Advertising Crash Course

A little while back, we had an interview with Jim Doyle of Jim Doyle & Associates to talk advertising.

A few topics covered in this podcast:

• Riches & Niches
• What impact social media has had on TV viewing
• Why branding is out and results are in
• Common issues local advertisers face

Want to listen instead? Watch the video below.

Ready for Part 2? Click here.

Welcome to your Daily Development with your host Eric Elliott. If you run 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 has partnered with broadcast stations and cable companies across the country, and I think you will get a lot out of today’s episode. So let’s welcome Jim Doyle.

Today, I’m so excited to have a guy who’s just world famous in our industry. He’s a mentor, just a great industry veteran, when it comes to broadcast television, advertising, you name it. I have on the line with us today Mr. Jim Doyle, of Jim Doyle and Associates. Jim, thanks for being with us today, man.

Jim Doyle:

Man, my privilege. Although when they say I’m a veteran, I’m just thinking, man, that means he’s old.

Eric Elliott:

No, just a lot of experience, right?

Jim Doyle:

Yeah, okay. Let’s hope.

Eric Elliott:

You know, just to the listeners, I’ll tell the listeners just a little bit about how I know Jim, you know, from my television days. You know, I actually worked for a CBS affiliate more than eight years ago, and I had the pleasure of meeting Jim and some of his associates that work with our local television station; and, you know, Jim was just beyond just, you know, some other consultant coming in town with a briefcase. You left us with some knowledge, and you left us, especially me, you left me with some things that I’ll always remember, and some of those things we’ll talk about today. So I’m glad you’re here. I think it’s going to be awesome, and I just want to give our listeners all we can of Jim Doyle and Associates today for their Daily Development. So thank you, again, Jim.

Jim Doyle:

Thank you.

Eric Elliott:

One of the things I want to kind of jump right in, Jim, that stuck with me for the longest time, was the theory of the glasses. And I’ve seen you demonstrate this before, and even today, I still tell clients, you know, about the theory of the glasses, and it’s almost a simplified way of explaining not trying to spray and pray, and not trying to do too much; and I bet it’s really important now to go along with the theory of the glasses, especially in today’s media the way media is now today.

Jim Doyle:

Yeah, I think that that principle, and we now call it a principle, because it’s been proven literally by tens of thousands of businesses around the country in the last 15 years, since we’ve been sharing it, is that it’s really a great way to describe how important frequency is in advertising. Frequency is not the number of spots a client buys, it’s the number of times that your business’ message reach me, if I’m a core prospect. And it’s so unbelievably important in the bombardment of ad messages, it’s really how we get above the noise. And the way that we describe it is, we’ll say it’s like pouring water into a glass, and what’s a glass? It’s any separate place that a business would advertise. So radio is not a glass, each radio station is a glass. And cable is not a class, each separate network is a glass. And none of them are bad. I mean everybody’s got somebody who watches, listens, reads, but what happens is I take a glass, as I pour water in, my level of water just goes up, and goes up, and goes up, and at some point, the glass overflows, and that’s when I see impact. Our company will meet with 5,000 businesses this year around America, and I will tell you, the single biggest mistake we see people make with their media allocation of their traditional advertising money is, they’re trying to spread it and put it in too many glasses. They do a little here, a little here, a little here, a little here. And so the way to get dramatically more results is, reduce back to number of places you advertise and dominate the places you pick. So that’s the principle of the glasses. You know, it’s almost like, go big or don’t go, advertise in fewer places, but dominate the places, in order to understand how important frequency is today.

Eric Elliott:

I do understand that. You remember, I don’t know who actually made this law about, “Oh, you need a 3.0 frequency to be successful, because it takes clients or it takes a potential client three times to hear your message before they react to it; but in this day and age when there’s radio, TV, billboard, direct mail, there’s internet, social media, the three frequency doesn’t seem like it works anymore, and with our attention span, does it take more than that for someone to pull the trigger?

