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Casual Articles - 4 Key Marketing Do's and Don'ts
Many information product authors look at booklets, audio CDs, workbooks, ebooks, and the like as a way out. It's a way out of earning money in exchange for time. It's a way out of certain aspects of customer service. It's a way out of having to be articulate and brilliant every waking moment. It's a way out of keeping someone else's schedule.In lots of definitions, yes, it is a way out. And, like everything else, it needs to feed a part of you in order to sustain you and it. For you, it may need to be interesting, lucrative, motivating, comforting, easy, varied, unlimited, and a few other things. Only you know (or discover) what those requirements are.It reminds me of the whole conversation about whether a move t
o Promotion – budget to spend a percentage of your sales on promotion at the beginning of each year. Keep your promotional program going all year – don’t wait until your reps. get short of leads or sales fall off.
o Place/Distribution Channels – should be changed either at different points in a product’s life (how easy is it, these days, to find a small, independent retail store selling only computer hardware) or in the face of new technology (you can buy many of the same products from a Future Shop store or from their web site).
The 4 Marketing tools are like the promotional techniques in one way – you get the best results if you figure
Most MBA classes concentrate on change management at the Corporate Board Room and CEO levels and yet for every corporate board of directors there might be hundreds or even thousands of outlets and subdivisions. Change Management cycles are equally as important to same store sales, company profits and efficiencies at the unit level.If the team members and management at the store outlet level do not work together then the store is not efficient, sales slack and the system crumbles. If on the other hand at the store level everything is running smoothly at all stores then the Corporate Board Members look like geniuses, take all the credit, retire on the Golf Course and write a management book.Indeed the corporate lev
Not happy with your Marketing Plans? Spending a lot and getting little in return? Well, first off – you’re not alone. Many of the company owners I talk to express frustration with Marketing. They feel it’s a waste of money – echoing the famous quote “I know that 50% of the money I spend on Marketing is wasted – and if I knew which 50%, I’d cut it out”. Here are 4 things you can do to cut the waste and get better results.
First, don’t confuse Marketing and Selling. Selling is, in fact, only a method of promoting your products and services. Sales people have to be told which products to sell, how the products will benefit their prospects and customers and how much to sell the products for. (Have you ever tried letting sales people set selling prices? It’s one of the faster ways to go out of business.) Marketing is deciding which products your customers will want and how much they will pay for them and then launching your products on time. Sales people have to be given “qualified leads” - they’re too costly to use for generating and qualifying their own leads - so it’s more cost effective to use the promotional techniques to do that. Marketing is figuring out which combination of the promotional techniques is needed to produce enough leads for the Company to achieve its sales targets.
Second, don’t confuse Marketing with Promotion. Using advertising (print, radio, T.V., billboards etc.), public relations, direct mail, web sites, email, or telemarketing are ways of promoting your business. Promotion is only one of 4 Marketing tools, and, before we leave it behind for a moment, here are a couple of “don’ts” regarding promotion. Don’t:
o Expect an advertisement to bring you results the first (or even the second or third) time you use it. Consistency of use is one of requirements for advertising to work.
o Be surprised if the response to your direct mail (or email) campaigns is “low”. A 2 or 3% response rate may be all that you should be expecting.Third, remember that you have 4 Marketing tools at your disposal. We’ve talked about 3 of them already – product, price and promotion. The fourth is your distribution channels – how you get your products to the end user. A couple of points to remember:o Look for a flood of visitors to come to your web site and buy your products – unless you spend time and money “optimizing” your site for search engines.
o Forget that you’ll get better results by using several of the promotional techniques in an integrated campaign, for example follow up a direct mail or email piece with telemarketing.
o Products – have a “life”. Some will remain in demand longer than others but none go on forever (notice how hybrid engines are beginning to appear in cars and trucks, slowly replacing the gasoline engine which has been around “forever”). Develop and launch new products before your competitors do.The 4 Marketing tools are like the promotional techniques in one way – you get the best results if you figureo Price – follow either a high quality/high price or low quality/low price strategy. Don’t get trapped in the middle (it’s slower than letting sales people set prices but you’ll still go out of business).
o Promotion – budget to spend a percentage of your sales on promotion at the beginning of each year. Keep your promotional program going all year – don’t wait until your reps. get short of leads or sales fall off.
o Place/Distribution Channels – should be changed either at different points in a product’s life (how easy is it, these days, to find a small, independent retail store selling only computer hardware) or in the face of new technology (you can buy many of the same products from a Future Shop store or from their web site).
