Restaurant Music

Solve this problem and you have just cut your advertising expenses by 28%.

Here's the simple way to make sure you never pay for another unpublished or incorrect ad.

First, you have to recognize the problems

The problems are two-fold.

#1. Many ads never run or never get published.

#2. Ads run, but have major errors that make them almost useless.

I know this is true because I recently analyzed some of the advertising expenditures for over 100 restaurants. I found that on average 28% of the money these restaurants were spending was going down a rat-hole.

On top of that, almost 90% of restaurant managers never even knew that many of the ads they had paid for never ran, were never published, or had errors so bad as to make the ads almost totally useless.

Your Yellow page and newspaper ads will probably run, but there's still a big chance that even these ads will contain errors, run at the wrong time or run in the wrong section.

Radio and TV ads will probably be correct (because, hopefully, you approved the content of the spot), but these types of ads are notorious for running at the wrong times -- after your promotional event is over, etc.

Ads in hotel in-room directories, coupon books, fliers, new apartment and new home welcome packages and almost any ad sold by an out-of-town company show a high likelihood of never being published.

This doesn't mean that you should not run these types of ads. The right ones could bring a big return on your ad investment.

Three simple steps will solve both of these problems and save you 28% on advertising

1. Put someone in charge of tracking all ads

This person will make sure that all ads run as promised and with no errors. Almost anyone on your staff could do this. Just make sure someone is in-charge of it.

If you really want to make sure all of you're ads run and run correctly, pay the person a bonus based on the money they save you. Also it helps if you give this person a title such as, "Media Manager" or "Director of Media Affairs," etc.

The person you assign this job to doesn't have to be someone in management. This task can be a fun and challenging assignment for a young, reliable employee.

Be sure to create an ad logbook or computer file outlining the information and dates for every ad.

Of course, carefully check, sign and return all ad proofs promptly and then file them with the ad contracts or insertion orders and make them available to your ad checker.

2. Pay for all ads with a credit card

You usually have to pay for advertising before ads run and it could be hard to get your money back from some advertisers if the ad didn't run or was incorrect.

Most reliable companies will accept a credit card as payment. If they won't, think long and hard before you agree to buy the ad.

The advantage of paying for your ads with a credit card is that you can get a full refund when an ad doesn't run. Just tell your credit card company that the product or service was never delivered.

Most credit card companies don't want to get involved in what they call, "quality" issues. If you say the ad ran, but it was incorrect, many credit card companies won't give you a refund, but most ad companies don't know this, so you can bluff.

Tell the advertiser that you will dispute the charge on your credit card. You can do this even if you have already paid for the ad. Companies don't want to lose their credit card processing capabilities, so most will settle the matter when they know you mean business.

Most advertisers are honest, but in many cases they're careless. The ad salesman loses the paperwork or doesn't convey all of the details and/or changes to your ad correctly to their ad layout people, etc.

Bring ad errors to the attention of most ad companies and they will do the right thing. Sometimes this means giving you a full refund and sometimes it means running the ad again at no charge with the correct information.

One thing to be sure to check for is when you are making a change to an ad, be sure the ad that runs is the new ad with the changes. You will be amazed at how many times companies run the old ad and your new ad never make it into their system.

3. Hand-write the following Protection Clause into all of your ad contracts or insertion orders

Adding this simple protection clause to your insertion order or advertising contracts gives you a LOT of power when ads are not run correctly.

Of course, this puts the monkey on your back to make sure you (or someone) carefully checks all ads proofs and return them on time. Be sure to check dates, phone numbers and other critical information in your ads. After you sign the proof you are stuck with the ad.

In summary:

1. Assign someone to follow-up and verify that all ads run and run as specified.

2. Pay for ads with a credit card.

3. Add the above "Protection Clause" to all of your advertising contracts.

Follow these three steps religiously and you can save a lot on your advertising. All of this previously wasted money is now going straight to your bottom line.