TEN (and a half!) REASONS TO ADVERTISE
1. YOU MUST ADVERTISE TO REACH NEW CUSTOMERS:Your market changes constantly. New families in the area mean new customers.
People earn more money, which means changes in lifestyles and buying habits.
The shopper who wouldn’t consider your business a few month or years ago may
be a prime customer now. Remember: 20% of families will move this year. Five million people will be married. 3.3 million babies will be born.
2. YOU MUST ADVERTISE CONTINUOUSLY:
Shoppers don’t have the store loyalty they once did. Automobiles give shoppers
mobility and freedom. You must advertise to keep pace with your competition.
The National Retail Merchants Association states: “Mobility and non-loyalty are
rampant’. Stores must promote to get former customers to return, and to seek new
ones.
3. YOU MUST ADVERTISE TO REMAIN WITH SHOPPERS THROUGH
THE BUYING PROCESS: Many people postpone buying decisions. They
often go from store to store comparing prices, quality, and service. Advertising
must reach them steadily through the entire decision making process. Your name
must be fresh in their minds when they ultimately decide to buy.
4. YOU MUST ADVERTISE BECAUSE YOUR COMPETITION IS
ADVERTISING: There are only so many customers in the market ready to buy
at any one time. You’ve got to advertise to keep regular customers. And to
counter balance the advertising of your competition. You must advertise to keep
your share of customers, or you will lose them to the most aggressive competitors.
5. YOU MUST ADVERTISE BECAUSE IT PAYS OFF OVER A LONG
PERIOD:Advertising gives you a long-term advantage over competitors who cut back or
cancel advertising. A five year survey of more than 3,000 companies found:
Advertisers who maintained or expanded advertising over a five year period saw
their sales increase an average of 100%. Companies, which cut advertising,
averaged sales increases of 45%.
6. YOU MUST ADVERTISE TO GENERATE STORE TRAFFIC:Continuous store traffic is the first step toward sales increases and expanding your
base of shoppers. The more people who come into your store, the more
possibilities you have to make sales and sell additional merchandise. For every
100 items that shoppers plan to buy, they make 30 anticipated “in the store”
purchases, a NRMA survey shows.
7. YOU MUST ADVERTISE TO MAKE MORE SALES:
Advertising works. Businesses that succeed are usually strong, steady advertisers.
Look around. You’ll find the most aggressive advertisers are almost invariably
the most successful.
8. YOU MUST ADVERTISE BECAUSE THERE IS ALWAYS BUSINESS TO
GENERATE: Your doors are open. Salespeople are on the payroll. Even the
slowest days produce sales. As long as you’re in business, you’ve got overhead to
meet, and new people to reach. Advertising can generate customers now and in
the future.
9. YOU MUST ADVERTISE TO KEEP A HEALTHY POSITIVE IMAGE:In a competitive market, rumors and bad news travel fast. Advertising corrects
misleading gossip, punctures overstated bad news. Advertising that is vigorous
and positive can bring shoppers into the marketplace, regardless of the economy.
10. YOU MUST ADVERTISE TO MAINTAIN STORE MORAL:
When advertising and promotion are suddenly cut or cancelled, salespeople may
become alarmed and demoralized. They may start false rumors in an honest belief
that your business is in trouble. Positive advertising boosts moral. It gives your
staff strong additional support.
10.5 TO MAKE MORE MONEY
Isnt that one of the reasons to be in business ?
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Creating Market Domination
What creates market domination?
In the last post I gave a brief insight into the essential questions I ask of a client before I sell them advertising. Identifying what your objective is so important. It will helps create a message that motivates, calls the consumer to action and ultimately converting them to make the purchase.
I sell radio advertising. WHY RADIO ? What make radio so powerful ?
•Radio is portable. The message travels with the consumer from home to car to beach or destination !
•Radio is memorable. Like television people remember a great radio ad.
•Radio has reach. It can reach across generations of listeners.
So how do I create market domination?
FREQUENCY creates domination. No matter what media mix you choose your message should be out there FREQUENTLY. You have an opportunity to achieve market domination no matter your budget. I’ll outline how in my next post. See you than !
