Three M's That Will Save You A Fortune 

Welcome to yet another episode of the Business of Hearing podcast and today we're talking the free M's M & M & M that will save you a fortune in wasted advertising spend and allow you to spend every single dollar far more efficiently and strategically. Let's dive in.  

Welcome to the Business of Hearing podcast with me, Oli Luke, the place for entrepreneurial private practice hearing care clinic owners, the ones who drive better performance, grow their revenues, and become simply impossible to compete with. Thank you so much for joining us. Pour yourself a cup of tea and let's get stuck into this week's episode.

All right, so welcome along to yet another episode and as always, appreciate your ears greatly and I have a short one for you today but one that I believe you'll be able to reflect on time and time again as you make decisions in the future about how and why to spend advertising dollars and how to do it as efficiently as possible. Now, I find myself in a number of conversations with our inner circle members and in calls that I have with a number of private practices mainly through the complimentary strategy sessions  that are available through businessofhearing.com and it's interesting because I bump into conversations which are like a space has come up in a newspaper for an advertisement. What shall I do? Or the manufacturer or a manufacturer has approached me about doing a mailer. What should I do? Or I want to run some Facebook adverts. What should I do? And this is pretty common, right? Opportunities come. It could be that we've got some space available in a newspaper that costs less than usual. It could be that we've heard about another clinic that are doing great with Facebook ads. We want to do them, too. It could be that we've got an opportunity where a manufacturer is going to fund a mailer as long as it mentions their name in it. What should we do? And I always find this point somewhat interesting because there's a marketing formula and a marketing foundation that originated, as far as I know, from direct response marketing and I'll put one name on it which was a direct response marketer called Dan Kennedy, probably one of the most famous direct response marketers in the world. That taught me a huge amount in my journey of self-learning around marketing and the formula that he applies to any form of advertising or marketing decision that you need to make is free M's. It goes market, message, media. Now, let's just break this down.  

