marketing failure Archives - Page 5 of 9 by Mark Murnahan

The Best Marketing Strategy Ever!

In business, we all want the best marketing strategy ever. What often gets in the way are the tactics, and response to failed tactics, which cloud our strategy. Many companies will go through the motions of tactics such as social media sharing, SEO (search engine optimization), ad buys, and etcetera, and waste a lot of precious resources. Too often, the strategy is just out of reach, yet right under their nose. Going through the motions of tactics will not make it a strategy, regardless of how well you do it.

There are many pieces to a great marketing strategy, and bringing them all together can be tricky. I hope these ideas will inspire you, and help you in a good direction. Before you dismiss any of the points I will make, I want to explain that, although I am a marketer, I am not here to take a single dollar from your pocket. I will also share why I feel qualified to offer this assessment of the best marketing strategy ever. This really is for your benefit, so make no mistake about that.

I have been a marketing guy for my entire adult life. I started my first company just after I left school early at 15, and that was over 22 years ago. Even as a kid, I knew how important marketing would be in my business. I am pretty sure that you know this about your business as well, even when it is hard to implement. It is what puts the butts in the seats for your big show. Since my time as a zit-faced teenager, I have worked on marketing projects ranging from the tiny little spark when a company is at its inception, to the raging inferno that burns it down. I have started and stoked some big fires with my marketing. It took a lot of burning for me to uncover the biggest of all challenges, but here it is … I am going to help you put some fuel on your best marketing strategy.

I will break this down into some digestible segments for you, but be ready to spend some time and effort to discover how this applies to your business. It will be worth it.

Marketing Strategy Begins With Focused Desire

I remember a relatively early time in my business career (at age 15) when my stepfather gave me a book titled “How to Sell Anything to Anybody”. It was written by a Guinness World Record holding salesman named Joe Girard. Joe learned how to sell more cars than any retail car salesman, ever. He did not do this just as a car guy, but rather as a marketing guy. He figured out what people wanted, but before he could do that, he had to know what he wanted. In that book, there is a chapter titled “It All Begins With Want”, and in Joe’s case, it started as a bag of groceries for his family. I still clearly remember his message decades later. How do you like that example of marketing longevity? I still remembered it, even without double-checking it on Google.

This is a critical piece of your best marketing strategy: You must want it! The trouble for many people is how to define “it”. After all, if somebody asks you what you want the most from your work, don’t you stammer for just a moment and have a hard time coming up with something other than the typical cliches like financial security, world peace, happy family, good health, or whatever other first-glance wish that you can come up with?

I think the answer to what you really want is a huge challenge for many people, and many businesses. You are not alone in this dilemma, but in order to get it, you will need to develop a clearly defined answer to this question. It will require confidence, persistence, and moving beyond your comfort zone. It means putting complacence in the past, and pushing your marketing “go” button.

Wanting something and being able to define it is imperative. You must be passionate about it … whatever “it” is for you. You must love what you do, or uncover enough love for it to inspire the important work and sacrifices that will otherwise be neglected.

This brings up a point about professional marketers. An important task of marketing is to look at a company and find their passion. What is it that makes them worthy of their market share? What have they neglected that could make them better? What is missing that will reflect their passion and pass that passion along to the people they hope to gain as customers? What is their best value proposition? The questions relating to market growth are numerous, but they are hard to address without knowing the “want” of an organization and defining an overall purpose.

Marketing Beyond Visibility … Matching the Need

Visibility is the easiest and most common crutch to lean on for most companies in their marketing. In fact, it often surprises me to hear people express a sense of satisfaction in simply being visible. It is important, but when that visibility is not placed well, and with the right message, the visibility alone is not enough to drive responses. You can try to sell me knitting needles all day long, and it will not work.

If you want to develop a fanatical response to your marketing, be sure to make it useful. A great lesson can be taken from the character “Big Weld” from the animated movie “Robots”. Big Weld’s mantra was “Find a need, fill a need.”

Even if your product or service proves to meet all the logic which your research and development has come to embrace, it is not truly useful until the marketing matches the need, and solves the need. You must match your offering to the desires and needs of your purchasers.

You certainly need to make your marketing visible, but visibility is easier than making it useful in a way which resonates with buyers and helps them understand how it will benefit them.

There are a lot of ways to make things visible, and a unique slant on your market can be just the trick. Whether it is presented with humor, tragedy, assistance, or otherwise, making something visible is really not all that hard. It just takes a good look at what people in your market will receive favorably, and what they will have a propensity to act upon.