In the last post I gave a brief insight into the essential questions I ask of a client before I sell them advertising. Identifying what your objective is so important. It will helps create a message that motivates, calls the consumer to action and ultimately converting them to make the purchase.
I sell radio advertising. WHY RADIO ? What make radio so powerful ?
•Radio is portable. The message travels with the consumer from home to car to beach or destination !
•Radio is memorable. Like television people remember a great radio ad.
•Radio has reach. It can reach across generations of listeners.
So how do I create market domination?
FREQUENCY creates domination. No matter what media mix you choose your message should be out there FREQUENTLY. You have an opportunity to achieve market domination no matter your budget. I’ll outline how in my next post. See you than !
Essential Questions...
Essential Questions…
Before I sell anyone advertising I ask them “what do you hope to achieve?”
•Are we working to create awareness for your business?
•Are we working to generate sales?
•Do we want to drive traffic to your store or site?
•all of the above
The answers are the heart of the campaign. It’s the why. Why are you advertising? Ads can be cute and creative. Memorable you bet. Brand building yes! but lets not loose site of the purpose. Always begin with the end in mind.
The discussion and answers we come up with will help us create the right message, for the right market in the right media. From your answers we will shape a message to satisfy the campaign objective.
Later I explain what creates domination.
Before I sell anyone advertising I ask them “what do you hope to achieve?”
•Are we working to create awareness for your business?
•Are we working to generate sales?
•Do we want to drive traffic to your store or site?
•all of the above
The answers are the heart of the campaign. It’s the why. Why are you advertising? Ads can be cute and creative. Memorable you bet. Brand building yes! but lets not loose site of the purpose. Always begin with the end in mind.
The discussion and answers we come up with will help us create the right message, for the right market in the right media. From your answers we will shape a message to satisfy the campaign objective.
Later I explain what creates domination.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Your Advertising : Keep it simple. Message , Media, Market !
In this article from "Advertising Age" experts again point to a comeback of the American consumer.While the bottom line of the article points to an increase in advertising efforts, it questions whether it will have an impact or create "noise". The opportunity for business owners here are : 1) Consumers are begining to come back to the store. Is your message meeting them? 2) Contrary to the bottom line of the article, your advertising can be very effective IF it is well thought out to reach the right market, with the right message, in the right media. 3) Although it's work, you can calculate and achieve a good return on your advertising investment. Lastly, even in a down economy work to keep your message out their so when consumers are ready to purchase you are on their mind.
Spring Brings in Rosier Marketing Picture
Despite lingering reasons for gloom, several signs in recent weeks are pointing to springtime in America for consumers, and, by extension, marketers.
Consumers opened their wallets in March, producing the biggest one-month gain since Thomson Reuters began compiling the data a decade ago. U.S. auto sales climbed a whopping 24.3% from a year ago. Consumers have largely stopped trading down in package goods, as private-label shares have stabilized in recent months after a big run-up last year. A nationwide tracking survey by Consumer Edge Research indicates consumers are eating out more, plan to buy more apparel and are less likely to wait for coupons or price promotions to buy cosmetics and toiletries than they were a few months ago.
Some signs point to marketers opening their wallets, too. Zenith Optimedia boosted its global ad-spending forecast last week for the second time in recent months, though it's still calling for a spending decline this year in North America. But one segment, U.S. package-goods marketers who cut spending sharply last year, appears to be following through on vows to spend more this year, according to a new report from Sanford C. Bernstein.
The sudden strength of consumer spending across so many categories is perplexing to some economists who see a false spring in such numbers as March retailer reports. Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein notes that consumer confidence remains at levels typically seen in the depth of recessions, not during recoveries, after hitting its lowest point in 12 postwar recessions. While March confidence numbers rebounded from a big drop in February, they remained lower than in January.
"The question is whether (March retail sales) are a trend or a blip, and my guess is that this is more of a blip," Mr. Goldstein said, citing continued high unemployment and low consumer expectations for job and income growth in the Conference Board survey.
Good news for brands
But a number of other surveys show definite and steady improvement in consumer sentiment. Consumer Edge's survey of 2,500 people, which, while only fielded since last October, has shown continuous improvement in the number of consumers who say they've eaten at quick-service and fine restaurants in the past 30 days and who plan to buy everything from clothes to cars in the next 30 days.
