redistribute marketing efforts Archives by Mark Murnahan

7 Reasons Your Marketing Sucks

Get ready to feel defensive, because I am going to tell you what you are doing wrong. I am going to share seven (of many) things that suck about your marketing efforts. These are things that you are doing wrong, or not doing at all which suck so bad it is like a vacuum cleaner pulling money right out of your pocket. I am not telling you how terrible you are at your marketing just so you can pout about it and leave nasty comments on my blog. I am telling you this so you can stop going broke and making bad excuses for your failures. Note that I am also not telling you this to sell you a solution, because if you are screwing these things up, you are probably not in my target audience. I get paid for my work, and if you are screwing up this badly, you cannot afford me.

Got it? OK then, pick up your bottom lip and stop drooling on yourself about all the money you are going to earn with this new information. I am not giving you the keys to the kingdom. I am just going to try and help your marketing to suck less. So let’s stop sucking and start fixing some of your marketing screw-ups.

In case you wondered: Do I really have to be so abrasive? Not really, but unless I slap you around a little and let you know how much terrible marketing really sickens me, you may not get the point as clearly as I intend it. Maybe it will help you to realize that this is not just another ploy to dig my hands into your pockets. Besides those points, who wants to read another dull blog post about how to perform better marketing? I think the Internet already has plenty of that. Heck, have you seen my archive? Yeah, you didn’t pay close enough attention or your marketing would probably not suck this badly.

On with the list! Here are seven reasons your marketing sucks. These are not in order of importance or suckness. They all suck, and I will bet a photo of my middle finger that you are doing at least a couple of these.

Reason One That Your Marketing Sucks: Lack of Measurement

It is really easy for people to just keep tossing out their name and trying different ways to increase their business, but if your results are not measurable and accounted for, your marketing sucks. What good is it to gain more business and not know precisely why, and how to repeat it? I see this a lot, and it is a novice mistake that you make because you do not understand the value of good marketing. Without useful measurement, you never will.

Reason Two That Your Marketing Sucks: Lack of Plan

When you do not have a plan, it is hard to have proper measurement. Many would-be great marketing efforts fail by lack of a sustainable plan. A plan includes research, goals, measurement, budget, and good old fashioned hard work. If you are opposed to work, you really should avoid marketing what you offer anyway.

Reason Three That Your Marketing Sucks: Lack of Budget

A measurable plan will still suck if there is no budget. People tell me all the time that they do not have a marketing budget. Seriously? No marketing budget? How can you be in business and not have a budget set aside for marketing? A marketing budget should be based on known factors surrounding your market and it uses logic-based, mathematically provable facts. This is not mythical, this is the real world. If you don’t have a marketing budget, your marketing sucks … and it sucks really bad.

Reason Four That Your Marketing Sucks: Lack of Goals

A goal does not need to be 120 pages of unsustainable crap. It should be easy to understand and it should be achievable. It should be based on real information, and not on hype, fear, or other subjective junk your mind will throw at you. Goals should be meaningful. Just think about this: If some thug comes to pick up your daughter for a date, do you look at him differently if he lacks goals? Set some purposeful and researched goals so that your marketing can begin to suck less.

Reason Five That Your Marketing Sucks: Selling Product

You are trying to sell a product or service rather than address the reasons somebody would want your product or service. If you want to sell a car, you are not selling four wheels and a bunch of metal. You are selling freedom to roam, fun road trips, family safety, peace of mind, personal status, comfort, pride, dealership reputation, brand reputation, and other things. If you are selling the car without understanding the reasons people will benefit from buying your car, your marketing is wasted … and it sucks.

Reason Six That Your Marketing Sucks: Price-Selling

We all heard about this recession, right? It is not a secret anymore, but if you are marketing based on cost over value, your marketing sucks. There will always be somebody willing to sell it for less and bastardize your market. When you join them, there is little chance you will ever beat them. Raving fans and brand advocates are not created by price tags. Look at Apple Computers as an example of not selling based on price alone. They may not rule the personal computer market, but they rule their market.

Reason Seven That Your Marketing Sucks: Zombie Marketing

Zombie herding is a thing of the past, but yet you still try this against all odds. When you think that simply finding a bunch of people to pitch your goods to is marketing, your marketing sucks. You try to reach out with your message as far and wide as possible, but then forget the importance of all those active and vibrant living human beings who will spread the message for you if you just stop treating them like zombies. Tweeting and Facebooking your latest special is easy. Any mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, drooling and babbling fool can do that … and they are! Pull yourself together and be memorable. Your customers are real people with real brains. Stop treating them like zombies.