Branding is massively important, and you should never dismiss the value of high-visibility within your market. Let’s be clear, though, that visibility alone is not the whole strategy. Getting closer to home and looking at yourself can emphasize points about marketing visibility. In this case, I want to point out that I have still not purchased a single Old Spice product even after watching the many humorous videos they have produced. Although they have over 167 million YouTube video views, their website traffic still only ranks a relatively few small notches above the one you are reading right now. Sure, you are more likely to buy deodorant from them than you are from me, but the point is that visibility is not everything. Their visibility alone was not able to put the fire in my veins and make me brand-loyal. The call to action failed. Perhaps they just didn’t reach me at the right time, which further emphasizes that exposure is only one part of a strategy.

Timing and Placing Your Marketing

If I saw the funny Old Spice videos while walking through the deodorant isle in the grocery store, I would probably have a quick sniff to see if I like their product. Actually, I kind of do like their product, and I remember my dad smelling like it. As a kid, I would splash it on just to smell like him. He was my hero, after all.

My wife does all of our shopping. I am really bad at shopping, because I buy into all of the marketing. In fact, my wife dreads sending me to the grocery store, because I always come home with stuff that, according to her, only I would buy. It is ironic, yes? The point is that timing and placement is important. If you want to reach my wife while she is making her shopping list, you need to know where she is, what she is putting on her list, and you need to catch her at the right time, to be sure that she lists your brand name. It must seem wildly complicated, right? Don’t worry, it is not as hard as it sounds.

Success in producing “the best marketing strategy ever” will require some careful market research, but this is an area which is likely a very weak spot for many of your competitors. Research is a significantly underestimated and underutilized area of marketing for many companies. The good news is that if you have your “want” in place, you will find this research much easier to handle. Market research is one of those areas where the sacrifices I mentioned earlier will come into play, because it can take a lot of effort to get it right.

Build in Consistency

An unsustainable marketing strategy can be worse than no strategy at all. A brand message without consistency can create business volume in unpredictable waves, and can also show the competition your weakness.

A consistent and sustainable marketing strategy will create a much steadier upward curve in your business. It will also become far more measurable, giving you the data you need to further grow your market.

Make Your Marketing Actionable

I addressed some requisite factors to the best marketing strategy, but much is lost without measurable action that provides a positive return on your investment. Reflecting back on the earlier topics, let’s consider this: If your “want” is well-defined, it will be easier to uncover the creativity to make your marketing useful and visible, and the fortitude to make it consistent. If you do not shortcut the research, you should really understand how to place your marketing with the right people. The next piece is the action.

What is the action you want? Oh, there I go again with the “want” notion, but I did express that it all starts with want, and it is the basis for all these other things.

You must have an actionable purpose to your marketing strategy. Otherwise, you will have a lot of lost efforts to account for.

Do you want somebody to make a purchase right now, or do you want them to help spread your brand because they think you are great enough to recommend to their friends? Whatever the case, this part should only come after all of the other pieces I have listed are in place. If the rest of the pieces are well-formed and in place, the action should be a natural conclusion. Since you have already given them confidence and reason to take action, be sure that you point out the action you want them to take.

Summary of The Best Marketing Strategy

I have had a lot of recent reflection on what my career in marketing boils down to, and what it has always really been about. I think I have a good answer to the burning question of “the best marketing strategy ever”, and it truly does all begin with what you want. Without focused desire, there is a lot of waste in marketing.

The best marketing strategies will come with a lot of passion. Caring, or lack of caring, is a huge determining factor to business success. I have witnessed it for over two decades, and I am not the only person who has expressed this notion. I would like to share what Gary Vaynerchuck said in his book, “Crush it!” He tells it well in this short video, and I recommend it!

If you do not have the passion, it is best to discover the people who do. That may mean asking people around you, and social media is great for this. It also may mean hiring a marketing professional to help you uncover the passion and guide you through all the other many elements for your best marketing strategy.

Here is another video worth a moment to consider.

Calling the Action

I said that I am not going to take a dollar from your pocket, and I meant it. I recently made a pact with myself to stop providing marketing consulting for clients by mid-2011. This is because I am far more fulfilled by long-term projects which often only come from working with the exclusivity of one company at a time. I simply do not get the same enjoyment by working on the ever-increasing number short-sighted projects thrown at me. I am following my “want” by moving into greater exclusivity and focus in my work. That is what I want, and I am passionate about it.

