The Foundation of Success
As you read alarming news reports about finances and economics, your initial reaction may be to slash your marketing budget…
Don’t do it!
This is not the time to pull back on your marketing efforts. Successful marketing provides the life’s blood of your business: customers.
Here is a quote from the most famous business consultant from our time and arguably in history, Peter Drucker:
“Because it’s purpose is to create a customer, a business has two and only two functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results. All the rest are costs.”
Whether the economy is good or bad, whether you’re cas~h-rich or cas~h-poor, you should always be working actively to be the smartest and savviest marketer in your industry. Your most powerful ally in this campaign is cost-effective marketing that delivers a positive ROI (return on your investment).
I honestly believe that…
Marketing is what drives successful businesses, even more than a good product or service.
Now according to the saying, “If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.” Unfortunately, however, that just isn’t the case.
If you go down to the patent office today you will see many different and highly superior designs for mousetraps, many dating back well over 100 years. Yet, the best-selling trap… the one that has been around for almost 200 years… is the simple-spring operated one that you and I picture when we think of a mousetrap.
If all of the designs are better than the one that still sells the most, why don’t people bu`y them?
Simple:
People don’t bu`y what they don’t know about.
Marketing raises the visibility of your product or service. It puts your sales message front and center for the consumer and creates demand.
Let’s say that Mr. Smith is selling an amazing product that his customers love, but he doesn’t advertise that fact and no one is talking about it. The only people who will bu`y Mr. Smith’s product are the folks who happen to walk by his store front. It’s a recipe for disaster with diminishing sales and a bankrupt business the likely outcome.
Unlike Mr. Smith, Mrs. Jones is selling a good product. Not necessarily as good as Mr. Smith’s, but still a quality product. Her customers like the product and are talking about it in a positive way. Her business immediately benefits from word-of-mouth marketing, a no-cost, passive marketing strategy that requires no effort or expense.
Mrs. Smiths’ customers tell their friends and family about her product and they in turn tell their friends and family.
Because of marketing, Mrs. Smiths’ sales will continue to grow exponentially despite the fact that it is not the best product.
In this way, it’s easy to see that good marketing can overcome a multitude of business sins, from a bad store location to a product that is still being “perfected.” But make no mistake: marketing doesn’t excuse the sins… it just helps counter-balance them.
If you’re selling a bad product at a bad price from a lousy location, no amount of marketing will turn that sow’s ear into a silk purse. Oh sure, you can use marketing to run a scam and make some quick, easy money. But if your aim is to grow and maintain a successful business, you can’t do that selling garbage.
White-Hat Marketing
I’d like to take a moment to talk about philosophy… mine… about marketing and sales. At it’s heart, I believe that commerce is a two-way street where each party has a need that the other can satisfy.
I believe in offering a good product at a fair price. As someone with an honest product or service to sell, the first thing you need to ask yourself is:
“Who am I writing to and what benefit/value do I have to offer that they can’t get anywhere else?”
Don’t forget that even if you have the best product or service in the world, without an effective marketing campaign, your business will be a complete waste of time, energy, and money. That’s the hard truth of it. Without effective marketing, no one will know about you and no one will bu`y from you.
I don’t want that to happen to you.
All the Best,
Mal Emery
Committed to Elevating the Financial Wealth and Wellbeing of Society Through Entrepreneurial Excellence and Guilty of Conspiracy to Create Capitalism
