Advertisement Ideas: How Credible Are You!!!
How do you know I am lying? My lips are moving? As I sat and watched President Donald Trump encourage people to manufacture in America buy American made products I thought wow how can he do this when his clothing lines are manufactured in Bangladesh, China, and Mexico. To me this put a real damper in his credibility. I did not vote for President Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton as I voted for The Libertarian Candidate. After watching president Donald Trump campaign and gain election and then serve for the first 100 days I begin to think about my own credibility and the credibility of others. I realized that it is important to be impeccable with your word and to make sure that you are making decisions that are truly inline with your core values because at the end of the day the only thing that endures is your character. As an entrepreneur, marketing director, or non-profit leader it is important to be seen as credible is all aspects of your business for people do business and support those they know, like, and trust. If you are just making a sales pitch to generate money and do not truly believe in what you are marketing you will have some success but it will be fleeting and eventually your credibility will be damaged and your ability to generate revenue and strengthen your brand will be challenging. When you begin to compromise your credibility for profits you begin to lose and eventually the damage that is done is irreversible. Think about your credibility when you advertise and what you promise for there will come a time that you will have to deliver on those promises.
In my many years of working with for profit and non-profit entities I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to credibility. I have had people promise to pay me for announcing a game and I have gotten to the game and announced the game only to have the owner of the team leave and then tell me we didn’t have a contract when we had correspondence and confirmation through Facebook. As a result I now get payment in advance or I don’t take the gig. The only exception is if I have a long-term arrangement with the team. I have found that many people here in South Florida are all flash no cash and can not be trusted. I recently had a situation where a women promised to have fundraise for an event and at the last-minute backed out this affected my credibility as I signed her up. I did everything I could to help the woman to successfully fundraise and each time I was met with excuses and with 11 days before the event she backed out not realizing that we based much of the budget requests to help those touched by cancer on her fundraising goal. Now we have to find other sources to help the people who were told yes we have those services available to you. Remember when you back out of a commitment you not only hurt your credibility but you hurt the credibility of those that vouched for you. Continue reading Advertisement Ideas: Stop All The BS!!!
As a business adviser I have always taught the entrepreneurs that utilize my service the importance of making charitable donations be them monetary or in-kind. When you support charities and donate money or good and service you can implement a strategic marketing plan that will allow you to support the community and also turn a profit. One of the best advertisement ideas that I came up with was over 20 years when I asked a local restaurant to host a charity night to raise money for The Coral Springs Jaycees Spreading The Joy Program, which provided Thanksgiving Baskets and a Children’s Shopping Spree for families in need. The restaurant asked what is in it for me and I explained that by donating 20% of his sales for one night he would attract people who wouldn’t normally come to the restaurant and have an opportunity to turn them into regular customers. He was hesitant at first but agreed and that first give back night raised $189 for the project. Meaning that we brought in bout $1,000 worth of business on that night not to mention the amount of people who became regular customers. Since my first give back night I have seen many restaurants adopt this concept and have much success because it creates a win-win situation for all parties involved. When you have a giving plan it will turn into profit over time as people like to do business with those they perceive to be giving back to the community. 
If you are a frequent reader of this blog you know how deep my passion runs for helping those touched by cancer through my involvement with Relay For Life. I do my best to share Relay with as many people as I can especially businesses that can use cause marketing as a strategy to acquire customers and retain customers. I have partnered with many business like The Tijuana Flats in Tamarac, FL, The Chuck E. Cheese’s in Sunrise, and Skyline Chili in Sunrise, FL to do fundraisers and I have been very successful in bringing people to these establishments who normally would not have gone. As a result several of those involved in Relay have become regular customers at these establishments. I have had mush success with those who understand the importance of cause marketing. The key is to partner with a cause that you are passionate about and then leverage your involvement by mentioning it in advertising, through your social media, and in your media releases. The idea is that you never know who may come into your business because of your support of a cause.