I see this all day long on the Internet. People tend to forget that the intent is to reach real live people, and not just some fuzzy demographic.

Summary of Marketing That Sucks

There I go again, giving away what I know. I keep saying I will stop doing that, because when you know everything I know, I am out of a job. The good news is that if everybody who comes to me for marketing had this much sucking in their market, I would not want to do my job anyway. Knuckleheads be gone! Come back when you begin to suck less and want to do more business.

Bonus Reason Your Marketing Sucks: You have no backbone and you are trying to please too many people. Build a brand and stand strong to the brand. If you are afraid that somebody will not like your brand, let me burst that bubble for you early. Some people will hate you. They will hate everything you stand for and everything you do. If you are too afraid to polarize your audience, give up now. Being famous often requires having the guts to be infamous.

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Is Your Marketing Microcosm Too Micro?

This is not just about thinking bigger, but more about thinking outside of what you know … or rather, what you think you know. This is not an attack against you, or it must be attack against me, too. The fact is that we plain and simply do not know how much we do not know. Until we know it, and address those important but unknown issues, we stand to suffer many losses.

Some people will term it “thinking outside the box” but that is not natural for most people, and it can certainly hold its dangers in office politics. Let’s face it, independent and creative thinking is not encouraged enough. Most people think the way they are told to think. After all, that is most of what proper schooling is about. I respect the way Albert Einstein observed it with his statement as follows:

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

–Albert Einstein

It is hard to believe this occurs in a time with such great communication and collaboration tools, but it is quite common. Just consider how many times a creative person is suspected of gunning for the boss’ job and gets kneecapped for having great ideas. Even when this is not the case, it is often feared to be reality, or there are fears of not receiving proper recognition. Most companies hate to admit this, but a lot of great thoughts never make it up the flagpole because of a culture like I describe here, or somebody mediocre shot it down prematurely. Maybe it is because the decision makers do not understand the value, they are threatened, or otherwise just can’t get their head out of that box. Whatever the case, I know that it exists, because I see it all the time. Companies create their own misery, and the same thing happens in companies from one employee to thousands of employees. It is often a case of not knowing what they do not know, and it stunts their growth … often very badly.

The Tragedy of Projecting Your Own Beliefs

The fact that we do not know how much we do not know about our potential customers and their way of thinking can be tragic. It is so simple to think we have a good picture of them, but a very common fact is that we project our own lives and ideas onto them. When we think we know what they want, or what they should want, it gets in the way … badly! For example, I recall roughly 20 years ago selling cars to supplement three companies I was getting off the ground at the same time. I was pouring everything I could into those companies, and thank goodness. Two were pretty big hits for me.

At the time, I did not really relate to buying high dollar cars. Later, as life changed and I started buying nicer cars, I started seeing things differently. I realized signs of mistakes I had made back then by projecting my own thoughts or lifestyle. I have witnessed it from salespeople who were shy to ask for the sale or to ask for their reasonable profit, because they could not see themselves in my position, as the customer. I like buying nice things. I like cars and motorcycles … a lot. I have spent well over half a million on cars in a given year. I recall making a believer of a sales manager when I purchased three Corvettes, and a Cadillac Escalade from him. He learned to ask for the money when I came to buy cars that range from $60-80,000 each, and I admire him for it. I wanted those fine things, and even though it was not something that made a lot of sense in his life, he realized it made perfect sense in my life. You see, he stopped second-guessing the sale by projecting his life onto customers, and he did a lot more business for it.

You Know Your Market, But Could You Know More?

I am a marketing guy. I work with clients every day who think they know their market. To some degree, they do … they must, or they would not be in business at all. Would it surprise you to hear an opinion that the majority of businesses are really far off the mark where it comes to the most valuable resources for growing their business? This is not just something that struck me today. No, not at all. This is something that I have learned in over two decades of marketing experience and studies.

It is astonishingly true for many companies that a more refined look at their own marketplace is simply impossible from within. They need outside eyes, and new ideas. They do not have the means to reach beyond their microcosm … their little box where they are comfortable. I consider the locker scene from “Men in Black” or “Horton Hears a Who” by Dr. Seuss. These are good examples of not seeing beyond a small microcosm and realizing things from the other side.