My only actionable request is that you share this with people who will appreciate it, and let them know that a guy named Murnahan is “for hire” and seeking that one company to feel passionate about enough to create the elements addressed here. I know what I want, and that is to enjoy my work marketing for a company with courage to grow. My passion slants toward the automotive and other gearhead-oriented industries where the people have motor oil in their veins and gasoline in their coffee, like me. I could market feminine hygiene products just fine, but I know what I want, and I know that I will find it.

I hope you will help me to create my best marketing strategy. In return, I am delighted to answer your questions, comments, and your telephone calls. I am always open to your brainstorms. Ring me up any time at *REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE* (*REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE*).

I have added very simple links below to help you with my call to action. Please share.

Thank you!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Automotive Marketing Example: Selling Cars Online is More Than Cars and Dealers

Car dealers (the whole automotive marketing industry for that matter) are just an example I will use, but this is about a lot more than the automotive industry and car dealers. It applies to the automotive market, anecdotally, but this is mostly about overlooking the reasons people would want to buy from you, and being blind to what people are really looking for.

Without understanding people’s motivations and expectations, it is nearly impossible to deliver what they want. In the cases where you are able to reach the market and get the sale, it is usually only a small slice of the pie, and it is more blind luck than marketing talent. It is like driving a car with your eyes closed … you may not crash the first time, but it is just a matter of time.

Picture the car dealer for a moment. Maybe you know one who is doing things different and better than the rest, but it is pretty typical that they are looking for the immediate sale. They do a whole lot of advertising, but often lack a sustainable marketing strategy. Sure, if you throw out enough ads for the lowest priced cars, you will make a few sales (at the lowest possible profit), but sustainability suffers. The dealership marketing suffers in multiple ways, and here are just a few to consider:

The profit really stinks, because you are spending a lot of time and/or money to reach people based largely on their motivation to get the most for the least amount of money. Price is a motivator, but certainly the least profitable motivator.
Advertising without a people-focused sustainable marketing strategy diminishes the sustainability of referral business which comes with brand-loyalty.
Outbound marketing (marketing without ears) lacks the sustainability that comes with people having a reason and willingness to talk to you about your brand. It is important to realize that only a small number of brand-loyal customers and angry customers will tell you what they really think. When that limited information is what you use to make your marketing decisions, it is easy to make future mistakes.

I have criticized the automobile industry for their marketing shortsightedness, because it is a pretty easy target, and one that many of us can relate to. As an industry, they largely have a hard time looking beyond the next 30, 60, and 90 day cycles of their business. You can read more about my thoughts on that in my article titled “Topeka Kansas Car Dealer Social Media Marketing Case Study” which talked about car marketing and their self-centered approach.

Auto dealers’ urgency for more business stunts their vision, and diminishes their recognition of why people really buy cars. This is a challenge common to many industries. As I described in a recent article titled “7 Reasons That Your Marketing Sucks“, people buy cars for reasons such as freedom to roam, fun road trips, family safety, peace of mind, personal status, comfort, pride, dealership reputation, brand reputation, and other things. Buyers are not usually brand-loyal because of the screaming idiot in your commercials, and things like inflatable gorillas and guys in bad suits are tactics of the past. Today’s version of the loud mouth in the bad suit is to tweet and facebook your latest specials and hope it lands in the right place.

Automotive Marketing Goes Internet

These days, it seems that a lot of industries tend to mock the old-school marketing tactics of the pre-Internet automotive industry. Perhaps the flashy, screaming, “in-your-face” style of advertising was just all they knew, so they mocked it in hopes that it would work. It led to a significant amount of noise, but noise at a higher volume is still just noise.

While all of those “car dealer types” are out there making noise, it is a good time to move forward and market differently, using foresight, and giving people something compelling. The contrast between the good and the pathetic is stronger than ever, and for those who address the customer, the benefits are great. You know, the kind of marketing that addresses the things people want. The kind of marketing that doesn’t turn them off and allows them to feel comfortable enough to tell you why they are or are not buying from you. This is the kind of marketing that shows customers that you are listening.

On today’s “scan-and-click” busy Internet, you will have a lot less time to reach your market with your goods or services. Maybe you will blame “the Internet”, but let’s face it, if you are blaming the Internet; you are looking at this all wrong. The Internet affords companies amazing opportunities to reach their market and to create brand-awareness and loyalty, but it will require looking at things from a different perspective than it used to. It requires looking at things from the customer’s standpoint and discovering what it is that truly motivates them. This means you must listen to them.