The March edition of the survey had the most optimistic data yet for brands, with the first decline in the percentage of consumers who said they always try to buy private labels or use coupons, along with declines in the percentage of consumers who say they always buy the cheapest brand of electronics and wait to buy cosmetics or toiletries until they're on sale.
Consumer Edge analyst Bill Pecoriello said he felt the survey data was vindicated when scanner data from Nielsen and Symphony IRI came out a few days later showing a decline in private-label market shares in household and personal care products as well as food from the prior month.
RBC Capital Markets, which has its own consumer spending survey that's more detailed than those of the Conference Board or University of Michigan, found the highest level of consumer spending sentiment in its April survey released last week since January of 2008, near the entry point of the current recession. RBC found marked improvement in consumer spending plans on a wide range of areas, including dining out, apparel and automotive spending.
The NPD Group also found cause for hope in the restaurant industry. Its Crest service, which tracks weekly same-store sales at 47 quick-service and mid-level dining chains, finds sales have been positive for five of the past six weeks. "It's the first time we've seen that for 11 months," said NPD restaurant analyst Bonnie Riggs. "We do think things are starting to pick up."
Beating forecasts
It sees, for example, a lift in breakfast sales, which slid 2% last year as unemployed consumers stayed away from drive-thrus in the morning. NPD still expects traffic as a whole to remain negative through the third quarter, but believes it will turn positive by the fourth quarter. And Ms. Riggs doesn't expect the industry to return to pre-recession levels for another 18 months.
For retailers, the data for now is largely on the side of the optimists, though there are caveats. March retail results appeared to borrow both from February, when consumers delayed some purchases because of bad weather, and April, because of an earlier Easter this year. Even so, the numbers beat the forecasts of analysts, who knew both those factors going in.
In all, Kantar Retail found retail same-store sales up 9.2% based on March reports excluding Walmart, which stopped providing monthly sales data last May. That more than made up for a 4.7% decline in the retail numbers excluding Walmart a year ago.
Of course, Walmart, when it was still reporting monthly numbers, turned last year's 4.7% decline into only a 1.9% decline. In recent quarters, however, Walmart's same-store sales have lagged the market. So when the behemoth next releases its quarterly numbers in June, it could pull down industry growth if trends continue.
Package-goods players appear to be following through on vows to spend more on advertising, with household and personal-care players raising spending 6% in January vs. a year ago, when they also had hiked spending before a fairly steep decline for the remainder of the year, according to Kantar Media data from Bernstein. In all, Bernstein analyst Ali Dibadj expects household and personal-care companies he covers to hike ad spending as a share of sales by more than a percentage point this year, undoing last year's decline.
"The question is, as more companies spend more on advertising over the next year or so, does that just create more noise?" he said. "To get the same share of voice, everyone has to spend more, so the ROI just goes down."
(Source: Advertising Age, 04/12/10)
Spring Brings in Rosier Marketing Picture
Despite lingering reasons for gloom, several signs in recent weeks are pointing to springtime in America for consumers, and, by extension, marketers.
Consumers opened their wallets in March, producing the biggest one-month gain since Thomson Reuters began compiling the data a decade ago. U.S. auto sales climbed a whopping 24.3% from a year ago. Consumers have largely stopped trading down in package goods, as private-label shares have stabilized in recent months after a big run-up last year. A nationwide tracking survey by Consumer Edge Research indicates consumers are eating out more, plan to buy more apparel and are less likely to wait for coupons or price promotions to buy cosmetics and toiletries than they were a few months ago.
Some signs point to marketers opening their wallets, too. Zenith Optimedia boosted its global ad-spending forecast last week for the second time in recent months, though it's still calling for a spending decline this year in North America. But one segment, U.S. package-goods marketers who cut spending sharply last year, appears to be following through on vows to spend more this year, according to a new report from Sanford C. Bernstein.
The sudden strength of consumer spending across so many categories is perplexing to some economists who see a false spring in such numbers as March retailer reports. Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein notes that consumer confidence remains at levels typically seen in the depth of recessions, not during recoveries, after hitting its lowest point in 12 postwar recessions. While March confidence numbers rebounded from a big drop in February, they remained lower than in January.
