Marketing On The Offensive
Topics: marketing economy recession proactive
As we start to tread on what some experts call a “sluggish period”, I’m compelled to encourage you to reinvest into marketing. My guess is that this area has or will soon be getting more of your attention as leads become more scarce.
But perhaps this cooling period is just what your business needs. Oftentimes such a period drives us to reevaluate things and focus on those areas that are really working. It does another pretty wonderful thing too…it forces us to go on the offensive.
The truth of the matter is that marketing is really only effective when you’re on the offensive. If you’re a football fan, then you’re probably familiar with the dubious “prevent defense”. This is a strategy of containment, of shepherding things without a lot of attention. And if you’ve ever watched your team using this type of defense, then you’re probably not a big fan of that tactic because the opposing team inevitably scores anyway.
The same is true in marketing. In order for it to be effective, you’ve got to get your head in the game and you have to be willing to invest. Like marriage, this is true for the good times as well as well as the bad. I come in contact with business owners who try to buy advertising as if they’re haggling at a flea market.
Marketing is just not an area in which to be cheap. It’s ok to be cheap when you’re shopping for clothes detergent. But playing the miser in marketing only hurts you as it limits business. Transitioning from a marketing miser to a spendthrift might be a bit of a stretch. But here are some ways to break out of that defensive posture and rev up the business for good.
Marketing as an investment rather than an expense. The bottom line is that if you consider every penny spent in marketing as an expense then you’ll never grow to your potential. I’m not saying that you need to throw money away. But you do need to be somewhat liberal in this area to discover what works. Marketing is getting groups of people who have a need to know, like and trust you. There’s a path toward the final sale and you need to realize that each “touch-point” involves an investment of some kind.
A good example is direct mail. At first the prospect doesn’t know who you are. After a couple mailers however, they not only know who you are but start regarding you as a valuable resource. Finally, after an ongoing dialogue is established, they trust you enough to give you an opportunity.
Think in terms of ROI. One thing that’s helped many owners break out of the defensive posture is thinking is terms of a campaign’s return on investment. That is, start with how much a typical sale means to you. For some, this could be $100. For others, this might mean $15,000. Once you determine this, figure out the maximum amount you’d be willing to spend to get this. This might mean 10% of the sale…perhaps even higher.
One you start to look at the benefits as well as the costs associated, it makes marketing a lot easier. And you’ll find that after a couple campaigns where your marketing dollar generated a lot more in return, spending will become much easier.
Steal and modify. Creative juices aside, effective advertising is right there in front of our eyes.
The truth is that you really don’t need to reinvent the wheel when you advertise. By finding those things that are working for your competitors then altering based on your brand and message, you can grow the business pretty quickly and predictably. And because of the internet, I might suggest finding peers in other geographic markets who aren’t competing with you and discovering, then replicating, what they’re doing. There’s no shame in emulating what’s successful. And the ROI is much better than when coming up with new ideas all the time.
Another suggestion is to think of the marketing side of your business as a defined process. For example, create a public relations campaign of identifying then contacting journalists in the area whose audience is one in the same as your target market. Develop a contact plan with them where you provide helpful information that would make their job easier. By continuing to improve on the contacts and process, you’ll find that they respond and start including you in articles. The bottom line is that we have processes for accounting, finance and operations…there’s no reason we can’t have one for marketing too.
The key to getting new and improved results in business development is to break out of that defensive mode and get into the attack mode. Once you do that, wonderful things will start to happen.
Scott Campbell is the President of Impact Marketing, Inc out of Atlanta, GA. They install marketing systems into businesses working predominantly in the “Building” sector.
Learn more about Impact Marketing and its solutions here at www.impactyourcompany.com.
Previous Articles Highlighter:
Getting Free Blog Traffic (1)
This is one way to get noticed and get traffic without spending a dime. Try to make your blog new and different and excited. This will get people talking about your blog and don't be afraid to encourage them to share your blog with others.
Promoting Your Website With Only $100 (2)
Fortunately for you there are some many different little things that you can do to start publicity on your site and not costing you too much. If you are willing to put worth a good, honest effort, you will see the benefits.