Jim Doyle:

That’s a great a great question. I mean absolutely. I think whoever designed that, and I was sort of learned in the same school, I guess, that was a time when there was just a fraction of the bombardment that we have today. We’re the most overcommunicated society in history. When you add all the things you mentioned, and then add the emails that we get a day, some, you know, for business and others for advertising, we’re bombarded by messages, and the only way to stand out is to get above the noise. Well, there’s two ways to get above the noise. I can spend more money, but I don’t know about the folks who are listening to this, but for most of us, that’s not a realistic option. The only other way I can get above the noise is to reduce the number of people I reach slightly, take the reach number down, reach fewer people, but reach them more and more often. And the results on that are pretty spectacular. We have literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of case histories, examples, testimonials, videos of clients who have done that, and seen a fairly dramatic increase in their business, without having to spend any more money, which is super cool.

Eric Elliott:

Well, how does the attention span come into play now? You know, I’m one of those people, I’m super impatient. I think anyone who has got to catch a plane or they have to get into a meeting, they’re super impatient, now it seems like one minute is just too long. So, you know, I’ve had people show me videos before like on their cell phone, and before you know it, I’m tapping the screen to see how much longer I have to view that video. So I wonder how much does attention span, you know, come into play. It just seems like it’s gotten harder for people to be relevant, for business owners to be relevant, right?

Jim Doyle:

I think it’s a great insight. I’m similar to you, I sort of feel like, you know, they say you know you’re a type A person, if you ever find yourself standing at the microwave oven going “Come on,” you know, I don’t have a whole minute.

Eric Elliott:

Exactly.

Jim Doyle:

And I think we’re all that way. You know, I think — so what happens, how do you break through that? I think the piece of the glasses is one piece of that, but you’ve got to have absolute clarity of message. I think one of the mistakes that we see businesses make all over the country is in their creative they try to fight too many fights, they try to do too many things. They try to position themselves in too many different playgrounds. And we’ve become big advocates, since you and I met, of something we call a singular point of attack, which is really saying, “What is the fight I’ve got to win? What is the fight that’s going to help my business go up to the next level?” I’ll give you a quick example, and I know, you know, we talk a lot about there’s riches and niches, and how important it is to not be all things to all people unless you’re the market leader.

Eric Elliott:

You’re right.

Jim Doyle:

And here’s an example of that. In the rental car category, for 25 years in America, Hertz and Avis dominated.

Eric Elliott:

Right.

Jim Doyle:

Old ad campaigns, you know, Hertz was number one and Avis was number two, and they tried harder. Well, all of a sudden, a new company comes along about 20 years ago, and realizes that that category in the customer’s brain is jammed, just slammed. You know, don’t need to know the names of five rental car companies. I don’t need to know the names of five personal injury lawyers. And if you’re not one of the top two or three, what you have to do is invent a new category, and find a way to get customers to think about your business in a slightly different way. So what did Enterprise do? Enterprise became the company for local people, “We’ll bring it to you.” Rather than be another rental car company, they became something different. A personal injury lawyer in Buffalo practices personal injury law, but goes to the market as “We sue drunk drivers.” A chiropractor in a small town in Illinois realizes that 70 percent of his customers, the first time they come in, come in for lower back pain, so he stops being the chiropractor talking about everything he does, and focuses completely and totally on that point of entry of lower back pain. Now once you do that, and let me just take and extend that for just ten seconds.

Eric Elliott:

Yeah, absolutely.

Jim Doyle:

Once you do that and you have ultimate clarity of message, that helps you break through the noise. If I’m the fifth rental car company in a brain that doesn’t need to know two rental car companies, that’s a tune-out thing. So it’s frequency in the glasses, but it’s also absolute clarity of message that I think helps address some of that ADD attention span issue that you and I have an abundance of.

Eric Elliott:

Yeah, you know, we tell a lot of our clients — we lead our performance calls with clients on those three categories: budget, media and message, and I think if we stick to those, you know, we have a better…

Jim Doyle:

Right.

Eric Elliott:

…chance of being successful. It’s funny that you just said that.

Jim Doyle:

I think…

Eric Elliott:

Go ahead.