First one is always market. The first thing you ever need to consider if you're considering any form of advertising is market. Who are you looking to reach? Who is your market? We're then looking at message and it's what message do you want to put in front of that market? And only when you've got your market and message defined, then you can consider your media and the media is, what is the right methodology channel, et cetera, in order to supply that message to that market. Now, if you look at it as the examples I just shared, a newspaper ads become available. I want to do Facebook ads. It completely messes up that formula. It's media first. It's, I want to do Facebook ads now, what message shall I use and what audience? It's the wrong way around. The most efficient way is always to decide your market, then decide your message and then only once you're clear on those two can you decide what is the right media to deliver that message to that market.  And let's zoom out of hearing care for example, let's say that you own a high-end spa like you have Saunas, you have Jacuzzis, whatever the US equivalent of a Jacuzzi, maybe it is Jacuzzi. I'd call it a hot tub. I'm getting mixed up. You've got steam rooms, et cetera. You have this really high-end spa for massages. Okay, so who is your market? Well, you'd assume it would be predominantly more female. It would be people of a certain wealth depending on your spa, with a certain amount of availability and free time, who live stressful jobs. Okay, that is the market. What is the message we want to put in front of them? Well, maybe it is a spa package where it's two glasses of champagne, the spa experience, followed by a lunch. Okay, so that's the market. That's the message. What is the right media now, all of a sudden with those two pieces of information, you go well, if  I'm looking to reach people of a certain age, that's the message I want to put in front of them. Well, what is the right way to get that to them? And it opens up your options.  I would believe, based on that, I would be looking towards probably Facebook advertising as my methodology of getting that message to that market. Let's look at hearing care, for example. Let's say that let's be the manufacturer show pony. Let's say new manufacturers launched a bunch of new technology. It's super, super exciting. You want to share the news that there's this new technology available that is very, very discreet, that overcomes many of the objections, that prevents many people from seeking treatment. Well, your market would be people who have a  hearing challenge but currently it's undiagnosed or it's been diagnosed, yet they're not made any progress with treatment mainly because of the vanity side of not being comfortable becoming a hearing aid wearer. So that's your market. The message would be people, sorry, it would be discrete technology now available, smallest devices ever created, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and then, okay, you know the market, it's people who should do something about their hearing. You know the message of discreet technology towards that market. What is the right media then? That's where you can be slightly more educated in that decision and go well, it's probably direct mail or maybe it is something like newspaper. Just using this formula allows you to simplify and clarify some of the confusion to ensure that you're not leaning with media first and then scrambling to try to understand your market and your message and you're only ever leaning on media, whether it be newspaper, direct mail, Facebook, Google radio, whatever, it will only be done once. You're very very clear on who you're looking to reach, you know, the market to reach them and you're confident that media that you're deciding to choose leverages both of them in order to make the best possible decision and it's a challenge I think many clinics find themselves in this kind of advertising challenge of what should I do and it's almost a very reactive game of what comes available. What's presented to me is what I will do and it's not clarity on a plan, it's not a clarity on a set of actions to achieve a certain outcome and there's a lack of strategy there. It's just not clear which means when you're active it prevents you being proactive and as a result, you're never going to be the market leader by just reacting to what comes up, rather than having a solid plan that you understand exactly what you need to do, how you need to do it and why you need to do it so that's something to consider next time you're presented with an advertising option.  Just because it's a good price, just because it's positioned to be easy to you doesn't mean that you should do it. Only do it if you have a clear understanding of the market, you have a clear understanding of the message that you want to put to that market and you're confident that the media that's being presented to you is the right solution to reach that market with that message. Only then is it the right thing to do. Running advertising, running communications, running marketing when it's not needed or any of those mixed is going to cause confusion, cause damage to your brand, result in wasted time, effort, resource, and result in a bunch of wasted efforts essentially and I will add on this as well,  is how many times have we heard things banded around like direct mail doesn't work or Facebook ads don't work or newspaper doesn't work. The challenge with this is pretty clear it probably didn't work for you if you focused on media first then define the market and the message but if you're using market message media correctly then the media should always work as long as you're putting the right message to the right audience. If you've chose the right media as the right communication channel to put two and two together then it usually does equal five so never get tied into that lazy, that doesn't work, that doesn't work, that doesn't work. It probably is just the strategy was off. Now if you're attaching messages to pigeons and flying them across state in order to deliver messages, then maybe that as a modality of media isn't working but typically understanding the MMM formula will save you a huge amount of wasted advertising dollars where right now you could be throwing money at media without any understanding of market or message but please, please follow that next time opportunity comes up. Next time you're considering doing anything, if the market and message doesn't align, media doesn't matter. Get those two pieces correct, then decide on the media. Hopefully, that makes sense. I'm very, very confident if you do this correctly, it'll save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars in wasted ad spend by doing this the wrong way around. Follow this methodology market message media it will serve you very, very well for the long term future of your clinic to make the best possible advertising decisions and spend every single advertising dollar as wisely as possible so that's everything from me today told you it'd be a short one but an important one, as long as you're driving action and implementing what I'm sharing. Remember, next time you're offered any form of advertising, regardless of how much it's being given to you, as regardless it's 50% off, 60% off. Need a decision today? If market and message don't align, don't go anywhere near it. Only ensure that you've got your M's in order in order to make that an effective piece of advertising so appreciate your ears as always, thank you so much for continuing to spread the good word about the podcast got, so much exciting things in the pipe for you. Working on what I believe is probably one of the biggest breakthroughs that I've ever discovered in this industry by tying some big, big generational data together to show you how we're about to be on a huge, huge trajectory but there is a number of actions required in order to be on the right side of that rather than the wrong side of that. I will be sharing a lot more in upcoming episodes, giving you all the data and exactly what you need to be doing in order to spearhead the future of private practice hearing care but appreciate your ears. I'll be back again next week with another episode and I'll speak to you soon.  

And that is a wrap, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for listening to the Business of Hearing podcast but before this comes to an end, I do have a small favor to ask. You see, we strongly believe that a rising tide lifts all boats and our mission is to help private practice to soar fight back and for the best clinics to dominate the future and here's how you can help by spreading the word about the Business of Hearing podcast. Whether something as simple as subscribing or leaving a five-star review through to recommending this podcast to a friend, a colleague, or even dare I say, sharing this episode through any Facebook groups or LinkedIn groups that you are part of. If you enjoyed this podcast and I'm eternally grateful for your time and I'll see you again next week.