I donate a percentage of my profits to the Blue Cross each and every month
I’ve been listening to some of Dan Kennedy’s stuff this week and it really hammered home a message that I alluded to in my post regarding your business’ profits.
I’ve also had some strange experiences at various networking events that I have attended this week, and so I thought you may find it useful if I identify a major pitfall that could come back to haunt you and your business.
So what I am talking about?
Whether you are a small business owner, a sales person or an executive for a national or multi-national company this rule applies to you.
It also doesn’t matter whether or not you sell to businesses or consumers, or whether you sell a product or a service.
By reading carefully, and considering the information and ideas in this post, you’ll be way ahead of your competitors.
I urge you today, to switch the emphasis of your marketing away from ‘me too’ or ‘brand recognition’ or what I refer to as ’spray and pray’ – basically throwing mud at a wall – and into sound methods that bring direct response to your marketing.
Who Are All These Experts?
And I have come across this so may times this week alone – media sales people, PR consultants, advertising companies, other so-called business consultants, all of whom have no real idea or appreciation for what direct response is or can do for a business.
And frankly this is a worry, as it is one of the most powerful ways to market your business.
I keep hearing “Well I can get any business on page one of Google”. Ok, but what if this is not right for the business?
Sure the internet can be hugely beneficial for some businesses – but not all. And putting all your eggs in one basket is very, very dangerous.
The fact is, whether it is your web site, or your Yellow Pages advertisement, or your radio advertisement or your business card – it should all be geared towards direct response – meaning getting a response from your prospect or client now.
I’ll elaborate more in another post on some of the specific strategies, but essentially its about having a message that means your target audience feels compelled top contact you NOW, rather than doing it next week, or worse still, contacting your competitor.
Don’t do it the way of the crowd, of the 95 per cent of other businesses who have very little clue what they are doing – and are suffering as a result.
Big companies have big marketing budgets so this will be why they can afford to spend money on brand recognition. I’m not sure if this works for them but not everyone can afford to do this.
Hi Alice,
The problem with larger companies is that there is often no accountability for their marketing. The do not track their results, so whether they produce sales or not cannot be determined. Of course they often have very deep pockets and so can get away with this.
The same cannot be said for SMEs etc. They need to be able to track their results and return on their investment, otherwise they will go out of business very quickly. Brand recognition in my opinion is garnered from having loyal customers, it is NOT something that you can just simply create with some advertising.
Simon