Unless a company is enjoying a huge burst of market share increase, they can generally make big improvements. Come on, we can agree on this point, right? Even in instances of a dwindling market, if a business is not growing but yet somebody else in the industry getting bigger, there is some reason. Would you like to guess the most common reason? I hope you guessed marketing, because it is true that if a company reaches the right people, at the right time, with the right message, and there is a sufficient value proposition, their business will grow.

Marketing … really good marketing makes a difference, but that often requires an uncomfortable look beyond what a business thinks. It means thinking outside of themselves. It all sounds simple, but I have seen it a squillion times that a whole room of marketers will all turn pale and their mouths get dry when you show them how wrong they were. Although it often feels like lightning just cracked through the room, the reality is that it is often far more subtle differences that make the big difference.

It means taking the uncomfortable look outside of what you know. It means knowing that if you do not know it, you had better find somebody who does, and is willing to share it with you. It means finding that lightning and bottling it.

In the end, it often means getting a clean set of untarnished eyes to stand outside the box and help drag you out to see what you could not see before. It should not be a surprise to learn that one of the distinct advantages of a marketing consultant it that they are not already contaminated by what cannot be done, or what a client thinks cannot be done.

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Marketing Cost vs. Marketing Value

If you make your price the first priority in a cost to value comparison, you may want to reconsider. Cost is a fast way to get a lot of public attention, but it can also provide a negative net return. Showing a low cost has a solid place in some markets, but consider evaluating the cost and value propositions you present to your market. If you are building upon only an audience of “glancing prospects”, you may miss your best customers in the process. What I call glancing prospects are the ones who are out for cost, and that is the primary factor in their decision making. They glance in your direction and give little consideration to anything but how much it will cost. You may like these customers if you are content to offer the lowest cost, but they are also often not return customers or loyal to your brand. It is not just because you didn’t provide value, but because value is not what they were seeking. Thus, they never realized your value.

There are different kinds of buyers in any market, and there are still many who consider value over price. Even while shopping for identical products, many people will consider the value of buying it from somebody they trust or find other benefits from. It takes more effort to find value-shoppers than to find price-shoppers, but they are worth every bit of it. They will be back, and they will tell their friends.

I will use my industry as an example, but it is important to consider this in any industry. I sell marketing. In my case, value is all that really matters. Return on investment (ROI) is what makes sense to my clients. What they spend is not what matters but rather what they will receive for their money … which is more money. Profit is what my clients want, and they will do what it takes to get it. At the same time, I also attract a lot of “glancing prospects” and “lookers” without any intention of seeking value. Do you want to guess which one I consider important? That’s right … I want the ones who want the ROI and look closer to understand the value of my services.

Cheap Marketing and Low Value

Business people are cost-conscious, and more now than ever. Ironically, this often leads them to mistakes that sabotage their business efforts. As a reaction to their fears, companies will often drop their prices and subsequently drop their value. Marketing is the easiest cost to cut, but also the fastest way to reduce profit and go out of business. I watch companies all the time that neglect the value of their marketing, and try to use a cost proposition in place of a value proposition. It is a short-term cashflow bandage that becomes their undoing.

You can call me crazy, but I am smart enough to get dressed before going to the grocery store. In fact, I can be pretty downright bright, on a good day. I guess I am not smart enough to see the “wisdom” in some people’s reasoning of comparing cost above value. Some will try to weigh the cost with value, but often use completely flawed metrics for comparison. I see people all the time who do not understand how dangerous bargain hunting can be when it comes to their marketing, or with other purchases.

How Valuable is Marketing?

Marketing is what makes companies money. Marketing is how customers find companies and companies find customers. Marketing, in some manner or another, is the only way a company will earn a profit. Marketing should not have a net cost, but rather a profit gain. Marketing should be viewed as an investment, and not an expense. Seeking the lowest cost for something so value-driven seems like the absolute absence of logic. Looking for value, on the other hand, is brilliant.

Do People Really Seek Cheap Marketing?

Yes, a lot of people ask questions about the cost of marketing and rates for marketing-related services. At least that is what my website visitor logs show me. Perhaps you see the same in your industry. I am including a list of cost-related things people searched for and found my blog. Some of them are pretty amusing. People even found my blog searching to find how much it costs to join Facebook.