"The question is whether (March retail sales) are a trend or a blip, and my guess is that this is more of a blip," Mr. Goldstein said, citing continued high unemployment and low consumer expectations for job and income growth in the Conference Board survey.
Good news for brands
But a number of other surveys show definite and steady improvement in consumer sentiment. Consumer Edge's survey of 2,500 people, which, while only fielded since last October, has shown continuous improvement in the number of consumers who say they've eaten at quick-service and fine restaurants in the past 30 days and who plan to buy everything from clothes to cars in the next 30 days.
The March edition of the survey had the most optimistic data yet for brands, with the first decline in the percentage of consumers who said they always try to buy private labels or use coupons, along with declines in the percentage of consumers who say they always buy the cheapest brand of electronics and wait to buy cosmetics or toiletries until they're on sale.
Consumer Edge analyst Bill Pecoriello said he felt the survey data was vindicated when scanner data from Nielsen and Symphony IRI came out a few days later showing a decline in private-label market shares in household and personal care products as well as food from the prior month.
RBC Capital Markets, which has its own consumer spending survey that's more detailed than those of the Conference Board or University of Michigan, found the highest level of consumer spending sentiment in its April survey released last week since January of 2008, near the entry point of the current recession. RBC found marked improvement in consumer spending plans on a wide range of areas, including dining out, apparel and automotive spending.
The NPD Group also found cause for hope in the restaurant industry. Its Crest service, which tracks weekly same-store sales at 47 quick-service and mid-level dining chains, finds sales have been positive for five of the past six weeks. "It's the first time we've seen that for 11 months," said NPD restaurant analyst Bonnie Riggs. "We do think things are starting to pick up."
Beating forecasts
It sees, for example, a lift in breakfast sales, which slid 2% last year as unemployed consumers stayed away from drive-thrus in the morning. NPD still expects traffic as a whole to remain negative through the third quarter, but believes it will turn positive by the fourth quarter. And Ms. Riggs doesn't expect the industry to return to pre-recession levels for another 18 months.
For retailers, the data for now is largely on the side of the optimists, though there are caveats. March retail results appeared to borrow both from February, when consumers delayed some purchases because of bad weather, and April, because of an earlier Easter this year. Even so, the numbers beat the forecasts of analysts, who knew both those factors going in.
In all, Kantar Retail found retail same-store sales up 9.2% based on March reports excluding Walmart, which stopped providing monthly sales data last May. That more than made up for a 4.7% decline in the retail numbers excluding Walmart a year ago.
Of course, Walmart, when it was still reporting monthly numbers, turned last year's 4.7% decline into only a 1.9% decline. In recent quarters, however, Walmart's same-store sales have lagged the market. So when the behemoth next releases its quarterly numbers in June, it could pull down industry growth if trends continue.
Package-goods players appear to be following through on vows to spend more on advertising, with household and personal-care players raising spending 6% in January vs. a year ago, when they also had hiked spending before a fairly steep decline for the remainder of the year, according to Kantar Media data from Bernstein. In all, Bernstein analyst Ali Dibadj expects household and personal-care companies he covers to hike ad spending as a share of sales by more than a percentage point this year, undoing last year's decline.
"The question is, as more companies spend more on advertising over the next year or so, does that just create more noise?" he said. "To get the same share of voice, everyone has to spend more, so the ROI just goes down."
(Source: Advertising Age, 04/12/10)
Friday, April 9, 2010
3 Quote Friday
Good afternoon and TGiF !
It's Friday and time for "3 Quote Friday". This week we'll have three quotes from American business legend Henry Ford. Some things are never old. Here is some wisdom from Henry Ford:
"A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large"
"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young."
"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success"
Have a wonderful weekend everyone !
It's Friday and time for "3 Quote Friday". This week we'll have three quotes from American business legend Henry Ford. Some things are never old. Here is some wisdom from Henry Ford:
"A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large"
"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young."
"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success"
Have a wonderful weekend everyone !
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Consumer's in the Mood for Spending
This is an article from the New York Times yesterday. Point to ponder : How are you reaching consumers? If you have'nt been advertising, now is the time ! I have ideas and proven methods. Contace me
Upbeat Signs Revive Consumers' Mood for Spending
American consumers are finally coming out of hiding.