The role of the Human Resources Department has changed dramatically over the past 30 years and will become increasingly more strategic in nature in the future, said a leading light of the HR community in the recent 2006 Annual Conference and Exposition of HR practitioners in Washington, DC.Rita Craig, president of the Craig Group and a long-time professional HR consultant, said the role of HR has changed from a primarily administrative position to one that is more strategic. Times certainly have change from those days when the HR department was called the "smile and file" department since in that era, the primary qualifications for HR were simply a friendly disposition and an ability to file.She said that the eme
Second, don’t confuse Marketing with Promotion. Using advertising (print, radio, T.V., billboards etc.), public relations, direct mail, web sites, email, or telemarketing are ways of promoting your business. Promotion is only one of 4 Marketing tools, and, before we leave it behind for a moment, here are a couple of “don’ts” regarding promotion. Don’t:
o Expect an advertisement to bring you results the first (or even the second or third) time you use it. Consistency of use is one of requirements for advertising to work.
o Be surprised if the response to your direct mail (or email) campaigns is “low”. A 2 or 3% response rate may be all that you should be expecting.Third, remember that you have 4 Marketing tools at your disposal. We’ve talked about 3 of them already – product, price and promotion. The fourth is your distribution channels – how you get your products to the end user. A couple of points to remember:o Look for a flood of visitors to come to your web site and buy your products – unless you spend time and money “optimizing” your site for search engines.
o Forget that you’ll get better results by using several of the promotional techniques in an integrated campaign, for example follow up a direct mail or email piece with telemarketing.
o Products – have a “life”. Some will remain in demand longer than others but none go on forever (notice how hybrid engines are beginning to appear in cars and trucks, slowly replacing the gasoline engine which has been around “forever”). Develop and launch new products before your competitors do.The 4 Marketing tools are like the promotional techniques in one way – you get the best results if you figureo Price – follow either a high quality/high price or low quality/low price strategy. Don’t get trapped in the middle (it’s slower than letting sales people set prices but you’ll still go out of business).
o Promotion – budget to spend a percentage of your sales on promotion at the beginning of each year. Keep your promotional program going all year – don’t wait until your reps. get short of leads or sales fall off.
o Place/Distribution Channels – should be changed either at different points in a product’s life (how easy is it, these days, to find a small, independent retail store selling only computer hardware) or in the face of new technology (you can buy many of the same products from a Future Shop store or from their web site).
Rumours have been abounding all week that another major competitor has just bitten the dust spectacularly but, until it's confirmed – and maybe even afterwards – I think it's best to leave that alone.All in all, though, not very good for the reputation of the recruitment industry which is never that good anyway. Even in a world where ridiculous surveys - like the analysis of Oxford which cost the City Council ?15,000 which found that the city had “a good university” - are the in-thing, you wont come across any polls that put recruitment anywhere near the top of the most admired way to spend your working life. No-one ever grows up with a burning desire to be in it, most end up in it by accident and – like many profe
o Expect an advertisement to bring you results the first (or even the second or third) time you use it. Consistency of use is one of requirements for advertising to work.
o Be surprised if the response to your direct mail (or email) campaigns is “low”. A 2 or 3% response rate may be all that you should be expecting.Third, remember that you have 4 Marketing tools at your disposal. We’ve talked about 3 of them already – product, price and promotion. The fourth is your distribution channels – how you get your products to the end user. A couple of points to remember:o Look for a flood of visitors to come to your web site and buy your products – unless you spend time and money “optimizing” your site for search engines.
o Forget that you’ll get better results by using several of the promotional techniques in an integrated campaign, for example follow up a direct mail or email piece with telemarketing.
o Products – have a “life”. Some will remain in demand longer than others but none go on forever (notice how hybrid engines are beginning to appear in cars and trucks, slowly replacing the gasoline engine which has been around “forever”). Develop and launch new products before your competitors do.The 4 Marketing tools are like the promotional techniques in one way – you get the best results if you figureo Price – follow either a high quality/high price or low quality/low price strategy. Don’t get trapped in the middle (it’s slower than letting sales people set prices but you’ll still go out of business).
o Promotion – budget to spend a percentage of your sales on promotion at the beginning of each year. Keep your promotional program going all year – don’t wait until your reps. get short of leads or sales fall off.
o Place/Distribution Channels – should be changed either at different points in a product’s life (how easy is it, these days, to find a small, independent retail store selling only computer hardware) or in the face of new technology (you can buy many of the same products from a Future Shop store or from their web site).
