Marketing Your Inflatable Business

By AJ Wright 

Deciding where and when to advertise isn’t easy.  Advertising is expensive when you don’t get the results you were hoping for but it’s a fantastic deal when you get the results you expected.  If advertising was easy to track, then we all would be on easy street. One thing most people don't always understand about advertising is how each medium works differently.

As an advertising sales rep for the past 15 years I have heard many clients tell me they’ll track their success by simply asking people that walk into their business or call how they heard about their store, business or service.  And while that seems like a great way to track whether or not your advertising is working, people don’t always know how or why they’re doing business with you or someone else. 

Let’s take a look at how different mediums of advertising work.  The most popular is print.  And we’re talking local newspaper first.  Then we’ll touch on magazines and special tabs available in most markets.

Print advertising works best when you’re having a last minute sale or want immediate business.  It doesn’t work well for branding campaigns or building long term loyalty.  And one thing to remember about print is this…the only ones that will even take a look at your ad are the ones that are in the market for what you sell or what you service.  Most people that are not in the marker for your product that day will not even give your ad more than a half second glance.  Your print ads in local newspapers must meet a felt need by the reader to be noticed and to get results.

If your community has a local parent’s magazine or publication of some sort, an advertisement in one of those publications might be money better spent.  And the main reason is parents will hold on to those publications longer and continue to refer back to those publications for information more so than they will an older newspaper.  And those magazines better target whom an inflatable rental company is targeting. 

Cable TV Advertising works well when purchased correctly.  One of the problems with cable TV advertising is there seems to be a lot of hidden costs that cable sales reps aren’t always as upfront about when they’re giving you their sales pitch.  So before buying cable make sure you know and understand the production cost of making a commercial and whether or not the commercial is owned by you, the cable company or by the production company.  Sometimes the cable company will own the rights to the produced commercial and after 13 or 26 weeks will charge you a ‘renewal’ fee if you want to continue airing that particular spot.   

Cable sales reps like to sell what they call ‘broad rotators.’  Broad rotators are the cheapest form of advertising on cable systems.  A broad rotator sounds good to the untrained media buyer.  A broad rotator will get you commercials on most every station on the local cable system.  And while that may sound good, you most likely will not get enough frequency with viewers to give them a reason to call you when they’re in need of an inflatable rental product.  So when buying local cable you will be better off buying only one or two channels and paying a little extra for time specific placement.  Like a spot the same time every day on Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network.  You could also buy Home and Gardens TV or the Food Network or any channel that is most likely to appeal to children or Moms.  You would rather have less ads airing and have them focused on your target audience versus a ton of ads airing all over the place where most are not reaching your target audience.  And don’t buy a channel just because it’s one of your favorite channels to watch if it doesn’t do a good job of reaching your specific target audience.

Radio Advertising radio is best for long term campaigns. Ones that last a long time....several months to a year or more. Radio builds Top Of Mind Awareness better than any-other medium. Top of Mind Awareness is simply this...Talk to your potential clients or customers everyday so when they're in the market for what you do, sell or service you'll be the one that comes to mind first. 

Advertising experts say a radio campaign should be a minimum of 21 spots a week for one year for maximum impact. Well 21 spots a week is a big schedule and probable not in most inflatable rental company's budget. So your best bet is to buy one spot a day, five days a week and air that spot the same time everyday. I would suggest a morning drive time about 10 to 20 minutes before schools starts...that's when parents are in their cars taking kids to school. Or air the spot(s) within 20 minutes of school letting out. Even before school gets out. Parents are always lined up half hour or more to pick up kids before school lets out and that make them a captive audience for your inflatable business.  The best formats to focus on would be adult contemporary or country.  And similar to buying cable, don’t buy the station you like most if it doesn’t do as good of a job reaching your target market as another station in town. 
 

Radio is by far the most visual of any of the mediums.  And the reason it is the most visual is no pictures or video can quite capture the same images as a well written ad can create in the listeners mind.  If buying radio I would not allow the sales rep or radio station copy writers to write your commercial but instead have your own spot written and produced by a production company.  A couple of the lower cost production companies that do a good job include TheWriteCreative.com and JustSaySpots.com.  I’ve used both those companies in the past and you can have a spot written and produced for $20 to $30 and your spot will sound much better than anything produced by your local radio station.

Yellow Pages The yellow pages or local phone directories have been a very popular place for lots of businesses to advertise over the years.  The effectiveness of the Yellow Pages is not what it used to be.  The Yellow Pages is a directory that now competes with the internet and the internet will win most battles.  How often do you look for a business in the Yellow Pages?  I know I have not opened a Yellow Pages in several years but I have searched for businesses online almost daily.  I believe the the Yellow Pages is not money well spent.  However, if you’re in a large metro area, the Yellow Pages might be the most cost effective way to advertise.  If you’re in a small or medium market, there are more cost effective ways to advertise.

 Internet When I ran my Inflatable Rental Company I depended mostly on the internet for my leads.  And I invested very little in Ad Words and depended more on a really good web site with meta tags and strong keywords.  A good website will bring you more business than most other forms of advertising for your type of business.  While I’m a big believer in all types of advertising I would focus on creating a strong web presence before doing anything else. 

Budgeting your Advertising Dollar If you can't afford to do a lot of advertising or you have small budget put all your eggs in one basket and don't spread them around. I'd rather do one medium well and not do all mediums but none of them very well.  And the reason is simply this…you’ll get better response to hit 10 percent of your target audience and convince them 100 percent of the way then to reach 100 percent of your target audience and only convince them 10 percent of the way. 

In closing…The most important part of any advertising campaign is your message. If you have a good story and you tell your story effectively, you'll get results.  Don’t try and list every item or service your company provides.  A laundry list of items for rent or services provided takes away from the overall message.  Send them to your website…that’s where they’ll have chance to see all you have to offer. 

 AJ Wright is VP and General Manager of three radio stations in the Carolinas.  He was the former owner and operator of PartyWright, llc, a party rental business in Northeast Georgia for several years before selling his business in November, 2005.  Other than running radio stations, AJ operates several parked domains focusing on the Party Rental Business.  If you have specific questions for AJ you can email him at ajw@findnewsfast.com