After months of penny-pinching amid the recession, new figures -- showing an improving job market, rising factory output and increased retail sales -- suggest that consumers are no longer restricting their budgets to necessities like food and medicine. They are starting to buy clothes, jewelry and even cars again.
The mood has gone from panicked to cautious, and now, as Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com put it, some consumers are "almost a bit giddy."
After the financial crisis hit in late 2008, consumers retrenched heavily. And in the months that followed, there were fears that newly frugal Americans would increase their savings so much there was no hope that consumer spending could be a factor in a recovery.
That was a troubling prospect because consumers have been the drivers of economic growth after past recessions. After all, their spending accounts for more than two-thirds of all economic activity in the United States.
But just a year later, consumers have eased off a bit on their savings, which frees up cash for them to spend. And in part because of the high rate of mortgage defaults, the overall consumer debt burden has been dropping. Those trends suggest to some economists that consumers may now be in a position to help drive the recovery.
The improved outlook has been showing up at store cash registers for several months, and the trend seems to be accelerating. Major retailing chains posted better-than-expected earnings in their most recent reporting periods and are likely to deliver more good news on Thursday, when they report their March sales results.
Total industry sales are predicted to increase up to 10 percent compared with the period a year ago, which would make March the seventh month of growth in a row, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, an industry group. (A significant part of that increase is because of a calendar shift involving Easter.)
SpendingPulse, an information service of MasterCard Advisors, was scheduled to release figures on Wednesday showing that closely watched retailing categories -- furniture and home furnishings, clothing, electronics and luxury goods -- had healthy year-over-year sales growth last month.
And after months of cutting inventory to bring it in line with weakened demand, the nation's retailers are ordering more merchandise. The cargo volume at major ports that handle retail imports is expected to increase 8 percent in April compared with the period a year ago, according to the National Retail Federation and the consulting firm Hackett Associates.
"What I'm hearing across a wide swath of retail is that sales are simply much stronger than companies had expected," said Robert Barbera, the chief economist of ITG, an investment advisory firm.
The improvement extends even to some of the most costly household items. Last week, almost every automaker, including Ford, Toyota and General Motors, reported robust sales increases in March. Spring incentives like no-interest loans helped lure consumers into showrooms.
The Commerce Department said its broadest measure of retail sales, a figure known as personal consumption expenditures, increased 0.3 percent in February compared with January, or $34.7 billion, the fifth monthly gain in a row. And the personal savings rate -- which jumped above 5 percent during the recession -- has returned to its historical level of about 3 percent.
Lauren Keshet, the owner of Paws and Claws, a pet care company in Hoboken, N.J., said her business suffered when the economy nose-dived and consumers snapped their wallets shut. "My business went to half" of what she had been selling, Ms. Keshet said. But today, "my business is booming again," she said. "It's really come back."
So has her spending, and that of other shoppers she has seen lately at the Westfield Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus, N.J. "Right now I'm renovating my house," she said. "I'm buying furniture."
Indeed, sales of furniture and furnishings combined increased 13.8 percent year-over-year in March, according to SpendingPulse.
Perhaps the most meaningful sign of recovery is that employers added 162,000 jobs last month. With unemployment hovering at 9.7 percent, the job market is still weak by historical standards, but the rate is no longer rising.
John D. Morris, a retailing analyst with BMO Capital Markets, said that at the nation's malls, strong fashion trends like jeggings (jeans so tight they resemble leggings) are helping drive sales. He expects the new iPad from Apple will do the same.
"There's a true desire to buy that I haven't seen in two or three years," Mr. Morris said. "The consumer's gotten a little bit braver."
Economists and analysts said much of the uptick in spending was being propelled by wealthier consumers. With year-end bonuses in their pockets and healthier stock portfolios, they have slowed their savings. That has contributed to robust sales at upscale chains that were hit hard by the recession, like Nordstrom, Tiffany, Saks and Neiman Marcus. SpendingPulse said sales of luxury goods climbed 22.7 percent in March compared with a year ago, making the category one of the best performers last month.
In February, the pricey teenage clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch -- which had been reporting the worst monthly sales of any major national chain -- posted a 5 percent year-over-year same-store sales increase. And it is expected to post another strong figure on Thursday.
