work.” How would you advise them to measure success or even know what success looks like?
Jim Doyle:
Well, probably like you, I’ve been in dozens if not hundreds of those kinds of conversations, and I have three answers. One of them is very ambiguous and probably maybe even too vague, but obviously I want to see cash register impact. I want to see sales growth. And that doesn’t mean that every piece of my advertising program is right, but if I’m seeing sales growth, obviously some growth, that’s a good indicator. But let’s take that to a deeper level. Ideally, it’s difficult sometimes to take some traditional media and say having that lead to growth. I am a massive believer in understanding market share. You know, if I look at sales tax receipts on the State Department of Taxation website for home furnishing, and they were in the last quarter up three percent, meaning that three percent more sales tax was collected from furniture retailers, and my furniture stores plus five, that says I’ve grown market share.
Eric Elliott:
Absolutely.
Jim Doyle:
If there’s a hundred Fords sold in Charleston, and I moved over a period of time from 23 Fords in a month sold to 30 in a month sold, that means I’m growing market share, and ultimately market share growth is the strongest indication of a successful business program, way more of a powerful indication than clicks or how many people went through. Ultimately how many people go through your site is only relevant to the point that that leads to sales.
Eric Elliott:
Uh-huh, more conversion.
Jim Doyle:
And so I am just a relentless believer in looking at market share because if I’ve had — let’s say I’ve had a hundred click throughs and they’ve converted at some number, buy my sales compare to my competitor in my brand or in my category are down or not growing as fast, that’s not a successful advertising campaign. And I think that’s one of the fallacies of — I don’t know, fallacies, one of the — some things that we ought to be cautious of as we have this conversation about the specifics of one of the analytics. Now I love the analytics. We have a client up — a market in the west, and they’re looking at the correlation between when a TV ad runs and showing a client using their own Google analytics, that they actually had a web — you know, the increase in the web hits that occurred in the next 24 hours after that TV ad ran.
Eric Elliott:
Uh-huh.
Jim Doyle:
And then comparing that to a week later when the schedule dropped down by 20 percent, but the reach out to the hits to the website drop by 40 percent, that kind of use of analytics, I think, will be increasingly one of the currencies of the realm. But I would never want a business to not look at market share. I think that’s a huge mistake, because you can be led to think you’re doing good when you’re not.
Eric Elliott:
I agree. I think one of the issues that I’ve seen is that advertisers make each medium work against one another instead of working along with one another for a single campaign, you know.
Jim Doyle:
Well, yeah, we had — Tom Ray has developed this word that we are strong believers in called tradigital. And tradigital is the marriage of digital and traditional media. There is this sense that it’s digital versus traditional and, boy, if you followed us around the country and saw all of the success stories we’re involved in, it’s digital plus traditional, traditional plus digital, you know. A TV cam with a geofencing element, a TV campaign with a retargeting element. Look, when an add works today, people pick up a device. And so every business today has got to have a “pick up the device” strategy. So you can’t be in business without a “pick up the device” strategy…
Eric Elliott:
Uh-huh.
Jim Doyle:
…that targets and retargets that kind of stuff. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that, you know, one of the biggest drivers, you know, car dealer after car dealer after car dealer who say the minute they go on TV or radio or media, they can see the increase in their web traffic instantly, that’s the marriage. It’s not either or, it’s both and.
Eric Elliott:
You know, it’s interesting was there was an NADA conference that was in January in New Orleans, and one of the things that came up was dealership web traffic. Eighty percent, nearly eighty percent of the actions or even the web traffic to the dealers websites come from mobile phones. Just interesting.
Jim Doyle:
Oh yeah, no question.
Eric Elliott:
Just interesting. Very interesting.
Jim Doyle:
It’s interesting, the fastest growing area of traffic for car dealerships to your point is, you know, dealership in person ups on a lot are down, web ups are down, but phone ups are up substantially, and it’s all because of click to call.
Eric Elliott:
Yeah.