What Updating Your Sales Page Will Do For You (3)
If you are unsure about how easy it is for your customers, just ask them by sending out a survey or a questionnaire. Another detail to look at would be how appealing your site is to customers.
What Do Alexa Rankings Really Mean? (4)
In order for Alexa to rank your business web pages you have to provide high quality content. Keywords should be carefully implemented into the titles and subtitles of the web pages that are designed and published.
Use Sitemaps To Help Your Blog Ranking Grow (5)
One of these is to benefit your users, the other is to benefit search engines. Both are very different and require different things, but it is simple to meet the needs of both parties.
PPC Advertising Strategies - Is PPC An Effective Way To Market Products Online? (6)
Topics: ppc advertising tips, make money online with ppc, pay per click tips Pay per click is a very popular method of getting the word out about your products or services on the internet.
Top 5 Mistakes That Affiliate Marketers Make (7)
However, some marketers are trying to sell instead of pre-sell the products. You should leave to the merchant site to sell the products. As a result, you will put information related to the products on your websites.
Internet Marketing : Effective Methods (8)
However, this method of Internet marketing is fast losing its punch and is almost on the way out, because every website owner prefers to publish search engine Internet marketing ads that pay on per click basis.
Want To Increase Traffic To Your Website? Then Create Your Own Affiliate Program (9)
It also creates a learning experience for your affiliates because they get to see who the top affiliates are and the methods they use. Now while blatantly copying their methods may not be to an affiliate's advantage, seeing how others approach that particular campaign can give them new ideas of things that they can try out next time.
Gaining More RSS Subscribers For Your Blog (10)
After the previous two steps, the primary goal for anyone who owns a blog is to create a site that will be appealing to Internet surfers and help them to have the desire of using your site to fulfill their needs.
How To Succeed In Advertising With Pay Per Click (11)
Topics: PPC, pay per click, advertising, internet marketing, search engine marketing, site promotion Internet marketing can be an extremely challenging situation for the individual that is introducing their business to the World Wide Web.
Website Research - Keyword Tools To Look At (12)
But you will always get the most for your money if you decide to pay for a program. Court is an expert on the best methods for starting a blog.
How A Group Marketing Network Can Help Your Business (13)
You can go from home business to a well know nationwide market. Experienced Assistance The fact is that a group-marketing network is experienced and understands what it really takes to make a product succeed in the mass market.
How To Buy Ebooks For Resale Without Getting Ripped Off (14)
One thing you should be concerned with, possibly above all else, is whether the seller is reputable. One of the first indications is, does the seller provide you with a guarantee.
List Building Tips: The Often Overlooked Foundation Of It All (15)
The biggest problem with this approach is that it's very shortsighted because if your list isn't very responsive then you advertisers won't give you business a second time and you will be left to continuously searching for new ones.
How Marketing Arm Combines Business With Travel (16)
The company does not only sell discounts on four and five star hotels. It also offers great pricing on cruises and other types of vacations as well, to all corners of the world.
How Franchising Offers Global Customer Base (17)
Once the internet grew, offers to open franchises exploded with its growth, and the issue of a protected market was quickly dismissed. Building a global marketing network became the rage and today it remains the goal of many businesses as well as opportunity seekers.
Work At Home On The Internet Effortlessly With Proven Copy And Paste Solo Ads (18)
Conclusion With all of the methods of making money online, e-zine solo ads are truly the quickest and easiest way to get a return on your investment. Although free methods like article and forum marketing work also, they take a long time.
The Benefits Of Finding A DSL Provider (19)
As the information is transmitted through the telephone wire, it is also transmitted into the computer through the use of a DSL internet modem. Many times a DSL provider will give their customers the software and modem that they need to be able to use DSL internet, but some may charge leasing fees for use of the modem or require the customer to actually purchase the unit.
The Drawbacks To Working At Home (20)
If you are the type of person that is motivated by outside factors (such as a supervisor), then working at home may not be your cup of tea. When you work at home, there is no one there to look over your shoulder and make sure that you are still working.
Newer Articles Highlighter:
Ten Reasons For Affiliate Marketing (1)
There are a number of online programs that can help you make sure that your campaigns are effective and profitable. Affiliate marketing is an excellent business opportunity to consider.
