marketing cost Archives - Page 4 of 4 by Mark Murnahan

Will Exposure to Thousands More People Help Your Business?

The answer to this question is not always yes. Here is an even better question for you to consider. Will presenting an appealing message to thousands more of the right people who are interested in your products or services be beneficial to your business? Maybe your answer is “no”, but I really doubt that.

There are a lot of questions to be answered about reaching a targeted audience that is important to your business. There is a lot of fear of failure and loss. Sometimes I think the people who doubt potential for increasing business using the Internet the most are often convinced that it only happens for the lucky ones. I have good news for you. You have the luck of the Irish on your side today, and they don’t call me “Murnahan” for being French.

Tough Marketing Questions for Many People

Marketing is a scary thing to a lot of people. I mean, it all seems so speculative, right? Maybe you think it seems like a bunch of guesswork, and some people just get lucky.

Marketing is not so speculative at all. This is not like rolling dice on a craps table and gambling with your company’s money, except for the newcomers to the marketing industry who are trying to earn as they learn. There is a lot of math and science at work. Doing it right sometimes just means making proper calculations. On the other hand, the message you deliver requires marketing creativity, but even creativity is not as speculative as you may imagine. There really are a lot of safeguards in proper marketing, and it does not need to be risky.

The truth is that there are a lot of people who just don’t hit the mark. They don’t get the marketing right the first time, and that opens a floodgate of fears and apprehension. It begs some tough marketing questions for many people. Some of the hardest questions running through people’s minds are as follows:

“Is it really likely that I can reach thousands more people interested in what I offer”
“How much will it really help my business?”
“How much it will cost?”

These are troubling questions that hold a lot of people back from the much more important considerations of what happens if you do nothing, or keep doing the things that do not work. I will offer you some answers to each of these. Please pay attention.

Now Seriously, Would Exposure to Thousands More People Help Your Business?

When you hear something like this it is really easy to assume that it is just hype, or that it will not be worth the expense, right? Often, it truly is just hype, but it is true that there really are thousands of potential customers out there. If you have the right message, at the right time, and deliver it properly, those can be your customers. This is not a myth, and it is not a unicorn hunting expedition. It takes some well crafted effort to achieve, but it really is not all that hard to gain huge amounts of new business with proper Internet marketing.

Is it really likely that I can reach thousands more people interested in what I offer?

Are there really thousands more people out there on the Internet who are interested in what you have to offer? Yes, people have actually even been successful selling dog poop online! Is it likely to reach the right audience with a proper marketing plan? Yes, but a weak plan with little effort will just disappoint you, again.

You can rest assured that there are not very many of the tens of thousands of readers that come to my blog each month who are seeking tips for knitting pajamas. They come because they want ideas, and they want to know what I know about SEO, social media, and other Internet marketing topics. Now what percentage of Internet users do you think are really interested in marketing? Seriously, this isn’t the most fun you ever had. Most people try to ignore marketing until the competition destroys their business. Don’t you think some people will be interested in what you have to offer, too?

How much will it really help my business?

Here is one of those easy questions to answer with math. You know how much each customer is worth to your business, right? You know how much you spend to acquire each customer, right? With this information and other vital data, it is pretty easy to calculate the actual gain to your business. If you do not have solid numbers, you really need marketing help more than you realize.

I understand that you hear all of the talk about the Internet being like the big California Gold Rush of 1848. You are surely hit by hundreds of Internet marketers trying to sell you SEO snake oil or proposing that you will make millions of dollars using nothing but Twitter or Facebook. Yes, most of these offers are crap, and easy to see through.

Now let’s stop being silly and answer this serious question. If it is true that you can realistically reach a targeted audience of thousands more people with an interest in what you offer, wouldn’t it be absolutely absurd to ignore it? Here is the answer: Yes, it would be absolutely absurd, and the scary cost is that your competitor will probably reach the people you missed. Question answered? Yes, I think so.

How much will it cost?

If you see marketing as a net loss, you are really not getting the point of it at all. Perhaps you have just tried all the wrong things and you are tired of trying.

If you think of Internet marketing as an investment in your business, you are on the right track. Like an investment, you must consider how much you want to gain. The consideration of a well thought out and effective marketing plan should be more along the lines of how much money you can get your hands on to do the one thing that will grow your business more than anything else. When people ask me the question of cost before any considerations of the objectives and directives involved, I tell them “You had better bring your lunch money.” This is for two reasons. First, because the more you put into marketing, the more you get out of it. Second, because I have a whole lot to teach this person about how marketing really works.