Michael McNamara, vice president for research and analysis for SpendingPulse, pointed out that the results from chain stores sound robust largely because this year's sales were being compared with the depths of the recession. So the big gains really represent a return to normal patterns.
"It's more about how little people were buying a year ago than how much people are buying today," he said.
Indeed, retail sales are still below the highs they hit in 2006 and 2007.
A lingering fear is that the sales gains could turn out to be temporary. Mr. Zandi of Moody's said that once wealthier consumers satisfied their pent-up demand, they might become cautious again. And other economists fear that the strengthening retail figures are not necessarily a good sign.
"The more money the consumer spends, the worse shape our economy is going to be in," said Peter D. Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, "because we are spending borrowed money."
Paul Laudicina, chairman of A. T. Kearney, the management consulting company, said that while some people were feeling confident enough to spend, he predicted a continuing degree of caution among consumers.
"We shouldn't free the balloons," he said, "because this is going to continue to be a slow, long, steady climb."
(Source: The New York Times, 04/07/10)
Upbeat Signs Revive Consumers' Mood for Spending
American consumers are finally coming out of hiding.
After months of penny-pinching amid the recession, new figures -- showing an improving job market, rising factory output and increased retail sales -- suggest that consumers are no longer restricting their budgets to necessities like food and medicine. They are starting to buy clothes, jewelry and even cars again.
The mood has gone from panicked to cautious, and now, as Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com put it, some consumers are "almost a bit giddy."
After the financial crisis hit in late 2008, consumers retrenched heavily. And in the months that followed, there were fears that newly frugal Americans would increase their savings so much there was no hope that consumer spending could be a factor in a recovery.
That was a troubling prospect because consumers have been the drivers of economic growth after past recessions. After all, their spending accounts for more than two-thirds of all economic activity in the United States.
But just a year later, consumers have eased off a bit on their savings, which frees up cash for them to spend. And in part because of the high rate of mortgage defaults, the overall consumer debt burden has been dropping. Those trends suggest to some economists that consumers may now be in a position to help drive the recovery.
The improved outlook has been showing up at store cash registers for several months, and the trend seems to be accelerating. Major retailing chains posted better-than-expected earnings in their most recent reporting periods and are likely to deliver more good news on Thursday, when they report their March sales results.
Total industry sales are predicted to increase up to 10 percent compared with the period a year ago, which would make March the seventh month of growth in a row, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, an industry group. (A significant part of that increase is because of a calendar shift involving Easter.)
SpendingPulse, an information service of MasterCard Advisors, was scheduled to release figures on Wednesday showing that closely watched retailing categories -- furniture and home furnishings, clothing, electronics and luxury goods -- had healthy year-over-year sales growth last month.
And after months of cutting inventory to bring it in line with weakened demand, the nation's retailers are ordering more merchandise. The cargo volume at major ports that handle retail imports is expected to increase 8 percent in April compared with the period a year ago, according to the National Retail Federation and the consulting firm Hackett Associates.
"What I'm hearing across a wide swath of retail is that sales are simply much stronger than companies had expected," said Robert Barbera, the chief economist of ITG, an investment advisory firm.
The improvement extends even to some of the most costly household items. Last week, almost every automaker, including Ford, Toyota and General Motors, reported robust sales increases in March. Spring incentives like no-interest loans helped lure consumers into showrooms.
The Commerce Department said its broadest measure of retail sales, a figure known as personal consumption expenditures, increased 0.3 percent in February compared with January, or $34.7 billion, the fifth monthly gain in a row. And the personal savings rate -- which jumped above 5 percent during the recession -- has returned to its historical level of about 3 percent.
Lauren Keshet, the owner of Paws and Claws, a pet care company in Hoboken, N.J., said her business suffered when the economy nose-dived and consumers snapped their wallets shut. "My business went to half" of what she had been selling, Ms. Keshet said. But today, "my business is booming again," she said. "It's really come back."
So has her spending, and that of other shoppers she has seen lately at the Westfield Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus, N.J. "Right now I'm renovating my house," she said. "I'm buying furniture."
Indeed, sales of furniture and furnishings combined increased 13.8 percent year-over-year in March, according to SpendingPulse.