I went to a McDonald’s located Nob Hill Road and Sunset Strip yesterday (4/1/2017) to seek support of Relay For Life and the manager told me you have to call the owner but didn’t have the owner’s number. I thought here is someone who is supposed to be looking out for the best interest of The McDonald’s franchise and should be astute enough to understand the importance of cause marketing. The interesting part of the interaction was that I was going to place and order but because of the manager’s attitude and lack of information to give me to contact the owner I left and went to SUBWAY and bought my meal there as they have supported Relay For Life. Think about it and do the math I would have sent about $8- $10 at McDonald’s but because of the manager’s lack of understanding of the importance of cause marketing another business received my business. The reason I share this with you is to show you that you must empower your managers to make some decisions when it comes to cause marketing because you may be leaving money on the table because of their lack of understanding the importance of cause marketing. $8-10 may not seek like a lot of money to be walking out the door but think about it how many people will see this story and not go to that McDonald’s and do you think I will be going back to patronize that location? 
Today’s entry is inspired by Walk Out On Cancer Day. I went to The Starbucks on University Drive North of Oakland Park Boulevard at 12 PM expecting many of my fellow Relay For Life Participants to join me in walking out on cancer, however it turned out I was the only one who showed up. I decided to walk out and collect donations. As a result I stopped into Hooters and The GM said I could collect in the restaurant so I did. This small change really got me to thinking about how many times you have to make changes and adapt to the situation at hand in you business life and personal life. In business things happen that we can not control thus we must be able to think outside the box and change on the fly. In every situation there is a positive solution if you think creatively as was the case was today. I wanted people to join me but they didn’t so I simply went an walked out on cancer on my own and found people to put donations into the collection canister. As I walked I stopped at local businesses along the way and gave them brochures some fundraising fliers. I began to implement my 3 foot rule where if someone was within 3 feet of me I spoke to them about what I was doing. This type of advertising and marketing led to many people making a $1 or $5 donation. It also led me to making a contact with a photographer and videographer that could utilize my talents as an emcee, voice over talent, or business coach. In aligning yourself with a charity you can open many doors to help your business. In being willing to change on the fly and adapt and overcome you will see that you have more success.
This is my mother, Judith Miller, who was called home to GOD on July 5, 2012 after suffering a massive heart attack while battling non-operable metastatic lung cancer. She has become my why I relay story. Each time I share my story I generate donations. Over the last 4 years that she has been gone it is estimated that I have raised over $10,000. Prior to those years I had many people to Relay for as my Grandfather Leo was lost to prostate cancer, my cousin Jill to Breast Cancer, my Uncle Morty to Breast Cancer (yes men get breast cancer), my uncle Alan to Prostate Cancer, my friend Gary Pancreatic Cancer, my friend Fran to Breast Cancer, and many others. 2017 marks my 18th year of doing Relay and by being driven by my why I set a goal of raising $2500.
Two of my favorite cartoon characters are Garfield and Snoopy and my favorite charity is The American Cancer Society. 2016 Marks my 17th year as a volunteer with The American Cancer Society Relay For Life. In my many years of fundraising and promotions I have learned that to succeed you need to be creative thus I developed a fundraising program called The Snoopy VS. Garfield Challenge where people are asked to visit http://main.acsevents.org/goto/jdogg4 and make a donation and put Snoopy or Garfield in the comments and whichever character gets the most votes based on donations wins. It is very simple and easy to participate in. This fundraising triggered a thought about the importance of being creative in your marketing. In being creative you want to have a campaign that is memorable that resonates with your target audience. With the Snoopy VS Garfield Challenge I am looking for people aged 25+ who will know who each character is and who wants to help plant the seeds of hope and healing for cancer patients and their families. In using creativity and cause marketing people are seeing what I am passionate about and learning that when they use my services that they are supporting a cause that most everyone can relate to as cancer has touched almost everyone in one way or another.
Another creative fundraiser that I implemented was The Points For The Cure Football Edition, which helped to raise $21.50 for this relay for life. In having fliers and promoting it across football related platforms other relay participants ran a similar campaign. Now let’s translate this to your business if you have clients/customers that are football fans you can pick a team and do a special price based on the points that team scores or offer a discount based on the points scored. You can then market this across all your marketing platforms and thus generate more revenue simply because you were creative.