I have written many articles on the topic of Internet marketing and development cost. Here are a couple of them that you may find interesting:

One More Question!

Oh yes, I already asked you this one, but now it is time for your answer. Will presenting an appealing message to thousands more of the right people who are interested in your products or services be beneficial to your business? I ask this, because it is what makes my telephones ring. It is what I do for my clients. This is not a rhetorical question. Find me here if you want more answers.

I want to offer a lesson in how and why fear drives your market, and how to better address that fear. It is not only fear, but emotions … many emotions that drive your market. The biggest one to overcome is fear. I will give you examples, but first, I want you to look at your own business motivations. If you look at your own motivations, you will better understand what motivates others. Here are some easy questions to help illustrate the point and get your thoughts moving in a good direction.

Question One: When you think of your marketing, do you think of having your name everywhere so that people will buy more of what you offer, or do you think of how nice it will feel to have a more secure business? (NOTE: They may go hand in hand, but the result is what you are after … not the cause.)

Question Two: Do you think of the money you earn, or do you think about the great neighborhood you live in, or hope to live in one day? (NOTE: Money alone is not a good result … What you do with it is another story.)

Question Three: Do you think of the fancy possessions and the great fortune you will amass, or do you think of the feelings those things will give you? (NOTE: Wanting something without a reason is no better than not wanting it at all.)

Question Four: Do you think of the things you want, or do you think of why you want them and how it will give you opportunities that you do not have today? (NOTE: I suspect there is a hint of what you really want in this question.)

Question Five: Do you really think you have a good idea of why people do business with you, or do you project your own opinions onto them in hopes it will work? (NOTE: If there is some doubt, you may want to consider what happens if you are wrong.)

There will be two categories of answers here, and one creates success, while the other will leave you disappointed. One is visionary, addresses emotions, and overcomes fears. The other will keep you where you are, with what you’ve got. It may shock you to find that you often use logic to override your own good decisions because of fear. The way logic and emotion relate in your life will have a lot to do with success or failure in how you see your business and it is reflected in your marketing.

I see it all the time that scared people do not make successful decisions in their business and in their marketing. On the other side, I find that the people with balls the size of Volkswagens and who can overcome their fear are taking success to a whole new plane. This is reflected in USA, where there was a 16 percent increase in the number of millionaires in 2009 (yes, during recession) and a 17 percent growth in households with a net worth of $5 million or more. This came following a major decline in 2008, and is a high-level look at how recession separated the fearful from the courageous.

I wrote about this on December 24th 2008 in an article titled “Recession Marketing: Choosing Logic Over Emotion” which discusses overcoming fear by using logic to divert bad decisions.

Do You Want Steak or Do you Want Sizzle?

In sales and marketing, the topic of emotion vs. logic has often been referred to as selling the sizzle and not the steak. The steak is an object. The steak represents the simple logic that people must eat to stay alive. The sizzle is an exciting representation of how that steak smells, tastes, and how satisfying it will be to sink your teeth in and enjoy.

If you want steak and the logic it represents, you are seeking the wrong thing. If you find that you want sizzle, and the things that come along with that steak, you are on a lot better path to getting things right, and getting what you want.

The list of questions and analogies can go on forever. Whatever your answers, I can tell you that success in marketing is strongly based in emotion and not logic. People do not choose their careers with an emphasis on logic, and when they do, they often end up making a career change when they realize it does not make them happy. People do not make purchasing decisions based solely on logic, either. They try very hard, but if there is an awkward feeling along with the purchase, they are gone and not coming back.

Logic Fails in Motivating a Market … Yes, Your Market!

Logic can help people to be creative with overcoming their own fears of buying what you offer, but the logic alone is only a tool. Logic is a tool to help people make good decisions, but it actually ranks pretty low in decision making when compared to emotions … namely fear.

Do you remember the last time you went to buy a car? This is something that drives fear through the roof for a lot of people. Cars cost a lot of money, and something has to help you overcome the fear of loss. You replace the fear of loss with the huge gains you receive by driving that new car. You replace the fear of loss with the fear of not getting what you want.

You may try to use the logic that you “need” a new car, or that it will “save” you money by not breaking down as often. That is bologna and we all know it. You want that car, and the sooner you overcome the fear of all that money you lose, the sooner you can sport around in that nice smelling head-turning new car. Won’t it feel good to show it to all of your friends and family? It will be so nice that everything works just right and it is nice and clean. Wow … This new car will be great!

Just believe me for a moment when I say that emotion is what drives these decisions. Sure, you may like to deny it, but go look at your car while you think about this. Just don’t get too emotional or you may end up visiting a car salesman today!

