Watching The Masters a couple of weeks ago, I saw a conversation about golf champion Arnold Palmer.  The reporter, who had known Palmer, said one of the things that set Palmer apart was the attention he paid to fans.

Not only did Palmer never reject a request for an autograph, but with every autograph he took time to look at the person, converse with them, and write his name clearly and legibly.  This was in contrast to many famous golfers who so quickly scribbled their autograph that the fan couldn’t really read the name.

The reporter said that Palmer’s genuine attention to “the customer” helped to spawn real loyalty.  At every golf tournament, there was a big crowd of fans that followed Palmer around and cheered him on—reporters dubbed them “Arnie’s Army.”

The reporter summed up by saying that Arnold Palmer “was a champion human being.”

I’m not saying customers are going to ask for your autograph.  But it is true that paying careful attention to small interactions with customers can, over time, make a difference.  How do customers feel after they’ve talked with you on the phone? Or visited your place of business?  Or read your brochure?  Or visited your website?  Do they get the feeling they are talking to real people who really see them and actually listen to them?

Of course, there is more to marketing than this.  And of course, this is hard to quantify.  But I’m convinced that if you work at putting this kind of genuine attention into all of your communications with customers, it can help spawn loyalty to your brand and your business.

I’m showing my age here, but I can still remember—word for word—advertising jingles I heard almost half a century ago!

“Brylcreme, a little dab’ll do ya,

Use more only if you dare.

But watch out, the gals’ll all pursue ya,

They love to get their fingers in your hair.”

“Pop, pop, fizz, fizz,

Oh what a relief it is!”

Were the copywriters just being cute?  Perhaps, but there’s more to it than that.  A jingle sticks in the mind like taffy sticks to your teeth.  If you want to build top-of-mind brand awareness, a jingle is a good tool to use—even if you’re not using TV or radio.

If you want people to remember your name, put it in a jingle—and put that line on your trucks, cars, ads, postcards, even on your business card.  Fairlee Feed, a store near me has a drawing of a horse on their trucks and business cards with this line:

“I get what I need at Fairlee Feed”

 No, it won’t win any poetry awards.  But it’s kind of amazing how a simple rhyme can stick the name of the store in your mind.  For First Choice Heating and Air Conditioning, we designed a cartoon character of a house holding a telephone for the side of their trucks, with this line:

If your home had a voice, it would call First Choice

 I admit, it’s not rocket science.  But it works!  Not only can a jingle stick your name in people’s minds, it can also give your brand a little warmth and brand personality.  The jingle gets more of them to stop, notice, remember…and maybe even smile.  Not bad!

Baseball, football, and basketball teams have them—that mascot that symbolizes the spirit of the team and rallies the fans.  But have you thought about the fact that a mascot is also a good marketing tool?

For example, everyone knows the GEICO gecko.  Years ago, GEICO had a problem.  It was their name, Government Employees Insurance Company.  Not only was it long, odd, and hard to remember, it also sounded institutional and impersonal.

So GEICO created a mascot—a gecko who represents the company.  In one brilliant stroke they not only helped stick their name in consumer’s minds, they also gave their brand a warm personality.  And their campaign has been a huge success.

Now, virtually everyone who sees the gecko on a billboard knows instantly what is being advertised.  And it’s hard not to have a good feeling about that little gecko.

And there are other examples:  The duck that squawks, “Aflac!”  Smokey the Bear.  Speedy Alka Seltzer.  MacGruff the crime dog.  Tony the tiger.  And more.

So you might consider a marketing mascot for your company.  It warms up your brand, makes you more visible, helps people remember you, and sets you apart.

A furniture company could have a lovable dog for a mascot—since a dog is associated with home and comfort.  A heating company could go with a bear that stays warm all winter.    A building company could use a “busy beaver.”  And so on.

You can put your mascot on your vehicles, yellow page ads, postcards, and business card.  You can use the mascot to guide customers through your website.

Of course, it takes a little work and money to create the right mascot.  But it an help to significantly increase awareness of your brand—while giving your brand a warm, distinctive personality.

To capture more attention, some advertisers are adding a third dimension to their billboards.

Maybe you’ve seen the Chick Fil-A billboards featuring three-dimensional cows that paint the words “Eat Mor Chikin” on the billboard. They are charming, memorable, and almost impossible to miss.