Jim Doyle:
Write it off of a mobile platform clicking to call. So yeah, yeah. Change — it’s really interesting, if you think about what are the ramifications about that, I talked about it a little bit, it’s so if my point of access to a car dealership is now a phone or web interaction, someone who’s 30 miles outside of Charleston does not have to have the million dollar lot that was so critically important, that million dollar location that, you know, somebody would have in North Charleston or Charleston, I can compete with that Charleston dealer from 30 miles away by an effective media campaign without making the real estate investment.
Eric Elliott:
Oh, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. We’ve done it ourselves. I agree.
Jim Doyle:
Isn’t that cool? Yeah, I — it’s really fun, so…
Eric Elliott:
Tom Ray said — is it Tom Ray?
Jim Doyle:
Yes, Tom, yes.
Eric Elliott:
Tom, I watched some of the videos that you guys had, and it was very — it was just awesome. And one thing he said was branding is out and results are in.
Jim Doyle:
If I spend a lot of money to create a brand but my sales go up — but my sales don’t go up…
Eric Elliott:
Uh-huh.
Jim Doyle:
…that is not a strategy that’s going to work for a long-term client, you know, for a business — the kind of businesses that you and I work with which are, you know, for the most part locally owned or regional chains, but smaller businesses. I mean, look, Starbucks has a brand, you know, the baristas where the same clothes, the look of the location is the same. I can go to a Starbucks in Sedona, Arizona, where I live now or one in Charleston, and they’re going to look roughly the same. That creates a brand for Starbucks. But if I’m Joe’s Coffee Shop in downtown Charleston, I can’t spend the kind of money that Starbucks can spend, I can’t outStarbucks Starbucks to create a brand. What I can do is drive people to come in between six and nine o’clock this morning.
Eric Elliott:
Uh-huh.
Jim Doyle:
And I really want to be focused on that. Now that doesn’t mean that I can’t, you know, in many ways build a brand. As you know, one of the things we believe in is that if I’m not the dominant Ford dealer or Chevy dealer, one of the ways I can attack is to be the F-150 guy.
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Jim Doyle:
One of the ways I can attack is to be the F-150 guy. Yeah, well, that’s a brand if I do it over a period of time. That Joe Jones Ford sells F-150s for less can be a brand.
Eric Elliott:
Uh-huh.
Jim Doyle:
But this idea of Joe Jones Ford spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to tell me what a wonderful place they are to do business and that their kids are — you know, their people coach little league and that they’re good people and they go to church, too, I’m not sure that’s going to have an impact on sales that will ultimately have them feel good about them.
Eric Elliott:
Yeah, it’s interesting you said that. You know, a lot of folks — let’s just say Charleston is, what, on an average 69, 70 people moving to Charleston a day, so some of the heritage doesn’t really matter, or does it?
Jim Doyle:
I don’t think it does as much, yeah, I agree with that. I don’t think that’s just Charleston, I think people — you know, I had a friend of mine, a really smart business guy, one of my powerful teacher’s furniture guy in Rochester, New York, and I used to give him crap all the time about the fact he had a sale every day. And, you know, it’s like every — you know, they had the January sale followed by the early January sale followed by the Martin Luther King’s birthday sale followed by the late January sale, I mean it just went on and on and on. And I said, “Don’t they get it?” And he — one day he was saying, you know it’s interesting, people say to researchers there’s too many sales, they don’t want a sale, and they hold on to that idea fervently and passionately until the minute in which they want to buy something.
Eric Elliott:
You’re right.
Jim Doyle:
And then at that point, what do they want? Do they want a sale? And so I think to your point, it’s not just that people are moving in in a market like Charleston, that’s substantial and significant, but I think in every place, you know, people want to know why this is a good time to buy and that they’re going to get a good opportunity or — and I think we can get a little bit too carried away on branding. Now, look, if your branding is increasing your market share, then halleluiah, keep going.
Eric Elliott:
No, I agree with you a hundred percent, a hundred percent. Jim, let me ask kind of, I guess, go into a little bit of a lightning round here and just kind of ask you, I’ll present the media.
