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After creating and
implementing hundreds of marketing campaigns for clients in just
about every industry imaginable, a handful of elements kept coming up as
essential. That is, when we ignored one, we paid the price.
Learn from my
experience:
1. Your message
isn’t customer-driven
What you’re saying
about your product is important to you, is understandable to
you. But not to your customer. It doesn’t matter what’s
important to you. What’s important is what’s important to your
customer. They buy for their reasons, not yours. Make sure
your message is important to them. How? Ask them.
2. Your
marketing methods aren’t customer-driven
You keep going to
trade shows, but the decision-makers inside your customers’
companies stopped going two years ago. You keep advertising in
that trade magazine because it’s the best and biggest in the
industry, but the decision-makers inside your customers’
companies stopped paying much attention to it two years ago.
Hummm. How do your customers expect to learn about new vendors
like your company? How do they prefer being contacted? Ask
them! Align your methods with your customers’ expectations and
preferences.
3. Incomplete
marketing support (not a campaign)
I see it all the
time. A company sends one mailing, not much happens and they go
about the task of figuring out why their marketing isn’t
working. Or they place one ad or go to one trade show. No
follow up.
Things change. A
prospect may not be open to your message this month, but might
be next month. Think marketing campaign: multiple contacts
executed a variety of ways (ads, direct mail, Internet, trade
show, etc.). One ad or one mailing or one trade show does not a
campaign make.
4. No
testing/quit before you succeed
“We tried direct
mail but it didn’t work.” Tried it one time, did ya, and it
didn’t work—well then, forget direct mail! Sounds silly, but
too many owners give up on a marketing method before they give
it a chance to succeed. Make small affordable tests. If
customers tell you newspaper is how they learn about firms like
yours, test in a newspaper where a quarter page ad is $400, not
$4,000. Learn, change the headline. Change the offer. Change
the price. Add a picture. Test. Rarely is something that
“fails” 100% wrong. Testing helps you eliminate the bad and
keep the good. Don’t quit before you give yourself a chance to
succeed.
5. Too much
“me-too”
Great food, fast,
friendly service and reasonable prices. Wonderful, but why
should I eat in your restaurant? Knowledgeable, experienced
staff, made in America quality and fast shipping. Great, but
why should I buy from you?
Are all those
wonderful things you’re saying about your product really
differentiating you, or do they sound like everybody else?
My best antidote to too much “me too” is two things:
Make sure you’re
giving people reasons to buy that are their reasons, not yours
(a previous topic).
Be specific.
Quality, service and price are so overused they have no impact.
What does quality mean? “Our superior manufacturing techniques
allow us to warranty our gizmo for 10 years, DOUBLE the industry
standard.” “We have two owners and two superintendents in the
field checking every job. No other contractor our size can say
that. No other contractor cares more about quality than we do.”
6. You don’t
contact enough people
At its most basic,
marketing is still a game of odds. The more people you contact,
the higher the odds your message gets to people who want your
product at that time.
7. You don’t
contact people often enough
Same as above. Get
the odds in your favor. I may not need or want your product
today, but I may next month.
Any of this sound
familiar? There's a reason why you're still reading this
far into this page and my site. . .should
we be talking?
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