A Drive Down Logic Street

As I drove down my street on the way home from visiting a friend this weekend, I saw a lot of interesting answers all around me. I was thinking, as I often do, about my work in the field of marketing. I thought of all those lovely homes, nice cars, and best-dressed people. I thought of what motivates them. I thought of what it means to them that they drive this or that, that their postal code is this or that, how they got there, and how emotion is what made it all possible. Emotion is what drove their decisions, and emotion is what drove the decisions of the people who helped them get there.

I arrived home and looked at my blog’s visitor statistics. It shows me that many people search the Internet seeking logic to make decisions. They search (and find me) for things like SEO hourly rates, rates for web developers, and a squillion other terms that reflect fears. This reminded me how many people get the questions all wrong. Let me put it to you this way: You cannot get the right answers if the questions are wrong!

These readers in my statistics logs are not really looking for success, but rather seeking something logical to magically tell them how to achieve success. It reminded me that the majority of people get this totally backward by trying to find logical ways to get over their fear. After all, the logic may tell them that less money involved will mean less risk. This is their fear speaking to them, and they miss the elephants walking by while they are looking at all the ants around them. Their fears are telling them to seek something that completely diverts them from what will actually give them the success they want. This is a common fear mechanism that kicks in and keeps them from seeking the scary truth of what will bring them success.

Seeking what seems safe should be what really scares people. Most people want safety, which means that most people are doing the same things. This leaves little room for anything spectacular … just average. Average does not make it very far in a competitive market.

The reality is that overcoming fear of loss by replacing it with another fear such as “what if I get this wrong”, is what will deliver you that sizzling steak. You can probably find instances of this in your own life, but I can provide logic to support this if it alleviates some fear for you.

Begging for Logic in Marketing

People come to me every day hoping to find the perfect logic that will help them to make good decisions. I often point out logic in my work, and I can quantify everything from A to Z. Read my blog for about an hour or so and you will have enough logic about marketing to last you a century. Marketing is a very mathematical and logic-oriented field, but that logic and math is only a tool. I am an uncanny good marketing guy with a lot of facts and figures to prove it. My clients want that logic to help them overcome their fears. The truth of the matter is that what they really want is the sizzle, but they are still hung up on the fears that hold them back.

Proof of Emotion in Marketing

In a recent article titled “Polarize Your Audience and Stop Making Everybody Happy“, I explained that a word I made up went kind of crazy online. The word had ZERO representation in a Google search on February 23rd. Today, just a few weeks later, the word “dubeshag” returns nearly 14,000 results (click it if you need some logical proof).

This did not happen because of logic. It happened because of emotion. I wrote something funny and people became attached to it in some small way. They passed it around, they told others, and they linked to the article.

Here is a little more proof of emotion in marketing. In the photo you see above, there is about a half million dollars worth of toys. I purchased every last one of these vehicles (and more) within about one year, but I never bought one with logic in mind. I wanted the sizzle! The same is true of the clients who afforded me the ability to buy them. They wanted the sizzle, too! Fortunately for them, and me, they discovered their real motivations and overcame their fears enough to pick up the phone and call me (at toll free *REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE*).

The question it begs is this: What fears will stand between you and the sizzle you want?

Push Your Marketing “Go” Button

People dream up a lot of excuses to postpone positive action in their business. In decades of serving clients with marketing services, I must have heard them all. I want to distill a bit of that for you here, and hopefully boost your courage a bit.

I often feel like a police officer listening to peoples’ excuses for speeding. I mean, I should write another book just filled with the awful excuses I have heard from businesses over the years for how and why they messed everything up. By the time it gets to the “judge”, all of those excuses only embarrass the “speeder”. Now put all excuses aside and tell me if you can relate to this. I’ll bet it will sound kind of familiar. You may get a laugh, or you may get a fright.

Let’s first get one thing straight: If your business was simple, everybody would be doing it, and you would be out of a job. Business has its challenges, but there are huge rewards for doing the things others are unwilling or afraid to do.

Money Can Stop Business in Its Tracks!

One thing that seems to stop most businesses in their tracks is money. Actually, the lack of money, or fears surrounding money is what kills them. I have found that money is one of the greatest concerns to most business people. Imagine that! This one basic requisite of business is the same thing stopping them from having more of this one basic thing. It is like a loop … without more money, they don’t have more money. With more money, they get more money. It is crazy how that works, don’t you think?