Skyrocket Your Profits With A Substantial Opt-In Email List (2)
Who doesn't hate spam? So, if your prospect has any reason to think that you'll give their email address to anyone else, forget it. You have to give them an honest guarantee that you won't share their email address with anyone, period.
Web 2.0 Goldmine- A Comprehensive Approach To Using Web 2.0 To Drive Free Traffic To Your Website (3)
So, while configuring our own Web 2.0 plans for our own sites, we took it a step further and developed this guide for all business owners", Chad Bates, author of Web 2.0 Goldmine explained.
Pros And Cons Of Affiliate Marketing (4)
Are you thinking of starting an online business? If you have been researching the possibilities, you have probably come across affiliate marketing, a business opportunity that has grown exponentially over the last 10 years.
An Online Storefront Can Level The Shopping Playing Field (5)
Stores like Amazon, Overstock and a handful of other big box stores offer tons of specials and an easy-to-use template for shopping, but they are getting some stiff competition these days from smaller, regional retailers and specialty boutiques.
Don't Be Intimidated By Ebay (6)
Now there are more guides, ebooks, courses, etc out there that will teach you how to set up auctions and sell on eBay, my course and ebook systems included. You have an advantage over when I started.
Blog Using Your Creative, Artistic Side (7)
4. Avoid making multifaceted and complicated blogs In order to have an interesting blogs, try not to use some highly technical and highfalutin words. After all, it is not a science discourse or a debate that you are making, so better stick to simple facts and short blogs.
Finding Non MLM Work At Home Opportunities (8)
If you are looking for a non MLM, it means that you are looking for a business opportunity that you can do on your own, without the help of the rest of the group.
5 Tips To Promoting Your Website (9)
Another great way to promote your site is by joining web forums that share the same topic as your site. In these forums, you can reply to members that are looking for answers to their problems.
6 Things To Know Before You Start An Internet Marketing Home Business (10)
The important thing is to build a business by offering many pages on content relating to many different keywords people are searching for products on. If you do that you will be a success.
Using Article Marketing To Target Search Engines And Humans (11)
Most recommendations call for at least two to three articles every week, for different pages on a web site, with the links in the signature block pointing to the relevant web page, but there is not specific number or frequency.
SEO For Beginners: How To Get Started (12)
Here's another tip. Submit your website to Google as soon as you register a domain name. Don't wait because you haven't built your site, thought of what content to write, or don't have a business or marketing plan together yet.
How To Earn More Profits With Affiliate Program? (13)
Other affiliate merchants offer lifetime cookies which never expire. This means if a prospective customer visits your site, clicks on your link, and buys something in 2 years time, you still get paid for it.
What You Should Know About Affiliate Program? (14)
The idea of affiliate program or business is in fact a very simple marketing strategy. In part it is an outgrowth of the Internet and free email services. Imagine that you are standing in the middle of a crowd of hundreds of millions of people with money in their pockets, and a desire to spend it.
Types Of Web Hosting (15)
Even if they have complete rule over their server, these users are still not the owners of their servers. Further, in this type of hosting service, users may choose to have their dedicated hosting unmanaged or self-managed.
How A Duplicate Content Penalty Can Hurt Your Online Business (16)
The way to avoid this is to write your articles and publish them on your own website, and then wait about a week or so before you submit them to article directories.
Why You Got To Use Search Engine Optimization? (17)
For the past few years and the next ten years or so, search engines would be the most widely used internet tool to find the sites that they need to go to or the product or information they need.
Issues You Need To Know About Affiliate Marketing (18)
It is true that you can start to get into the business easily. Yet you will need to work a bit if you want to make money out of it.
Basic Web Marketing Strategies You Can Use To Earn More Profits (19)
This method also brings in traffic if the site that you purchased link placement from is heavily visited website. You can also launch your own affiliate program where people can join.
The Battle For Your Hosting Account (20)
This is the truest form of equality the human race has ever seen. Which means someone isn't squeezing every last cent out of the system. And for the largest service providers, both ISP and hosting, that can't be allowed.