One of the first things a person in my field often hears is “how much will it cost?” I weed these out fast, because when cost is the question and value is secondary, usually the person asking fits into one of two categories as follows:

They do not have enough money to afford quality marketing. If they do not have the money to do things right, they will never be pleased … ever. It is the same kind of client who tries to tell the consultant what to do rather than accept the consultation they pay to receive.
They ask about cost because it is the question they know best. They assume that a lower investment comes with a lower risk, but this is really not the case. This assumption places the value equation completely backward. Without value, the cost of marketing does not matter. It is not worth it at any cost, and can often have disastrous results.

Similarly, in your line of work, you will likely find that if your prospective customers recognize the value of what you offer, they will often find a way to deal with the cost.

Marketing Value and Cost Consideration: Do You Buy Price Tags?

I have never bought a price tag, but I have purchased a lot of things with price tags on them. Sure, some people buy price tags … literal price tags. What I mean is whether you look at an item and decide that you want it and then look at the price tag, or do you look at the price tag to decide whether you want it. Think about your customers and how they may address this same question. Value-seeking customers will decide whether they want or need something, acknowledge that they want or need it, and then look at the price tag. Cost-seeking customers will look at the price tag and if the price is “right” decide whether it was something they were even interested in buying. They love to look, but they hate to part with money more than they enjoy what they receive in return. NOTE: For this customer, the “right” price is highly subjective to poor interpretation.

Cost, Rates, and Value: Lookers Are Everywhere!

Glancing prospects are very easy to lure. I can drag them in by the truckload. Just have a look at these recent searches people performed to land here at my blog, and then consider how many of these I will likely do business with. Don’t get me wrong, because I like when people ask about cost. It is a buying sign and tells me they are in the market. The fact remains that when somebody asks me about cost before understanding value, I normally tell them kindly that they are simply not ready for what I offer. What I offer is profit!

There are enough people asking about cost, but it is funny to find that a comparatively few people ask questions of value. Those are the people I want, and I hope you can see the value in this, too!

Note that my list of “What Cheap People Search For” is based on actual terms people typed into a search engine and clicked on my blog. I couldn’t make this up if I tried. You may not be as amused as I am, but somebody actually wanted to know “how much does a sheep cost” … really, a sheep. Darn, I don’t sell sheep. You can bet that if I did sell sheep, they wouldn’t be cheap sheep.

Marketing as Usual: More Money and Less Exposure

I work with marketing numbers every day in my business, but sometimes I like to break it down to an individual level and gather more specific opinions. I can’t be brilliant every day so some days I rely on my dear Mother. I did that today, and I asked her about marketing. Ironic, isn’t it?

Since my mother remembers the days before television, and when telephone lines were shared across multiple households, I figured she could provide a good representation of “old school” thinking about marketing. I asked her a very specific question as follows: “If you were going to market a business, where would you focus your efforts?” She did not even ask me what kind of business before she replied “On the Internet.” I asked her, “Why do you think that some businesses still don’t think that way?” She said “I think they do, don’t they?” I told her that overall market spending spend says yes, but that I still find some companies marketing as “usual” … as if it is 2007. I wanted her opinion of why this could be the case. She said something that I have thought many times, and her reply was “It is foreign to them, and they probably just don’t understand how it can work for them.”

Thanks Mom!

The Monsters Disappear When You Turn on the Lights

Now do you agree with my Baby Boomer age mother? Nod yes. Most people agree that the Internet is the way to go for marketing. It is the most measurable venue for marketing of all, but I sometimes wonder if people realize that fact. The Internet provides enough data that marketing efforts can be accounted for down to every “click” and every dollar. You simply must look at enough data to create statistical significance. Anybody who does not grasp the value of measurements in marketing probably just does not understand it, and may be just a little bit scared. It seems that Internet marketing comes with a fear that many people have a hard time overcoming. The fear can be proven irrational using facts, but some people are just too stubborn to pay attention long enough to learn. They hear it, and they think it, but until they take the time to know the facts, they don’t fully believe it. I think of it like a kid with a bad dream when you turn on the lights, all the monsters disappear.

Many people want to achieve huge success before they actually make a reasonable and well calculated effort toward online marketing. They can read case studies of how others have done it, even in their industry, but as soon as the lights go out, they see monsters again.

Marketing Like a Goldfish in a Shark Tank

Fear and disbelief are big reasons that most companies using the Internet for marketing are doing it terribly unsuccessfully. They want to dip their toe in the water and test it out with a goldfish sized budget. What nobody tells them is that there are sharks in that water. If you don’t swim like a shark, you are likely to be “bitten” and fail miserably. The sad result for many business people is that once they are bitten, they will blame the water or the sharks, but they seldom ever blame the real culprit … themselves!