I have found that with enough money, even a pretty bad business person can at least begin to solve most business issues. Money cannot fix it all, but more money can certainly help to solve the most common business problems. Money can buy better attorneys, it can buy better accountants, and it can buy better talent in most every area of a business. Let’s not lie … at least not to yourself. Sure, lie to me if you must, but really, just think about how much more you can do with a business if you have more money. I know this and you know this, so let’s not beat around that bush.

REMEMBER THIS: In business, the bottom line starts with a dollar sign.

When it comes down to it, money is the biggest reason people make bad decisions in their business, or worse yet, make no decisions at all. It paralyzes people and it clouds their judgment. So the big concern is how to bring a business beyond that hurdle of money.

How do you get your hands on more money? Do you beg a bank for more money? Do you rob a bank, a train, or a liquor store? How about this for an idea? Do more of the things that your business does to generate revenue. In many businesses, this means finding more people to buy a product or service, but in nearly every case it means finding more people … or them finding you!

A Look at Your Marketing Funnel

Let us look at your marketing funnel. I will use the basic idea of a marketing funnel to explain my point. At the top, where the funnel is the widest, you have the people who are aware of your offering. As the funnel narrows, you have people who are thinking about you and may become a customer someday. Closer to the bottom where the money gushes out, you have those hot prospects urgently grabbing their credit cards or check books to do business with you. This is just a basic introduction to the marketing funnel, but you get the point, right? Now let’s look at a couple ways people hurt their business waiting on the marketing funnel.

Waiting for Slower Times

Something I see very troubling in many businesses is that they hold off on their marketing until that biggest bulk of their current sales funnel comes through before they think it is time to get busy marketing. Instead of keeping the funnel full and adding more to it, they wait and see how things come through the funnel before they take action and push the “go” button.

This happens for a couple reasons. One excuse I sometimes hear is that the business is so busy they don’t have time to look forward to the next big rush of customers coming through the funnel. When they are not too busy, they cannot afford to market the business properly. So they go through these violent changes in business … up one day, down the next. The business is like a roller coaster ride.

Being “too busy” is as bad as the lie a teenage boy tells his girlfriend in the back seat of the car … at night … at a scenic overlook. Yeah, lie to a girlfriend, but don’t lie to me. I already heard this one.

Everybody has the same 24 hours in a day, and successful business people make time to be sure their business will still survive after the funnel slows down again. When I hear people say they are too busy to care for their future, I often find that they are simply not marketing in a way that is sustainable. They are the same kind who run a big special when they need more business, and they will have to do it again in a few months or weeks. They often waste a ton of money by marketing in this way, and die early from all of the stress it causes.

A better answer is to create a steady flow of business and make the peaks and valleys smoother. Scheduling is easier, accounting is easier, and production is easier. Everything becomes much more profitable and enjoyable with a sustained marketing plan instead of acting from urgency.

NOTE: This kind of business person commonly lies about their business health. They say they are busy, but it is often because they are busy trying to pay back all of the debt they created the last time the funnel went dry. This is sadly a very common approach taken by small business owners.

Waiting for Better Times

I am often reminded of something my mother told me many years ago. She said “Mark, if you wait until you are ready to have kids, you will never be a father.” I am glad I heard her advice, because today I have three children that bring huge amounts of joy to my life, and the lives of many others.

I think of this as the person who is just waiting for a big windfall to come. They have it all mixed up by believing they will be ready to market their business after they gain enough business to afford a marketing plan. They have placed the money cart in front of the marketing horse. It is a very hopeful person who really believes in their business, but just not quite enough to take the necessary risks to make it successful.

I usually find these people to be very energetic and hopeful. They are refreshing, because they come with the positivity of a child. They also often come with the budget of a child, but if you talk to them in six months or a year, all of that will be miraculously sorted out and they will be ready to push the go button then.

The harshest reality for this person is how much time and money they wasted by doing what they thought would minimize their risk. The worst risk for them of all was inaction. Not doing what they should have done has cost them dearly, both in actual loss and in opportunity loss.

I will hear from this person again, in their next venture. They will be ready to get their marketing plan started in another six months or a year.

Assumptions and Fears About Marketing

I watch a lot of people make assumptions about marketing, and they bolster those assumptions with fear. Call it fear, apprehension, diligence, or whatever you like. Waiting around and thinking about it until it paralyzes your business is not the answer. Taking action and being brave in your decisions is in order.

I have heard a lot of stories, and one I have heard a lot is “Oh, but you must be so expensive.” Here is something to think about: The expensive thing about marketing is trying to make more money without it. Thomas Jefferson said it well with this statement: “The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time.” The reality is that marketing is what keeps your funnel full and makes businesses more money … not less.