Successful marketing today means that you have defined and delivered what the consumer wants. That means being able to look at yourself through their eyes and without your preconceptions and greed. You can have your greed back later, but you have to put it on the shelf at least long enough to make good marketing decisions.

Marketing Cars is Not Just About Cars and Car Dealers!

I use the automobile industry as a harsh example of short-sightedness and self-centered thinking, because many of us can relate to that. Now, regardless of your industry, just imagine what I said about some of the reasons people buy a car. Use it as an exercise and try to imagine how you would reach the people who may be in the market. Maybe their car keeps breaking down. Maybe they have a class reunion coming up and want to look good. Maybe they are not looking at all, but if they connect with somebody they like and that person happens to work in the industry, they may feel more loyal to a particular brand.

There are so many reasons for people to buy what you offer, but if you are trying to market to the wrong ones, at the wrong time, and with a message that is all about you and mostly addresses your interests, most of it will fall on deaf ears.

Perhaps instead of the same old price-boasting and deal-pimping, a look from the consumer’s standpoint is in order. How will you address them on their terms and based on their desires? How will you find what motivates them and makes your brand more interesting? If you want to sell more cars (or anything else) try thinking more like the buyer.

These are just a few of my thoughts. What are yours? I’m listening.

Photo Credit to Rmhermen via Wikipedia

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Your Recession is Yours, My Recession is Mine

I talk to a lot of people. I have some amazing friends, with amazing perspective. The wise ones are not afraid to talk about recession, and brainstorm ways to improve their respective place in this recession.

You are a bit scared, right? I hope so, because you should be. If you have just consumed a small fraction of reality over the past couple years, you have certainly noticed something different about people’s spending habits. Lines at restaurants are shorter, and lines at homeless shelters are longer. Let’s not sugar-coat it. Shit hit the fan and business is harder to come by these days.

One of my long time close friends is a well-informed Magna Cum Laude Princeton University graduate of economics with his MBA and a bunch of letters at the end of his name. He is a top-level economist and one that many other number-crunchers rely on to evaluate major business decisions. He is about as scared as it comes. Me, I lost squillions since recession started in 2007, and I got sick of being scared. Instead, I made a plan, and I continually work with my plan.

Improve the Future You’ve Got

This is not an uplifting “rah rah, go get ’em” sermon I am here to give you, but rather the cold hard truth of where things stand, and ideas to improve the future you’ve got. Ahh, but there is the key! If you note that I said “the future you’ve got” I mean that the future is something you already have. It is not some unrealistic thing that lives in some other dimension and never comes to pass. Time keeps marching on, and every day marks another day into your future. You do have a future, and if you are too freaked out about today, the future gets pretty blurry. In any case, your future will get here, and you are the one who makes all the tough decisions on how it will look.

I understand that it gets harder to envision your future when you are still fighting today. I have seen the future become blurred, too, but I have made a plan. I made a flexible plan, and one that can be amended as needed. I keep my eyes moving, and I always look in all directions. It is tricky and requires constant attention, but without a plan, results would be pretty bleak. Don’t you think?

If you feel like you are alone in the recession, stop feeling that way. Not just because I said “stop feeling that way”, but because you know it is true. You see it all around you. There are two divergent ideologies on the topic. One says the sky is falling and we are all doomed, and the other talks in ambiguous Wall Street phrases about improved economic indicators and tries to influence a stronger market by helping people feel safer to spend money. Reality is somewhere in the middle, and your economic reality will come from the actions you take.

Owning Your Recession

Let’s face it, you own your recession, and the sooner you realize it, the better. Sure, it has affected most of the people you know, but there are still people thriving in a bad economy, and I will give you some reasons why. It starts with making good decisions, having confidence in your decisions, and taking action on your decisions. That is a lot of decision making, and many people are more comfortable making the decision to “wait and see what happens” and to follow the same course. Getting ahead means getting uncomfortable, and if you are in business, you must understand that fear affects success in more than logic.

I can own up to my recession, although it is not all my doing. I still know that my decisions have everything to do with where I am and where I go from here. I will give you an example. In 2007 and 2008 I watched some huge suppliers to my company kill thousands of jobs and shut down some of their operations. One of my suppliers of network services laid off 5,000 people in a single day. I knew my industry very well, and I knew in advance that I should have sold off or severely downsized one division of my company. Instead, I wanted to be a hero to my clients, so I took a “wait and see” approach. It was not long before the “wait and see” kicked me squarely in the ass.

