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Marketing - Hard Knocks Lessons
Bob Ryan, About Purpose, Inc. ©2003
Marketing is important to everyone – whether you own a business, run a social service agency or are trying to increase participation in your bowling team. In this issue, I want to share with you a few hard-earned marketing lessons I have picked up. There are hundreds of books and classes on the subject, so I have no intention of making this a textbook on marketing.
But just as there are some well-known maxims in life, learned from the school of hard knocks, so are there some truisms in marketing that should help you as you think about positioning and expanding your business, service or product.
Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket: I just finished my second major marketing campaign since April. Over the years, I have discovered that good marketing in the consultant business is kind of like a good portfolio in investments – you have to have a balance of approaches. In my early days, I did no marketing at all. Later, I began using only mass marketing campaigns with a combination of mail, fax and telephone. Discouraged with the results, I swore off all mass marketing and concentrated only on relationship marketing. Realizing I couldn’t keep the pipeline filled, I have added the mass marketing back in. Today, I’m beginning to feel I have finally achieved a good, balanced marketing portfolio. Look at your own marketing strategy. Does it include a variety of approaches? Does it account for the different ways people receive and accept messages?
Fail to Plan; Plan to Fail: A seat of the pants approach to marketing isn’t marketing. Marketing is highly complex and failing to do careful planning of your goals, strategies, implementation and follow-up is doomed to failure. I do get some help from my national franchisor, but even with that, the ultimate planning is up to me. I am accountable to my clients and potential clients for proper positioning and communication of my services. It is vitally important for me to follow up in a timely fashion. The further I get away from the initial communication, the less likely it is that the prospect will remember how s/he was touched by it. Do you have a marketing plan? Do you know whom you are trying to reach, and what actions you want them to take as a result of that communication? Are you prepared to follow up with adequate resources and in a timely fashion?
Don’t Cry Over Spilt Milk: Once you’ve set out on a well-planned direction, keep your focus on the outcomes. In my most recent mailing of 1145 pieces, I received 68 pieces back as undeliverable. At first I was outraged that I had wasted some $90 in mailing and chagrined that fully 6% of my universe wouldn’t hear my message. But then I realized that I would have my hands full with those who did receive and respond. Yes, I’ll try to get a cleaner list next time, but for now, my energies need to be focused on looking for results from those who did get the mailing. Are you focused on your goals or on your activities? Can you learn from your marketing mistakes and move forward or do you allow yourself to be paralyzed, discouraged or sidetracked?
Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover: On several occasions, prospects responded to my marketing that, at first blush, did not seem to be appropriate candidates for my services. The temptation is to skip over them and focus only on those “prime” prospects. On the opposite side, I often got really hyped by certain prospects, thinking they were perfect! However, on meeting with them, I often found the opposite often was true. “Poor” candidates often turned out to be very good customers and “great” prospects often turned out to be a waste of time. Do you follow up on all your prospects? Do you withhold judgment until you’ve gotten all the facts? Before you meet face-to-face do you do as much research on the company as you can?
Selling is a Numbers Game: No, selling is not synonymous with marketing. But it is true that the more qualified prospects you can identify and correctly communicate with, the more prospects you will turn into customers. So, marketing, too, is partially a numbers game. I have learned not to define numbers only by the universe I want to reach. Numbers can also refer to the number of times I get in front of prospects or the number of ways I communicate with them, or the number of messages I create to try to touch them. In your marketing strategy, do you strive to reach all your prospects in as many ways and as many times as is feasible? Look at your pipeline (the number of people you can reasonably expect will talk with you). If there are not very many prospects in it, chances are you are not playing the numbers game well.
It’s Quality that Counts: Having just finished telling you how important numbers are, I now stress that it is the quality of the prospect that counts. Identifying the right prospects and focusing on the right message at the right time and in the right medium is extremely important. All the numbers in the world will not help if you are reaching the wrong people or if you are communicating poorly. Reexamine your strategy with all this in mind. Be sure your message is clearly stated and communicated in the right way. (Click here to read a related article on creating your Unique Selling Proposition).
Take these lessons from life and improve your marketing abilities. If you need a whole lot more help than in these two pages, go to the library and begin reading up on the subject. It will improve you and your activities immeasurably.