Many pass over the thought of themselves actually working in the industry due to the common mindset... "if one has talent they have a chance in music." If one wants weekly (or bi-weekly) pay with benefits one seeks a normal job in the 9-5 workforce. This is simply false. Most people love music to some extent. Those that are paying attention to their future and careers know or at least wish they can be involved with something they love.Many will admit they believe they don’t have what it takes to make it in the music industry and some will admit they don’t have a desire to be a musical artist. But many will also admit they need a job, and for longevity’s sake will admit they need a career they love. They love music and
Third, remember that you have 4 Marketing tools at your disposal. We’ve talked about 3 of them already – product, price and promotion. The fourth is your distribution channels – how you get your products to the end user. A couple of points to remember:
o Products – have a “life”. Some will remain in demand longer than others but none go on forever (notice how hybrid engines are beginning to appear in cars and trucks, slowly replacing the gasoline engine which has been around “forever”). Develop and launch new products before your competitors do.The 4 Marketing tools are like the promotional techniques in one way – you get the best results if you figureo Price – follow either a high quality/high price or low quality/low price strategy. Don’t get trapped in the middle (it’s slower than letting sales people set prices but you’ll still go out of business).
o Promotion – budget to spend a percentage of your sales on promotion at the beginning of each year. Keep your promotional program going all year – don’t wait until your reps. get short of leads or sales fall off.
o Place/Distribution Channels – should be changed either at different points in a product’s life (how easy is it, these days, to find a small, independent retail store selling only computer hardware) or in the face of new technology (you can buy many of the same products from a Future Shop store or from their web site).
When you sell your time, you sell your life. You might as well be a slave or a mercenary – or an employee. You cannot get rich selling time unless you’re very highly qualified or a rock star or film star. That’s why most consultants and coaches experience peaks and valleys - “chicken or feathers” – their income is seasonal and they work harder and harder for less and less.When I meet with my Joint Venture Forum Members, I always tell them that they should have each Joint Venture they consider fit within the following parameters: “No time, no risk, no cost, win/win.” That doesn’t mean a Joint Venture won’t take time to set it up, or a little expense up front – it simply means that ideally, the JV should run like a money
o Promotion – budget to spend a percentage of your sales on promotion at the beginning of each year. Keep your promotional program going all year – don’t wait until your reps. get short of leads or sales fall off.
o Place/Distribution Channels – should be changed either at different points in a product’s life (how easy is it, these days, to find a small, independent retail store selling only computer hardware) or in the face of new technology (you can buy many of the same products from a Future Shop store or from their web site).
The 4 Marketing tools are like the promotional techniques in one way – you get the best results if you figure out the combination of all 4 that gets the best reaction from your market.
Four, check regularly that you are still focused only on that part of the total market that needs your products and can pay for them. Focus your resources on a well defined group of people or companies who share similar characteristics – including a need for your products. It’s likely to be much more profitable than chasing everyone who might, one day, have a need for your services. You can perform a reality check by thinking about what your best customer looks like. Make sure that you are only dealing with (and looking for) more people or companies like them. But remember, there needs to be enough of them, each generating enough demand, to allow you to make a profit.
If you’re doing all 4 of the things we’ve talked about you have an effective Marketing Strategy. Clearly identifying a “target” market and then applying the most effective combination or “mix” of the 4 marketing tools to it are the 2 ingredients for developing a great marketing strategy. To make it come to life – because after all it’s all about execution – insist your marketing team (in-house or outsourced) expresses all of the things that they have to do to execute the product, price and channel management strategies and their promotional program as SMART goals.
Not sure what a SMART goal is? Send me an email at jimstewart@profitpath.ca or call me at 416-258-9610 and I’ll be happy to tell you. To share your experiences, to take issue with anything I’ve said or to get some insight in how to execute, contact me in the same way.
One final tip - a couple of months ago we ran an article which gave 3 tips on how to make your Marketing programs more effective. It was called “Juice up the results of your Marketing programs” and you can read it at www.profitpath.ca/articles-detail-261
© Copyright ProfitPATH, a division of JDS & Associates Inc., 2007
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