You will not catch me seeking sympathy, but I saw my corporation’s annual accounts receivable drop by over half a million dollars in a single month during 2008. As the CEO, I knew that it would eventually hit my personal economy pretty hard, so I made sacrifices. I cleared out $250,000 worth of cars from my garage, I suspended a six figure per year auto racing budget, I downsized my home by over 3,000 fewer square feet, and I worked harder and for less money than I had in many years. It made sense to cut certain things that I did not require, and it made sense to kick myself back into gear. I made many sacrifices!

Making the Right Sacrifices

I write a lot to help people regain vision for their business and personal lives. In fact, I wrote three books last year and a whole lot of blogs. You surely cannot knock me for dedication. So much of what I write is aimed at helping others to grow their market and regain the market they once enjoyed. I know I make some people very uncomfortable, and I am pleased for that. If you are comfortable with how things are, you have less reason to do something brilliant. On the other hand, if you get sick of being scared, like I did, maybe you will come to make the right choices to build upon your own economy.

Maybe you never read any of my biographies or ever heard of me before, but from the time I dropped out of school at age 15, I have built multiple very successful companies. Something I have learned well is the value of sacrificing unnecessary comforts today in return for a better tomorrow. Sure, you can say that tomorrow never comes and that you should seize the day, but isn’t that the same thing your credit card issuers count on? If you work harder, try harder, create a solid strategy, and do more for your future, you are the one who collects the interest.

The Wrong Sacrifice

I could bang my drum and toot my horn all day and night, and you can still call it all “bullshit”. I can give you good ideas and direction, but you can still call me crazy. A lot of good thinking has been called crazy. Christopher Columbus was “crazy” for saying the world is round, and Albert Einstein said “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

Crazy is relative to your own sense of reality. I was crazy to leave school at 15, but less crazy as I earned millions by 25. Something which cannot be denied and is based on solid math is that effective marketing will grow a business. Effective marketing can get you the job you want. Effective marketing and reaching the right people with the right message is what creates opportunities, from meeting the right spouse to becoming the head of a political party. So how can you possibly abuse and neglect your marketing when it is the one quantifiable thing which can lead you to your goals?

My Murnahanism for Today: “If you want something, it mostly requires asking the right people. You should place quality first, and quantity second, but success usually requires both. If you keep asking the wrong people, refine your efforts. When that fails, you probably need to ask more people.”

If you want a better economy for yourself, do something different. As I have said before, “Do Shit They Will Remember” and note that sometimes you must “Choose Logic Over Emotion“.

If you want more, market more, and market better. Of all the sacrifices I ever made in business, marketing has never been in the list. It has always been the one thing that mattered most. Recession is actually the best time to market your goods, because your competition is running scared, too.

I wrote of sacrifices I made to create millions of dollars in business from my 6th grade education (I left at 15, but I failed a few times first) in my book “Living in the Storm“. This is not my evil plot to shake you down for the huge $2 royalty I make per book, but if you have a hard time understanding the sacrifices it takes to grow a business, you should consider reading it.

Accepting your own recession and doing more to improve it does not mean everything will be amazing again. However, if you are not doing more to market yourself or your business, you are accepting what you have and that will become less as others keep moving forward.

Photo credit to Eric Pouhier via Wikipedia

Market Research Tip: Jumbo Jets and Jelly Beans

Shoppers lie. It happens all the time that they say they want one thing, but the truth is actually quite different. This happens because most shoppers feel a bit insecure about their purchases. Just picture yourself walking into an auto dealership to understand this better. You probably make up reasons to say “no” before you even drive on the lot. It is how consumers “protect themselves”, and it is rooted in cynicism. People want to buy things on their terms, and not the seller’s terms, and if that means they have to lie, they will often lie.

I am not going to call everybody a liar. No, I am not going to do that. What I will say is that during the purchase process, there are often things which are not exactly as they seem. This begins in the very earliest steps to a purchase, and it is the marketer’s job to overcome those smokescreens. We do this in many ways, including fact-finding about our market to better understand the ideal customer and how to meet their objectives. We perform careful propensity modeling to determine exactly who to target. Then we create a strong call-to-action to entice customers to take action now, before they can dream up another lie to help excuse themselves from committing to the purchase.

