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Marketing Your Product or Service by Putting Lipstick on a Pig

Putting lipstick on a pig

Recently I did a talk for a lovely group of people. One of the things that came up in our discussions was how marketing is not just for business. There are so many other things that need marketing, because marketing is about fulfilling people’s needs and solving their problems and about communicating to them how you can do that. Hence, most things can benefit from marketing thinking and methods. Here are a few examples:

  • Schools can use marketing to attract students – and teachers – believe me, Ivy league schools don’t get the best students and teachers “just because”
  • Hobby clubs can use marketing to attract members
  • Sports clubs can use marketing to attract better players, or attract an audience (paying or not), or attract better (volunteer) coaches
  • People can use marketing to raise awareness for social causes
  • Public services can use marketing to create awareness and educate users
  • Government organisations can use marketing to raise awareness of their services, improve their image, or educate their users so that things run smoother
  • Activist groups can use marketing to spread their ideology and recruit fighters for the cause
  • Individuals can use marketing to get their dream job
  • Individuals can use marketing to get their dream partner ;)

The list can go on and on and on…  I actually challenge you to give me an example of something that you think could not benefit from marketing thinking and methods ;)

Nobody Wants to Kiss a Pig!

However, at this talk, a gentleman asked me about their particular club, and whether it could be marketed to not only get more members, but to get younger members, as the membership group is getting older. I promptly answered that yes, that would of course be possible. And it is. What I did not say at the time, as it was not appropriate, was that [Read more…]

Measuring Marketing Effectiveness

measuring marketing effectiveness

Do you measure effectiveness of your marketing? It’s a cliché: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” But clichés are clichés for a reason. And the reason is more often than not because they are true.

  • How do you know whether something is working or whether it’s not?
  • Can you afford to waste time on something that it isn’t working?
  • Can you afford to waste money on something that isn’t working?
  • Is there any reason to be doing things that aren’t working for you?

First of all, every time you do a specific marketing activity or put something in place like when you set up a Facebook page, do a Google AdWords campaign, put an ad in the paper or whatever you are doing, always think about why you’re doing it. What do you want that specific marketing activity to achieve?

Think about the Marketing Process – you can read all about that here. Are you doing this for awareness, to gain interest, build likeability and/or trust, give people a taste of what you offer, to push for the sale, get more sales [Read more…]

Patience Is A Virtue in Marketing

patience is a virtue in marketing

It is highly important to realize that marketing takes time. Nothing happens overnight. It’s not just a question of one big ad here or there or one promoted Facebook post. People need to go through a certain process and you have to reach them a number of times before they’re going to be ready to buy from you. If you want to know more about that marketing process, check out this blog post here.

According to sales guru Brian Tracy it takes five sales calls before the customer is ready to buy. Those are sales calls and a very expensive way to sell. You have an expensive employee going there and they’re spending time with the customer at their office. They’re in the same room, they’re speaking to them face to face for at least a few minutes.

So if it takes five of those sales call for the customer to buy, you can imagine how much more often you reach your prospects through marketing methods before they’re ready to buy. (You may think that makes marketing less effective, but trust me, it doesn’t. Marketing can be scaled much more affordably than sales calls ;)

I’m going share one of my favourite marketing quotes with you to illustrate this point.

This one is from Thomas Smith:

  • The first time a man looks at an advertisement, he does not see it.
  • The second time, he does not notice it.
  • The third time, he is conscious of its existence.
  • The fourth time, he faintly remembers having seen it before.
  • The fifth time, he reads it.
  • The sixth time, he turns up his nose at it.
  • The seventh time, he reads it through and says “Oh brother!”
  • The eight time, he says “Here’s that confounded thing again!”
  • The ninth time, he wonders if it amounts to anything.
  • The tenth time, he asks his neighbor if he has tried it.
  • The eleventh time, he wonders how the advertiser makes it pay.
  • The twelfth time, he thinks it must be a good thing.
  • The thirteenth time, he thinks perhaps it might be worth something.
  • The fourteenth time, he remembers wanting such thing a long time.
  • The fifteenth time, he is tantalized because he cannot afford to buy it.
  • The sixteenth time, he thinks he will buy it someday.
  • The seventeenth time, he makes a memorandum to buy it.
  • The eighteenth time, he swears at his poverty.
  • The nineteenth time, he counts his money carefully.
  • The twentieth time he sees the ad, he buys what it is offering.

This underpins what I have been saying about “repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat”. People have to see you a number of times before they’re ready to buy. What is even more interesting is that Thomas Smith wrote this in 1885!!! So this is not new.

Marketing really does take time. Thomas Smith realised this ages and ages ago!

You need to repeat yourself, you need to be consistent and you need to be talking about the same things to start filtering through and owning that place in the prospects mind.

Are you repeating yourself enough – or have you perhaps given up too early? ;)

Repetition

repeat - repetition

In a previous blog post I have discussed how we need to identify each and every touchpoint with our brand to examine how we can use them to build it, and how we need to make sure that we consistently deliver the same brand experience through each of those touchpoint. This is not enough though. You also have to remember to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat and repeat again.

It’s Great to Be Bored!

Repetition is absolutely key in marketing and I can promise you that if you are doing your marketing right, you will get bored. You will get bored of your brand identity; your colours, fonts, images etc., you will get bored of your marketing materials; your advertising, messaging etc. You’ll get bored with the whole thing. Absolutely, you’re going to get bored!

But the thing is, you’re always working with your brand, you’re always looking at it, thinking about it, it’s always there. However, you’d be really lucky if the people you are trying to reach see 1% of what you are up to. So you must remember that it’s not about you. It’s about them. You’re going to get bored but you have to pull through it and just stick with it!

The thing is if you start changing things up, changing your messaging, changing the look of what you are sending out, whether it is advertising, brochures, stuff on social media, blogs or whatever it is, you end up at square one again.

We all know how many things are there out there vying for people’s attention each and every day. So when you start changing things up they’re not going to recognize you. You’re going to have to start building awareness and recognition all over again. However if you stick with it and you stay the same, you’re going to be strengthening their memory structures of you in their minds and they’re going to end up sticking.

Snakes and Ladders

It’s a bit like a game of snakes and ladders. [Read more…]

The Marketing Process

 

the marketing process

It is important to understand the process your prospective customers go through before they are ready to buy from you. If you understand that process, you are better equipped to put in place marketing activities that support it, and help lead people through it and towards buying from you.

The first step is for people to know you exist, so awareness is the first thing. I don’t just mean people seeing you once or twice, but actually noticing you. Actually registering that you exist. It’s pretty hard to get people to buy from you if you don’t exist, right? ;)

But even if they know you exist, they may not be in any way interested, and if they are not interested, the process stops there. You must gauge their interest in order for them to be open to what you have to say. Only if they find you interesting will they move on to check you out by, for example, coming to your website or checking you out on social media, or popping into your store the next time they are in the neighbourhood.

What if they don’t like what they find when they check you out some more? Then you’re dead in the water. [Read more…]