In Florida, Red Gold Tomatoes advertises their product on billboards with huge, three-dimensional tomato cans, complete with three-dimensional vines dangling huge three-dimensional tomatoes.

“It’s definitely an attention-grabber,” says Greg Metzger, director of marketing for Red Gold. “We’re always looking for creative ways to break through the clutter and announce our brand.”

“Creative ways to break through the clutter.” That’s the point of 3-D.

Why not look for other ways to use this idea? Are you advertising with signs or posters? Create 3-D posters! Or put a 3-D image on top of your trucks or vehicles. What about a 3-D business card? Print your card on a paperweight for example—or some other item. Sure, it costs more but it’s also much more apt to be kept for a while.

You know the old Buddhist riddle: “If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound.” My version of the riddle goes like this: “If you advertise a lot but no one notices, have you really advertised?” Not really.

The measure of your advertising is not how many ads you run. Or how much you spend.

But how much you get noticed.

So find some creative, unexpected, even outlandish ways to grab more eyeballs and turn more heads.

You know there’s more business out there somewhere…if you could just find it. You know there are opportunities you may be missing. You know you should be working on your marketing all the time.

So let’s start the year off with some New Year’s Marketing Resolutions. Here they are:

1. I resolve to do something every week to spread the word about my business—even if it’s just putting my business cards on car windshields or placing classified ads or putting up posters at grocery stores. The more seeds I sow, the more something will grow.

2. I resolve to practice the 80-20 rule. Believing that 80% of my potential business will come from 20% of my prospects, I’ll think hard about where my best opportunities are, who my best prospects are, and how I can get to know those folks and let them get to know me better over time. I’ll go after the low-hanging fruit.

3. I resolve to really listen to prospects and customers. I’ll spend time talking with them if possible, trying to get further insight into how they think and feel. I want to know what it feels like to buy my product or my service. I know prospects and customers will tell me what I need to know to improve my marketing if I listen long enough and hard enough.

4. I resolve to think like a customer. Before I write a brochure or any other marketing piece, I’ll spend time putting myself in the customer’s shoes. What would I want to hear? What objections would I have? What would it take to get my attention and win me over? I’ll make sure I’m tuned in to the customer’s gut.

5. I resolve to stay committed to marketing. I may not see results this week or this month, but if I keep at it, keep trying new things, keep learning from successes and failures, keep getting the word out there in every way I can, persistence and commitment will pay off.

This is a little late but…best wishes for a happy, successful New Year!

Great actors share the spotlight.

But if you’re running an ad in a newspaper or magazine, you want to hog the spotlight. The aim is to get as many eyes as possible going directly to your ad-rather than going to whatever else is on the page.

The success of your ad may depend on how well it captures attention. And yet, most ads I see do an awfully good job of blending in rather than standing out.

So here are 10 things you can do to capture a greater “share of eyeballs.”

1. Use Big Unexpected Words in the Headline. A man selling a wart cream with small ads used a one-word headline: WARTS. This let him make the word as big as possible, and it got the attention of anyone who had the problem. Remember, the more words in the headline, the smaller the type will have to be.

2. Use Unexpected Visuals. An unexpected visual can really pop off the page. For Christian Brothers Wine I wrote an ad showing the wine bottle floating in the clouds. The headline: Where the Good Grapes Go. Think of some unusual ways to show your product.

3. Use Cartoons. Tests show that when there is a cartoon on a page, eyes naturally go there. I created a series of ads using cartoons for PestFree, showing the crazy reactions people have to cockroaches. Business went up 25%.

4. Look Different. If everything else on the page is color, use black and white. Or, if everyone else is using lots of pictures, try an ad that is all type. If all the other ads look very professional, make yours look personal; try handwriting it, perhaps.

5. Try a Series of Small Ads. Instead of running a large ad, try running a series of 3 or 4 small ads in the lower right hand corner of successive pages. The ads should all look the same but have slightly different messages. This gets a lot of attention.

6. Use Silly Rhymes. In some cases, using rhymes or poetry can be appropriate and generate greater interest and readership. For a yarn store, in place of headlines for their small ads, we put poems like this:

Yarns and gifts, books and kits,
Your hands will have some happy fits!

7. Use the Element of Surprise. Even if you’re selling something ordinary, you can find a surprising way of describing it, as in this headline for an ad for Olive Oil from Greece: 4,000 Years Old and Still a Virgin.