Jim Doyle:
The lightning round assumes that I have lightning answers.
Eric Elliott:
Well, it’s okay, you can take your time to answer these, all right.
Jim Doyle:
Yes, right.
Eric Elliott:
So like if I give you a medium, you tell me, you sum up that medium for me. Like if I say “radio,” you tell me what you think about that medium, where it is now and where it’s going.
Jim Doyle:
Okay.
Eric Elliott:
Radio.
Jim Doyle:
I used to own a radio stations. I love the radio business. I think music radio is unbelievably challenged to get results because people are self-programming their own radio now. And I might get sports news talk a little bit better results. Religious Hispanic, African-American stations may get a little bit more results. General music stations, very tough to get the frequency that drives results.
Eric Elliott:
Internet Radio such as Pandora, iHeartRadio.
Jim Doyle:
Some concerns about the measurement.
Eric Elliott:
Billboard advertising.
Jim Doyle:
Terrific for short messages. Most billboards get screwed up by trying to do too much. “Burger King next exit,” probably one of the most effective ads you will ever have.
Eric Elliott:
Social media.
Jim Doyle:
I think that I’m going to have a social media piece of my program, but I’m going to try to be as militant as I can about looking at results.
Eric Elliott:
The Internet?
Jim Doyle:
Well, that’s like asking about the universe. What’s it like? You know, what is the Internet? You know, believe everything, that’s what I want to say. “Believe everything you read on the Internet.”
Eric Elliott:
Believe everything on the Internet. Love it.
Jim Doyle:
Yeah, I think there are so many cool things that can go on now with our — with digital, and I just heard about a hospital in Pennsylvania who’s struggling to recruit nurses. They found out that their best sources for nurses are disgruntled third-shift nurses at other hospitals.
Eric Elliott:
Wow!
Jim Doyle:
So they built a geofence around the other hospitals and only activated it at eleven o’clock at night till three o’clock in the morning, and with basically a “Are you tired of your current nursing job? Click here.”
Eric Elliott:
That’s smart.
Jim Doyle:
It’s so cool to me. You know, the idea that I can — we had a BMW dealer in the San Diego area said to us, “Can Dad go hunting with a rifle and a shotgun?” So a shotgun might be mass media’s ability to reach a lot of people, including even some social media’s ability to reach a lot of people. The rifle is how do I get the right person. How do I get them and perhaps re-get them once they visited my sight?
Eric Elliott:
Very good. Very good. Television.
Jim Doyle:
Has to be used differently than it was before, but still the most powerful way to get on a map, especially for anybody over the age of 45.
Eric Elliott:
Jim, it’s always a pleasure, man, just to talk to you and get your insights, man. For the listeners out there that want to learn more about Jim Doyle and Associates, where would you tell them to go and how would they find you?
Jim Doyle:
If they’ve got questions about anything we’ve shared today, it’s always a privilege to reach out, and my personal email is jim@jimdoyle.com, and jimdoyle.com is where you find out everything about us.
Eric Elliott:
Jim, I thank you so much, and to our listeners out there, thank you for your time. We want to just tell you thank you, and please rate us. You know, a one star is cool, but a five star is even better. Jim, thank you for your time.
Jim Doyle:
All right. Hey, thank you so very much, and Eric, it was a blast. Enjoyed it. Good to get reconnected with you.
Eric Elliott:
All right, Jim. Thank you. You, too, man.
Man, after listening to Episode 1 and 2, you probably feel like you can go out and conquer the marketing world. Thank you to Mr. Jim Doyle again for lending us his time, which is the most valuable asset. And thank you to the listener for giving us your ear. We want to encourage you to come in and listen every Wednesday while we have something ready for you, and this has been your Daily Development. If you’ve got any questions, go to veryimportantplacement.com and submit questions to us. We’ll respond to you. We’ll keep you anonymous, but thank you for listening. This is your Daily Development.