Perhaps the most meaningful sign of recovery is that employers added 162,000 jobs last month. With unemployment hovering at 9.7 percent, the job market is still weak by historical standards, but the rate is no longer rising.
John D. Morris, a retailing analyst with BMO Capital Markets, said that at the nation's malls, strong fashion trends like jeggings (jeans so tight they resemble leggings) are helping drive sales. He expects the new iPad from Apple will do the same.
"There's a true desire to buy that I haven't seen in two or three years," Mr. Morris said. "The consumer's gotten a little bit braver."
Economists and analysts said much of the uptick in spending was being propelled by wealthier consumers. With year-end bonuses in their pockets and healthier stock portfolios, they have slowed their savings. That has contributed to robust sales at upscale chains that were hit hard by the recession, like Nordstrom, Tiffany, Saks and Neiman Marcus. SpendingPulse said sales of luxury goods climbed 22.7 percent in March compared with a year ago, making the category one of the best performers last month.
In February, the pricey teenage clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch -- which had been reporting the worst monthly sales of any major national chain -- posted a 5 percent year-over-year same-store sales increase. And it is expected to post another strong figure on Thursday.
Michael McNamara, vice president for research and analysis for SpendingPulse, pointed out that the results from chain stores sound robust largely because this year's sales were being compared with the depths of the recession. So the big gains really represent a return to normal patterns.
"It's more about how little people were buying a year ago than how much people are buying today," he said.
Indeed, retail sales are still below the highs they hit in 2006 and 2007.
A lingering fear is that the sales gains could turn out to be temporary. Mr. Zandi of Moody's said that once wealthier consumers satisfied their pent-up demand, they might become cautious again. And other economists fear that the strengthening retail figures are not necessarily a good sign.
"The more money the consumer spends, the worse shape our economy is going to be in," said Peter D. Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, "because we are spending borrowed money."
Paul Laudicina, chairman of A. T. Kearney, the management consulting company, said that while some people were feeling confident enough to spend, he predicted a continuing degree of caution among consumers.
"We shouldn't free the balloons," he said, "because this is going to continue to be a slow, long, steady climb."
(Source: The New York Times, 04/07/10)
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Cause Marketing : Annual Charity Golf Show
WLVL is attempting to drive traffic to the Lockport Town and Country Club’s Annual Golf Show on Sunday April 18th. Proceeds from the show will benefit 5 charities : Relay for Life, Boy Scouts of America, Juvenile Diabetes, Canal Walk for Breast Cancer and Camp Happiness. WLVL will be broadcasting live from the event. We are hoping to drive a large crowd by airing mentions and promos for the event. However air does have a price and we are searching for sponsors to help us with the broadcast.
Sponsors will receive :
(6) :30 second ads
Or
(5) :60 second ads
To air beginning on April 13th .
Sponsor will also receive numerous mentions during the weeklong promos and the day of the event.
Sponsor will also receive 4 tickets to the event which includes access to the show, raffles food, beverage, and prizes. Total cost :$129
If you’re interested in helping us make this a great event please let me know so we process the order and your spots.
Contact me at (716)-433-5944 or email ddesmarais@wlvl.com
Sponsors will receive :
(6) :30 second ads
Or
(5) :60 second ads
To air beginning on April 13th .
Sponsor will also receive numerous mentions during the weeklong promos and the day of the event.
Sponsor will also receive 4 tickets to the event which includes access to the show, raffles food, beverage, and prizes. Total cost :$129
If you’re interested in helping us make this a great event please let me know so we process the order and your spots.
Contact me at (716)-433-5944 or email ddesmarais@wlvl.com
Thursday, April 1, 2010
What's up in the down economy?
Opportunity ! that's whats up in this economy. With many businesses cutting back on marketing and advertising this opens up a great opportunity for you. Now is the time to get in and STAND OUT in the market.WLVL's rates are affordable, inventory is plenty and the audience is still here. You can now find availability on programs where there used to be waiting list. Not long ago we had a waiting list for some of our most popular programs. We now have vacancies. This is tremendous opportunity to reach the best of WLVL's audience at affordable rates. Consumers can't find you if your not reaching them ! Contact me to learn more on how I can help drive business, create awareness and generate sales for you.
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