8. Use Long Headlines. This contradicts the first rule, but if you’re running a larger ad, a long headline can sometimes stand out simply by virtue of being so long. David Ogilvy wrote a famous and successful ad for Rolls Royce with a 17-word headline.

9. When in Doubt, Put Puppies or Children in the Ad. Or Both.

10. Break Any of These Rules-If it Will Help You Stand Out.

The point is, don’t simply put down the information and think you’re done with your ad. Look for different, unexpected ways to present the information. Realize that you’re in a battle for eyeballs. Find a way to hog the spotlight.

Your business doesn’t exist because you have something to sell.

Your business exists because someone has a problem.

Fred Wiersema of Harvard Business School, author of Customer Intimacy(), said that the basic requirement for doing marketing is to understand the customer’s problem and its solution from the customer’s point of view.

In other words, you’re not in the business of selling a product or a service. You’re in the business of helping to solve a customer’s problem.

Let’s say you’re a CEO. A salesperson comes into your office and makes a pitch, trying to sell you something. Later, a second salesperson comes into your office and describes a problem that you have been struggling with in your business. He demonstrates an in-depth understanding of that problem. Then he suggests some fresh ways to solve your problem. Which salesperson is more apt to win you over?

Or, to turn the tables, let’s say you sell luggage. What are the problems customers have that you can help them with? Here are some possibilities.
• They need luggage for travel, of course.
• They need to find the particular kind of luggage that will best fit their needs.
• They need to know the luggage will be durable, and of an acceptable quality.
• They need to feel good about the price, that they got a good deal.
• They need to know they haven’t overlooked a better option somewhere.
• They need to like the piece of luggage they buy.
• They need to walk out of the store feeling good about the purchase—feeling they got the right piece of luggage for their needs, at a good price.

In other words, your job is to help them solve the problem of how to make a decision they’ll feel good about.

I actually met a luggage salesman once who took this approach. He started by asking me all kinds of questions about how I used luggage and what I liked or didn’t like. Then he gave me a lot of information about different types of luggage, how they were made, and what the differences were. Finally, he showed me several that he thought would fit my purposes, then left me alone to make up my mind.

All the other luggage salespersons I had met that day tried to sell me a piece of luggage, but they didn’t ask me the same questions or give me the same helpful information. This guy helped me solve my problem.

Guess which one I bought from?

So how well do you understand your customer’s problem and its possible solutions? Have you researched that? And in your website, brochures, etc., are you demonstrating to customers that you understand their problems from their point of view, and that you can help solve those problems?

Go into the problem-solving business. It will help you make your selling and marketing more effective.

You can find all kinds of opinions and “rules” about what it takes to make your advertising work—and they certainly have their place.

But in the final analysis, the rules don’t matter much if you’re not saying anything that really connects with readers.

Likewise, you can break a lot of the rules as long as you are saying something that actually connects. (In fact, breaking the rules can sometimes help you break through and gain attention.)

But the one rule you can’t break is the one E. M. Forrester suggested for novelists: “Only connect.” It applies to advertising as well.

Case in point. Here is the headline for one of the most famous ads in advertising history, written by the legendary John Caples (half a century ago) to sell a course in learning to play the piano:

They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano,
But When I Started to Play…

Some would say it’s too long. Others would say that it doesn’t have the name of product in the headline. Others would say that talking about being laughed at is a negative. (I’ve heard all these “rules.”)

And granted, this doesn’t sound like a typical ad headline.

Yet the ad sold a ton of products, won a bunch of awards, and helped secure John Caples’ reputation as one of the great copywriters of all time. (See ) Because it connected.

What Caples did was to imaginatively put himself in the shoes of the customer at the moment that the customer was experiencing the payoff of the product. Then he wrote a headline, in the customer’s language, that captured the experience of that payoff.

By focusing on the payoff, he hit pay dirt!

The next time you’re stuck for a headline—or wondering if the headline you’ve got is really working as hard as it could—try this yourself. Imagine what it would be like to be the customer at a crucial moment when the customer experiences the product paying off. Imagine what the customer might do or say. Then, write a headline that captures that experience or tells that story.

For a moment, forget all the rules. Except to “only connect.”

“I have seen one advertisement actually sell 19 ½ times as much goods as another.” So wrote John Caples in his classic book, Tested Advertising Methods.(