Mar 31, 2014
Note: April is Radio month, all focused on everything you could ever want to know about making money by advertising on the radio.
March 31 – I Want To Punch Christine Cook In The Face
April 2 – Why You Should Immediately Allocate 10% Of Your Budget To Radio
April 4 – How Radio Stacks Up Against Other Media – The Pros & Cons
April 8 – The Nuts & Bolts Of Making Radio Work For You
April 11 – 5 Ways To Totally Screw Up Radio & FAIL
April 15 – How To Choose The Right Stations & Out-Negotiate The Sales Reps
April 17 – Client Success – Small Town Remodelers Experience Big Success On Radio
April 22 – Reader Mail: Should I Use Radio DJs For The Voice Of My Commercials?
April 24 – Client Success – Two And A Half Years On Radio & Still Going Strong
April 28 - How To Write Great Radio Ads… & A Bunch Of Examples
April 30 - The Radio Ad That Made Listener's Ears Bleed
May 2 – Take The Plunge – Let Us Help YOU Get On The Radio
Written by Rich Harshaw.
“If I ever see Christine Cook in person, I’d like to punch her in the face.”
Every man has a breaking point, and I’d just reached mine. It occurred on a recent Saturday evening just after 7 pm at the Outback Steakhouse in Grapevine, Texas. I was enjoying my usual Outback Special, medium well, and chatting with my wife when a television somewhere in the distance echoed the noxious sound.
♪ Sleep Experts. ♪
Sleep Experts—as in, that stupid commercial that’s on every TV station and every radio station every five seconds. As in “I’m Christine Cook, President of Sleep Experts.” As in, the mattress store chain that seems to have a perpetual sale, and that will always give you a “free box.” As in “I’m Christine Cook, and I’m going to invade your earspace every waking moment until you finally give in and buy a freaking mattress from me.” THAT Sleep Experts.
♪ Sleep Experts. ♪
Judging by my wife’s non-reaction to my threat of violence toward a woman, the feeling must have been mutual. She just nodded and kept talking about her friend Kelli’s bad experience with a spoiled piece of chocolate. She also knew—based on her first-hand knowledge that I’m a skinny little wimp with big sarcastic mouth—that I probably wouldn’t follow through with the face-punch anyway, if the opportunity ever actually presented itself.
But who wouldn’t want to take a swing at Christine? Her chain of 44 Dallas-Fort Worth-area mattress stores (and 11 in Austin) have only been open for barely 10 years, but she’s already crammed 50 years of advertising and branding into that short timeframe. And even as an experienced marketing professional, Christine’s cheery voice and that annoying little jingle at the end of each commercial really grates on my nerves.
♪ Sleep Experts. ♪
Of course, that experienced marketing professional part of me is also fascinated by Christine’s ability to make me want to hit a girl by simply etching her mug and slogan into my brain. I’m not exactly sure when my relationship with Christine started; I must admit I never became consciously aware of Sleep Experts until September a few years ago. That’s when my schedule changed radically and I became a “morning guy.”
My son had just entered 9th grade, and as such, had an opportunity to be a part of an early morning Bible study class for high schoolers. The class started at 6:20, and I experienced first-hand what Robin Williams meant in Good Morning Vietnam when he said in the military the “Oh” in “Oh six-hundred hours,” stands for “Ooohh my gosh, it’s early!” This meant a whole new sleeping schedule for a guy who was used to burning the midnight oil 4 or 5 nights a week.
The new schedule went like this: Wake up at 5:35, flip on the radio, and hop in the shower. 5:45—Shave, brush my teeth, and gel what’s left of my hair while listening to the radio. 5:55—Hop in the car, flip on the radio, pick up two other kids, and deliver them all to the church by 6:19. Then change the radio station and arrive at work by 6:31. Somewhere in there I get dressed.
♪ Sleep Experts. ♪ ♪ Sleep Experts. ♪ ♪ Sleep Experts. ♪
On any given morning, between my shower, shave, and driving routine, I’d hear Mrs. Cook as many as three times on two different radio stations. One morning I swear they played “Everywhere” by Michelle Branch and followed it immediately with “Omnipresent” by Christine Cook. That’s when it struck me that Sleep Experts really was everywhere, and had probably saturated the consciousness of tens or hundreds of thousands of potential mattress buyers across North Texas.
♪ Sleep Experts. ♪
This isn’t an easy feat, of course. But it is certainly worthy of study and emulation by other marketers—including you. Marketing, when broken into its simplest elements, consists of just three steps: 1) have something good to say, 2) say it well, and 3) say it often. I can’t honestly tell you if Sleep Experts is any better than other mattress stores, and I can tell you with some certainly that there’s nothing special about the way Christine says what she says in all those annoying commercials. But on step 3—saying it often—she gets a gold star on her forehead and line-leader privileges for a month.
So how can you pull it off? Pouring a couple hundred thousand dollars a month or more into local media will certainly do the trick. But unless your last name is Gates (and first name Bill or Ben), you probably can’t afford the cash it’s going to take to emulate Christine’s strategy. The key, then, is to approach it the same way you’d approach eating an elephant: one bite at a time. Here’s a specific five-step formula for you to follow:
The rewards for implementing this plan are tremendous—you can start to literally monopolize your marketplace by capturing your desired target market one small group at a time. As your plan succeeds, your budget will grow, and you can afford to expand your influence to a larger and larger percentage of your target market. At some point you will be making so much money that you’ll have to move to other stations, other publications, and other media outlets.
So what does all this mean for me and my Christine Cook problem? She’s definitely doing something right—the fact that I know exactly who she is and what she stands for even though I don’t even remotely need a mattress is very impressive. The fact that she’s grown her chain of stores from startup to 44 (+11 in Austin) locations in just 10 years is very impressive. The fact that she does all of this while raising a family and donating resources to several area charities is very impressive. Come to think of it, I’m not really sure why she’s so annoying after all. In fact, she’s setting a great example of how to grow a business through brilliant marketing.
If I ever meet Christine Cook in person, I’m going to shake her hand and congratulate her on a job well done.
♪ Sleep Experts. ♪
Rich Harshaw is the CEO of Monopolize Your Marketplace, a marketing services company that has specialized in contractor marketing since 2005. You can email Rich at rharshaw@mymonline.com.
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