I guess I could consider it kind of flattering when somebody looks at my experience and my marketing talent and makes the assumption that I must be extremely expensive. Wow, if I can make myself seem that valuable, don’t you wonder what happens to the value of your products or services when you push the go button?

I Gave You a Go Button!

I could go on a long time about the mistakes businesses make in their marketing considerations. The worst and most costly of all is to do nothing and wait on that marketing funnel to start pouring out the results without action on your part.

You have my permission to be successful in your business. In fact, you have my encouragement. There really is no better time, and things will not just better on their own. Go ahead and push the go button … Do it NOW!

Where Does Marketing Talent Come From?

Is there such a thing as natural ability in marketing? Some talents seem to come from birth, but like developing any talent, it takes time and hard work. Talent comes with a cost.

Marketing Talent Comes With a Cost

There is a hidden cost to marketing talent that is often difficult to realize. Whether you are hiring it out or trying to develop marketing talent for yourself, it has a cost … often a huge cost. So, where does marketing talent really come from, what is the cost to get it, and why are marketing talents not all equal? Allow me to explain.

Talent is Better with Practice

I have been fascinated recently with the 2010 Winter Olympics. The athletes are amazing, and their talent often seems humanly impossible. What makes it possible is a whole lot of passion, determination, and practice. Passion leads to determination and determination leads to practice. Passion and determination do nothing without the follow through of relentless practice. Apolo Ohno even crashed a few times before he went on to become the most decorated USA medalist in Winter Olympic history, but he kept practicing.

Maybe you have a talent that you are passionate about. Think about that talent you developed through passion. Maybe you went to school a long time for it, and maybe you practiced it long enough to get really good at it … best of all is practice. Can somebody else do it as well as you? If they can, they probably practiced more.

Marketing Talent Takes Risk

It was when I heard Bob Costas and the other announcers talking about Olympic athletes having similar DNA to race car drivers and other risk-takers that my ears perked up. I started thinking about the risks people take, how they calculate risks, and really how little most people are willing to risk. With minimal risk, there is minimal reward. Come on, we all know this, and it is true of everything from leaning in for the first kiss to becoming a huge success at something.

Here is a way I can relate to risk. I race cars. In fact, I race cars very well. Driving is something I am passionate about. It is a talent that I have worked on for years, spent thousands of hours practicing, and hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to master. I also teach drivers what they need to know about driving. Imagine that. I get in a car with another driver and teach him or her how to go faster … fast enough to kill us both in an instant! Yes, I’ve got balls courage. I have courage the size of an aircraft carrier, but I have something else. I’ve got talent. The kind of talent that only comes from a whole lot of practice. That practice makes me just a little more immune to risk with each lap.

A common saying at a race track is that there is no such thing as natural ability. Oh, there may be some natural propensity (like good eyes and good reflexes), but the talent comes with practice. Really amazing talent comes with thousands of hours of practice. This goes for Olympic athletes, race car drivers, and yes, even marketers.

Good Marketing Talent Minimizes Your Risk

While knowing that each practice increases immunity to risk, I think about how much risk most people are willing to take in their business. Most businesses try to reduce their exposure to risk at every opportunity. They mop up the Vaseline spill in the doorway, they remove the balloon filled with broken glass hanging high above the atrium, and they buy insurance in case it all goes wrong. Doesn’t it beg the question of how they could logically reduce the risk of failure in their marketing efforts? Yes, I think that makes sense, too.

When you look for marketing talent and you wonder what you are paying for, remember this: Good Marketers Already Took the Risks. That means they already know what does not work, and they have the experience to know how to help you avoid doing the same. Not only that, really good marketing talent comes from the people who not only had a strong propensity to good marketing and passion for the work, but they have put in the countless hours of hard work, research, and practice … like the Olympic athlete or the race car driver.

Expensive Marketing Choices

When you consider developing marketing talent, consider your passion, time, and willingness to take risks. If you are passionate about your marketing but lack the time it takes to learn to skate like Apolo Ohno, drive like Emerson Fittipaldi, or market creatively like Pablo Picasso. Stop and consider the risks you could mitigate by sitting in the stands while the real marketing talent rounds the track for you. Be aware that you are paying them for the talent they developed with passion, determination and practice. You pay them for the risks they took that were a bit too ballsy courageous for your liking or your budget.

Do you want to go fast? You must decide carefully which risks to take, and it can be a lot less risky to hire somebody with marketing talent than to develop your own. After all, are you more likely to hop in a race car to create the show for everybody else or stay home and watch it from the safety of your sofa? Either will have a cost, but one takes a whole lot of time.

P.S. Here is what it looks like when I drive. I will leave out the failures it took to get there.