EXCEPTIONAL MARKETING
Posted on February 15, 2010 by SBarbalho
Dr. Carmen Kavali, Kavali Plastic Surgery
When we think about the types of businesses that benefit most from strong consumer marketing effort, categories like retail, entertainment, and automotive usually come to mind. This month’s exceptional marketer, Dr. Carmen Kavali, illustrates how professional services – even medical practices – benefit significantly by building market-wide brand awareness.
Dr. Kavali has built a strong brand around an emotional idea: a metamorphosis for body, mind, and soul. Her logo, website, and on-air radio marketing work together to reinforce this idea. She’s even branded one of her practice specialties “The Mommy Makeover” around this holistic idea of change and growth.
The emotional thrust of her marketing distinguish her practice in a marketplace that is extremely competitive and, like most other sectors, feeling the impact of shrinking consumer spending. The branding is tasteful, relevant, and creates desire (while remaining well within the bounds of medical marketing canon). Her radio advertising, which is targeted toward her adult female client base, is a powerful and cost-effective tool for bringing this emotion to life on a daily basis. It’s built broad market awareness that other local practices can’t match.
Dr. Kavali’s proactive growth strategy has yielded enviable success. As a recent letter to Cumulus put it, “In a few short years, my brand has become something bigger than just me.” — a key point for all professional practices, medical and non-medical, alike.
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Wendy Harris, Team Harris Realty
2009 was a great year for Wendy Harris, of Team Harris Realty, despite the horrible macro environment for realty businesses. While many of her peers reacted to the real estate downturn by reducing or eliminating mass-marketing, Wendy moved in the opposite direction with spectacular results.
Wendy recently wrote to share her story: “Thanks to Cumulus radio, I outsold every resale Real Estate agent in Fayetteville and continue to increase my business!”
Wendy took advantage of radio’s unique ability to deeply inform potential clients as part of the mass-reach/high-frequency branding process. She differentiates her business with a unique listing proposition: a guarantee to sell the house at a specified price by a specified deadline and backs her guarantee by agreeing to buy the home if she doesn’t hit her goals. By breaking this concept down into several explanatory radio commercials she quickly communicated this program to anxious sellers. “The phones started ringing the first week I started.”
This type of program could never have been brought to life with such clarity and persuasiveness through “for sale” signage, the dominant form of marketing in the real estate business. Direct mail, which other brokers use to communicate their strategies for potential sellers, just doesn’t get read enough to be effective.
A larger issue is that Wendy competed aggressively for new business at a time that her competition was pulling back. As we’ve noted in other posts, tough times are typically the best times to grab market share from conservative rivals. These gains come at much lower cost than gains made in good times, when everyone is competing aggressively. The momentum generated during downturns typically lasts for 2-3 years after the recession ends.
In Wendy’s case, her new status as the area’s most successful business will generate a windfall of referral business. The visibility of her expanded listings (in the form of omnipresent branded For Sale signs), coupled with her radio campaign, will help position her for further growth as the market and home sales improve in 2010 and beyond.
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George Stein, The DUI Lawyer
Attorney George Stein has one of the most well known professional service brands in Atlanta, as evidenced by both the size and the consistent growth of his practice.
The key to Stein’s stunning growth has been being known before he is needed. Like many other businesses, where the consumer purchase decision is triggered by a specific event (think car breakdowns, home repair issues, financial crises, or healthcare needs), Stein’s potential clients must make quick decisions after an encounter with the law.
When this triggering event occurs, consumers do one of two things: they either turn to a brand that was already top of mind (i.e. known before it was needed) or they start looking for solutions to their problem.
Stein invested substantial time and resources “trying to be found” in the first years of his new practice. These efforts left him far short of his goals. Stein was not one to settle for mediocre growth or profitability. His next move, in his own words, “changed my life.”
“About 12 years ago, I decided to break away from the pack. This meant steering my advertising efforts away from the conventional methods of spreading the word, such as the use of phone book ads or paying for clicks on the internet. My motivation was to separate myself from being next to hundreds of other ads.”
This is a very common situation. The ‘average’ businesses that use these ‘average’ marketing tactics – ones that do a very poor job of differentiating the competitors – tend to generate very ‘average’ returns.
Stein’s decision was to switch to a strong, cost-effective branding media where he could reach large numbers of his target prospects. Instead of waiting for people to find his website or yellow page ad and glean enough to call him instead of a competitor, he chose to take his story directly to the consumer. “I said to myself, “Where can I advertise and have the advantage of a captive audience?” After much thought, I concluded that the radio was worth a try.”
Twelve years later, Stein is still using radio and is still growing. “Thanks to Cumulus and their branding experts, I am now one of the few premier criminal lawyers in Georgia. I have nine lawyers working for me and my practice is thriving while others just complain about how slow things are.
After several years of success, I recently retested my relationship with radio. About two years ago, I decided to launch a civil wing of my firm. Of course, I went to Cumulus radio for advice and once again it paid off! My new civil wing was successful in record time. My advice to others in the professional arena is to simply do what works! Go to a Cumulus branding expert (they don’t teach this in grad school…) and formulate a plan to make your business thrive.”
Well said!