It should not be surprising that much of this process is made far more difficult by trying to market to the wrong people. A lot of marketing efforts miss the target miserably by skipping the research and trying to sell to people who are only marginally interested in the offering.

NOTE: When I say “take action” I mean for the customer to get what they want … what they came for. After all, when a prospective customer comes out of hiding, there is a reason. They want what you offer.

The purchase of anything from jelly beans to jumbo jets has two sides; one side who wants the sale, and the other side who wants the sale. They ultimately both want the sale! Marketers often neglect this, and place themselves in a very defensive role as if the customer holds all the cards. Something important to remember is that the customer also wants what the seller has to offer, often much more than they will let on. After all, they are ready to trade their money for it. You just have to suit their objectives and help them to buy on their terms. The best way to do this begins long before you ever even encounter the customer. The best answer is to know who the buyer is, and to know their terms.

Stop Marketing Jumbo Jets to Jelly Bean Customers

I have taught many people how to market and sell things, both online and offline. I have been in the marketing field for over 20 years, and I have seen a lot in that time. I have seen about every smokescreen that a customer can hide behind. There is a common saying that “buyers are liars”. It sounds ugly, but it really just means that until you uncover the customer’s real objectives, they will often be less than forthright about their purchase decision making. It may sound like a “lie”, but it is actually just to cover up deeper objectives, and a prospective customer’s attempt to feel secure while getting what they want. You see, if they tell you the whole truth, then you have too much power (in their mind), and they become “vulnerable”. The common fear is that if they open themselves up to your influence, they may end up coming to you asking for a bag of jelly beans and leaving with a jumbo jet. Of course, if that is the case, it really means they actually wanted a jumbo jet, but they were afraid to admit it and afraid of the sacrifice. It also means that the seller was reaching out to the wrong audience instead of discovering the people who are asking for jumbo jets. When you reach the right market, much cynicism is averted.

Marketers who understand what customers really want are the marketers who earn happy customers and become very successful. Effective marketers do the necessary discovery work to find out who the customers are and what they really want. This helps us to understand how to reach the right people, define the marketing approach, and thus improve response rates.

If a given group has a propensity to purchase jumbo jets, effective market research will uncover the facts. Market research helps to determine the most effective means to reach the target audience, and the right marketing message to implement. In my work, I find a lot of people trying to sell jumbo jets to jelly bean customers, simply because they never took the initiative to understand who the customer really is and what the customer wants and needs.

Wasteful Marketing Efforts

Many people will take the approach of simply seeking more audience. We all want more audience, but as a sole effort, that can lead to a whole lot of waste. Marketing duck hunting to vegetarians may reach a lot of people, but it will not produce desired results.

Other people will focus too much on a stronger call to action. A strong call to action is good, but again, this alone often leads to more waste. Offering a huge discount on lipstick will probably not bring the greatest results at a gun show.

Another huge waste I see in many marketing efforts is to assume that markets are less defined online than that of vegetarians and gun shows. The fact is that marketing online provides much greater definition to market segmentation. I encounter many people who think of the Internet as a place to market to the whole world, but take little or no care to define their market and understand the best ways to reach the right segments.

These are extreme accounts of wasteful marketing, but I see much more subtle mistakes being made every day. A better option is to know who to reach and what they want. Put yourself in their shoes and research your industry from their standpoint. This is not easy, and it is not natural for most business people. It is also why there are people who specialize in the field of marketing.

Wasteful marketing efforts will cause you to constantly be at odds with the prospective customer and they will seldom come over to your side to see the benefits of doing business with you.

How Do You Bring the Customer to Your Side?

The first step to winning customers is to know your market and why they want what you have. If you can realize the objectives of your market, you can bring the customers to your side so they can see it from both perspectives. Then they can see your vision of how your product or service will benefit them. If they want a jumbo jet, you will be the one who sells it to them.

Market research and gaining an understanding of the customer is a huge missing piece in many marketing campaigns. I have been shocked countless times to find that for many companies, market research is a confusing task that just seems like wasted effort. You can believe me or not, but it is the most important piece of all. Market research allows you to know what people want and what they will respond to. It is what tells you who to reach and the message to reach them with. Without proper market research, you may as well advertise jumbo jets for sale in your local candy store. If you keep trying to sell jumbo jets to jelly bean shoppers, you will waste a lot of time and expense.

Take your market research seriously.

Unless I am mistaken, you want to know how to earn more business by having more effective marketing reach. That is what I sell. You did not come here for jelly beans.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download