Jim Doyle:

I think there’s a line there just to layer into that, which is one of the things that businesses need to realize is, the scarcer their resources, the more narrow should be their focus.

Eric Elliott:

Right.

Jim Doyle:

So, intuitively, we want to throw a lot against the wall and see what sticks, but you just can’t out-Walmart Walmart or out-McDonalds McDonalds. So if you’re competing against bigger players, you’ve got to be White Castle, you know, it’s like “Where are the hamburgers?” you know.

Eric Elliott:

Right.

Jim Doyle:

And that’s the only way you’re going to win, and I guess that also helps you with some clarity of message.

Eric Elliott:

It does. You know, I’m going to go back to what you just said about the whole conversation about riches and niches. I tell you, just from meeting you some years ago, some of these things are kind of — they’re tattooed on my brain almost, you know. The same applies to our business, too, my business, and ad agencies, where you have to kind of niche down. You can’t — one thing you’ve always said is, “You can’t be all things to all people, you wind up being nothing to no one,” you know. So the same is almost applied in our business, as well, you know, when we’re talking to clients, as well. And, you know, for, I guess, for our own development, you know, our clients, they all specialize in something, but we don’t specialize in anything. A lot of agencies don’t, you know.

Jim Doyle:

I think that, you know, it’s funny you say — so I would speak, you know, I spoke in probably 200 towns around America doing my marketing workshop, but Tom Ray and our company does that today; and ad agencies would always come, and I think half the reason they came was they were scared of what I was going to say to their client, what a different tech, and I think it got screwed up immediately. So they come for that reason, and, you know, about midway through, they would realize exactly what you just said, that what I was talking about absolutely applied to their business, as well.

Eric Elliott:

No, I totally agree.

Jim Doyle:

And I think if that — and today especially with technology, if you’ve got a particular expertise, I know your agency does a fair amount with personal injury lawyers, or with, you know, you’ve done some work with lawyers, what prohibits you from doing that work with somebody in Charleston, West Virginia, or in Spokane, Washington, because you can develop an expertise that is so significant to make a difference for those clients. So I think that’s a real good insight.

Eric Elliott:

Absolutely. Now I want to ask you this about probably hopefully my favorite medium and your favorite medium, just in the world of television, how does it remain relevant, you know? It’s all about the content now, and for television, their content is their programs, you know. But you don’t see shows like Mash or the Cosby Show hanging around for 14, 15 years or like Seinfeld or Friends anymore. I mean it’s two, three seasons, and sometimes these shows are out. So how does television remain relevant in today?

Jim Doyle:

Unless you’re American Idol and you’ve been on for like 15 years. You know, I think, you know, how does any business remain relevant. I think we, as consultants, you, as an ad agency, television broadcasters remain relevant by continuing to serve customers, even if the service to customers has to change. My son sits in the newsroom of one of the TV stations in Orlando, and his job is the digital content editor. And so he is taking all of the content that comes into the newsroom, and putting it out on different platforms. And Orlando is not the biggest market in the country, but it’s certainly not the smallest. They’ve got 5 million sessions, Eric, a month, and 15 million page views. So that’s a relevant brand, you know?

Eric Elliott:

Uh-huh.

Jim Doyle:

That’s a brand that is still really, really relevant. But, you know, I want to challenge a little bit of the inference behind the question. I think television is still increasingly and incredibly relevant, when it is done correctly. And…

Eric Elliott:

I agree. I agree.

Jim Doyle:

…correctly is way different than it might have been a decade ago, and hugely different than it was 20 or 25 years ago, but it’s done correctly. And now, is it challenging to reach millennials on broadcast TV today? Absolutely. Is it — but in terms of, you know, looking at the opportunities, I have a friend who says there are three things that will never die, cockroaches, Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones, and TV. And, you know, I think, you know, we’re going to be around for a very, very, very long time. But advertisers, and those of us who help them, are going to have to do a better job with some of the things we’ve already talked about. Message is going to become so much more important. If I reach less people, and look, every media today reaches less people than it did 20 years ago.