The alternative to having a shark budget is to shrink the tank using a more focused and creative marketing approach. It requires significant marketing talent to create success, even with a shark budget, but talent is even more important with a goldfish budget. In every case, it still requires more than a toe in the water to avoid the shark bite of an unsuccessful marketing attempt.

If you want your marketing to be successful, you can be one of the sharks or you can shrink the tank with focused marketing enough to take away the sharks’ advantage. Either way, you will have to address the sharks!

Bolstering the fears associated with Internet marketing is the fact that most Internet marketers (SEO, SEM, SMM, Guru, Expert, Maven, Evangelist, et. Al.) really stink at their job. It should also be noted that even the good ones will suffer if they have a client who bucks them at every turn, already knows it all, or asks them to jump through flaming hoops with a goldfish budget in a shark tank. Of course, successful marketers will usually not put themselves in this position. We understand the numbers, and we know that the chance of failure due to under-marketing is statistically significant.

We have surely all seen the overwhelming data, or at least heard a huge frenzy about newspapers, television, radio, and telephone book advertising sales each dropping like lead balloons. There is a reason for this, and the reason is that the Internet is far more effective. Still, I find it shocking to witness companies that have not shifted their efforts and their budget where it can make an impact.

I went on talking with my mother and we discussed business marketing budgets. I was curious why a company spending “x” dollars on ineffective marketing will often try to take a small fraction of that same amount of money to market on the Internet. I asked whether, as they shift their efforts, if it made sense for them to plan to spend less money and effort in the place it could really work. I asked her “If you were going to budget efforts between television, newspapers, phone books, and Internet, which one would get the biggest portion?” Without regard for industry, she said “the Internet, because you can reach anybody there”, and she was right. Of course, she did not have the fear that I was going to sell her something. She could be honest with me about what most people already know, but are afraid to address.

What Will it Take to Double Your Business?

Have you ever asked yourself what it will take to double your business? Adjust this question to your business however you like, but you should always be able to answer the question. If you operate very small or new business, doubling it is a pretty easy task. If you have been around a while and have a significant market share in your industry, this may be a pretty lofty goal. If you want to be “realistic” (by the way, realism is very subjective), maybe you want to increase your business by 15 percent, 25 percent, or 35 percent. Whatever the number, ask yourself what it will take to achieve it, and set a course to do it. Make a goal and treat it like an egg. Keep it warm, keep it safe from harm, and nurture it every day.

Treat Your Business How You Want it to Hatch

Successful business people ask what it will take to grow their market. Successful companies, even the small ones, treat their business like it is a big one, and like it will eventually hatch into a huge one. This is a pretty important principle that drives many companies to massive success.

Lately it seems that many companies have given up on the hope of growth and just beg to keep the market they have. A shocking truth I often find is that many businesses have a lot more means to grow than they give themselves credit. Many of them are too backed up in bureaucracy and indecision to actually make the efforts it will take to achieve growth. Executives are so afraid of losing their jobs for making a bad decision that they make the worst decision of all, which is indecision.

Don’t Lose your Business in the Marketing Omelette

There is often a simple answer to increase your business, but finding that answer is the tricky part. A truth about businesses today is that as the economy changed quickly in the past couple years, marketing changed even faster. Marketing became more confusing, and companies have to be a lot more creative to reach those elusive customers. It seems insane to me that as competition is stronger, a lot of companies have either tried really hard at doing all the wrong things or just gave up to take a “wait and see” attitude toward their market. They gave up on their egg and are letting the competition come and peck away at it. They ran out of ideas, and stopped seeking that simple but elusive answer of how to keep growing.

Business Growth Requires Defined Efforts

Flight does not happen by accident, and if you ever want that egg to hatch and fly, you must take good care of it. Achieving business growth requires defined efforts and careful attention. Here is that question for you, again. What will it take to double your business? If you cannot answer this with a clearly defined plan for success, there are people who can help. It is my job to make companies successful. Ring me up at *REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE* (*REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE*) and I will be happy to help you in the right direction. If I am not the guy to help you, rest assured that I know people who will be delighted to work with you. I am always happy to pass along a referral. Most importantly, don’t give up on your egg and do something to nurture it every day. Success is likely a whole lot more achievable than you give yourself credit.