10.10.05

What Marketing Can’t Do For You

Posted in Marketing, Advertising at 6:33 pm by admin

I thought I would clear up some misconceptions about marketing in this two-part series: What Marketing Can Do For You and What Marketing Can’t Do For You. This issue is about what marketing can’t do.

While there’s no question a solid marketing program can increase your business, it can’t fix everything. Below are 5 things marketing can’t do for you:

1. Marketing can’t make you an overnight success. Just because you start a marketing program doesn’t mean you’re immediately going to see your business explode. Marketing is about getting your name in front of your target market on a regular basis until they finally decide to give you a try.

On that note, if you’re in trouble right now – sales are down, a new business isn’t getting off the ground like you planned — depending on how bad the trouble is a marketing program may not be enough to save you. A successful marketing program needs time to work and more likely than not, a little money as well. If you’re panicked about one (or more likely both) you may need to start looking at other options.

2. Marketing is not about doing something once and forgetting about it. The very best marketers test. And test. And test.

For instance, maybe your Web site isn’t converting visitors to customers as well as it should be. You could hire a copywriter to tweak it for you. You could test the different elements to see what raises your conversion level. That’s one way to use testing. You can also test different headlines, different offers, etc.

3. Marketing can’t fix a bad experience. This is a big one. If your customers have a lousy experience with your products or services or with your customer service reps or sales people, etc., that’s it. Worse yet, not only have you lost a customer for good, that customer will probably tell others about their bad experience. So now you’ve lost more potential customers as well.

Marketing can get people in the door, but it can’t ensure they’ll have an experience they’ll want to repeat. Before assuming more marketing is what you need, take a moment and make sure your current customers are truly satisfied with your business.

4. Marketing can’t fix a flawed business. Much like tip number 3, marketing can’t fix cash flow issues or staff problems.

Okay, I can hear all of you saying “Of course, marketing can’t fix cash flow problems. Do you think we’re stupid?” My answer is no, I don’t think you’re stupid at all. I think what happens is sometimes you get so caught up in the day-to-day challenges of running a business you can’t see the forest for the trees.

Let me explain. Let’s say you have a business that’s struggling with cash flow. The first thing that springs to mind may be revving up marketing. After all, the idea behind marketing is to increase revenue. On the surface that makes sense. However, if you look a little closer, what you might find are expenses that are out of whack or not getting invoices out in a timely manner. So what you should be fixing is your accounting problems rather than changing your marketing.

5. Marketing can’t make people buy things they either don’t want or can’t afford. It doesn’t matter how great your product or service is, if you’re selling to people who either don’t have the interest or the means to buy it, then your marketing is going to fail no matter how brilliant it may be.

So basically it all boils down to this, before you decide you need more marketing, take a few moments and make sure marketing is really the right solution for your business.

Creativity Exercise — Reality Check

Before you launch into a new marketing program, take some time to analyze what’s really happening in your business. Do you really need a marketing program or is your problem:

* You aren’t able to close the leads you have
* You aren’t invoicing in a timely manner or following up with unpaid accounts
* Your customers aren’t happy with the product or service
* Your customers are having a bad experience with technical support or something else in the process isn’t working
* Your target market isn’t right
* You aren’t passionate about what you’re doing anymore
* Your business has way too many expenses

And so on. Basically I just want you to make sure marketing really is your problem before you start fiddling with it.

If you want to grow your business, then you should be consistently marketing your business. But if you’re using marketing as a bandaid for some other problem, then you could be headed for trouble.

Michele Pariza Wacek is the author of “Got Ideas? Unleash Your Creativity and Make More Money.” She offers two free e-zines that help subscribers combine their creativity with hard-hitting marketing and copywriting principles to become more successful at attracting new clients, selling products and services and boosting business. She can be reached at http://www.TheArtistSoul.com. Copyright 2005 Michele Pariza Wacek

10.06.05

What Marketing Can Do For You

Posted in Marketing, Public Relations, Advertising at 12:09 pm by admin

I thought I would clear up some misconceptions about marketing in this two-part series: What Marketing Can Do For You and What Marketing Can’t Do For You. We’ll start with the positive.

Over the years, I’ve had dealings with some business owners who have a rather skewed perception of marketing. They think you throw a few ads out there, get a couple of press releases printed and voila! You’re a big success.

Oh, if it only were that easy. (Although if it were, I probably wouldn’t have a job.)

But there’s no getting around that to have a successful business, you need a solid marketing plan.

So what CAN marketing do for you? Increase your business – no question about it. You need to be marketing if you want to grow your business.

However (and this is a really big however) marketing is NOT going to result in overnight success. Marketing is about slow growth, building on last week’s success and forgetting about last month’s failures. (Or what you THINK are failures. It’s not uncommon that a campaign you think is a dismal disappointment may be what caused the next campaign to take off.)

Marketing is about frequency — about your target market seeing your offer over and over again until they’re finally ready to buy. Without that very important frequency, your business will start to stagnate and eventually die.

Now that doesn’t mean you won’t have a major success with a campaign. Even a massive, amazing, unbelievable success. You’ll run one ad or be featured in an article and wham! You end up with more orders than you know what to do with. While that’s a great shot in the arm, it probably won’t last unless you keep building upon it. Eventually the orders will dry up and you’ll be back to where you were before.

Marketing is also about being consistent. This goes back to building on successes. Your customers need to see your message over and over again. This builds trust and credibility. Plus, your current customers will also respond to that frequency. Not only will they not “forget” about you and go to your competitor, but it will help build their trust in you as well.

Lastly, marketing is about working hard. There’s no getting around it. To be successful means putting in the time and energy to continually market yourself. (You can also pay someone to help you with it, but basically it comes down to someone somewhere has to put in the time to continually market you.)

If you remember nothing else, remember this: If you don’t implement your marketing strategies, nothing is going to happen.

That last sentence seems obvious, but again, I’m amazed at how many people I run into who aren’t willing to do the work. They talk about it, but when it actually comes down to doing something, they somehow never seem to get around to it.

One way to overcome that is to plan on doing one task or a little marketing every day. Then it doesn’t seem quite so overwhelming. Me, I make a commitment to do X number of marketing tasks a week, regardless of how much time that takes.

Marketing is a commitment. There’s no getting around it. If you have a business, then you have no choice but to make a commitment to marketing on a consistent basis until the day comes when you decide you don’t want a business anymore.

Creativity Exercise — Make a Commitment

Since I’m interested in having all of you succeed, I want YOU to make a commitment right now to market your business on a regular basis.

Write this statement on a piece of paper, filling in your name in the proper place.

I, YOUR NAME, am making a commitment to market my business on a regular basis from now until I decide I don’t want to be in business any more.

Sign and date it.

I suggest posting it in a place where you can see it while you’re working. Or, if you really want to add some accountability to your commitment, tell someone about it. You can even tell me about it — just send me an e-mail at Michele@theartistsoul.com There’s nothing like announcing your intention to keeping you honest.

Michele Pariza Wacek is the author of “Got Ideas? Unleash Your Creativity and Make More Money.” She offers two free e-zines that help subscribers combine their creativity with hard-hitting marketing and copywriting principles to become more successful at attracting new clients, selling products and services and boosting business. She can be reached at http://www.TheArtistSoul.com. Copyright 2005 Michele Pariza Wacek