Is Marketing Bad for Business?

Owners must think that these days in this down economy. I've talked to more people who say business is down and they have cut their marketing budgets drastically. WHY? Sure, logic tells me money is tight but how do you now plan to get sales? Are you sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring by magic? Are you standing in your store and wondering why no one is coming in? It is because you have stopped putting your name out there. People easily forget and out of site usually means out of mind. Now is actually the best time to market. Media costs are down because they are hungry for business, clutter is down because so many have stopped advertising AND believe it, people are still spending money on stuff. Even though they may be spending less, you still want to get a piece of the pie they are spending vs your competition. Have an awesome sales day and keep marketing.

Why People Buy

Four reasons people why:

-PRICE. Perfect example- Walmart! Be careful, though, if you build a business based on the lowest price in town. Margins are very low so volume has to be very high in order to stay in business AND most important, will you succeed if a competitor comes in with even a lower price?

-SERVICE. Long after a purchase, people forget the price but they always remember the service. People like spending their money with businesses that are honest, attentive, truly care, and are respectful.

-EXCLUSIVITY. If a person wants a specific hard to find item, ie Rolex, the store that stocks them will get the order.

-CONVENIENCE. Make it easy for someone to buy from you. The internet exploded on this concept because people could buy 24/7/365 and never leave their home/office.

Don't just make the sale, get the customer. Sales are important but success comes from repeat purchases where people spend more money with you more often. Now, go out and get a new customer and stop thinking one-shots..Have a great day.

Researching and Planning Brings Success

I hope you all had a relaxing July 4th weekend. I'm just back from St. Lucia and it is a beautiful island with wonderful people. I highly recommend it. After taking quite awhile to go thru my emails, I found one common theme from the questions I got from potential clients about marketing that strikes a cord. It seems most people market their companies in a haphazard, unfocused way. There is no plan. The message they send, the creative they use, the media vehicles where they spend their money is unstructured and chaotic. Successful marketing takes real intention (Who is my target? What do I want to achieve and why? What is my plan? How will I measure the results of the marketing efforts?) This kind of clarity of intention and focus can produce extraordinary results.

My approach to marketing is to do the proper research before hand, develop an effective plan, implement the plan, track results and make intelligent decisions based on that information to tweak the plan even further. It is like planning a successful vacation. My husband and I spent months researching St. Lucia, wrote out a plan on where to stay, what we wanted to do and see, made adjustments when we finally got there based on weather conditions and had an awesome time experiencing the island, the food, and the people.