Eric Elliott:

I agree.

Jim Doyle:

Well, if it’s budget media message, then my message has got to be so much better. I noticed in the last year, I think you started a production company, not just to help your agency clients, but to help other businesses, and that’s relevant; because that piece of it is more important than it’s ever been before. But I think we could still — you know, I’m blessed to sit in a situation where I see, you know, as we travel in 85 markets around the country, we’ll work with businesses this year, the collection of success stories that flows into our office, at any given week, says to me television is a long way from being irrelevant.

Eric Elliott:

I do agree with you. You have to do it right. But one word that you said earlier was, that we give them help, and that’s one thing that we always tell our team is we sell help, we don’t sell service, you sell help. You know, I was going to ask you this question. I mean I love television. I’m a fan of television, too, but how much do you think social media has changed, not just television, but all media?

Jim Doyle:

It has changed everything. You know, I saw a great piece last week. Somebody sent me that talked about how Facebook now owns birthdays.

Eric Elliott:

Oh, wow!

Jim Doyle:

And, you know, and my birthday was last week, and I probably got more birthday greetings in a day than I have probably gotten in my entire life up till that point, you know. If you think about it, you get three or 400 people sending you birthday wishes, and that had to exceed my life, up to that point. So is social media having an impact? Absolutely. You know, I have only X amount of hours a day, so if I’m engaged on social media for some period of time, that’s obviously going to, you know, it’s a zero sum game, but I only have X amount of time. But what’s challenging to me is, trying to take that level of engagement from all these varieties of different social media, ranging from Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, which I think is the 800-pound gorilla, certainly for older folks, and then substantially into advertisers’ success, and that’s where I struggle a little bit. And I’m a big fan of some of the digital tools that are out there, massive fan, love it, but I challenge a little bit on Facebook on how do you get results.

Eric Elliott:

That’s a good question. I mean that’s a good insight right there, very good insight.

Jim Doyle:

Well, I’ll tell you, one of the things that concerns me, and up until a year ago, I owned a TV station, and we owned eight, Rick Owen and I have over the few years, and so we’ve had two out in California, and we’re spending all this time saying to our audience “Like us on Facebook, like us on Facebook.” Well, of course as you know, Eric, now, at some point, Facebook now charges me to talk to my own people. And as you know, every time they want to raise their price, raise their revenue, they’ll charge me more. And so I can’t engage with my own audience now. Now, you know, that’s separate from just still advertising doing some of the cool things that you can do on Facebook. But I really, you know, there’s one thing to have engagement, and it’s the other thing to figure out how to make it work. And the key thing for an advertiser is how do I get results?

ERIC ELLIOTT:

What a jam-packed episode with Mr. Jim Doyle on episode one. If you thought that was great, wait until you listen to episode two. Thank you to Mr. Jim Doyle, again, for lending us his time, which is your 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.

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About our Guest:

During his extensive advertising and broadcasting career, Jim Doyle has owned an advertising agency, was Director of Sales for a TV Group, and co-owner of a radio station in Rochester, NY. He founded Jim Doyle & Associates in 1991.

Jim has presented marketing workshops for business people in over 500 cities across the country. His signature program, UPGRADE Selling®, is based on the philosophy that every business is different and in order to be successful selling advertising, you must first help the advertiser’s business be successful by diagnosing the business owner’s needs and goals, and tailoring the advertising to accomplish those goals. He is author of the books, Don’t Just Make a Sale, Make a Difference and Prime Time: Transforming Your TV Sales Staff Into A Sales FORCE; has conducted national conferences on healthcare, auto, and attorney marketing; and has developed numerous acclaimed sales training programs including the multi-million dollar virtual interactive sales training platform, Doyle On Demand™; TVSales.101, Succeeding in the Digital Age of Television™; and The ADvantage, Producing Ads that Renew™. Jim is a Certified Speaking Professional with the National Speakers Association and is one of the most requested speakers at the National Association of Broadcasters conferences.

He is the father of two adult children and lives in Sarasota, Florida with his wife, Paula.