Proofs, formulas, and wild-eyed theories
for greater profits
March 1, 2011
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Expert advice that drives me crazy
Just like you, each week I receive emails from many
different business and marketing experts. A common
theme I've recently been seeing is an expert - either
in their own emails or in articles from respected trade
journals - proclaiming one marketing method or the
other as the only way to market. It goes something
like this:
* Video marketing clobbers all others, ignore
it at your own peril
* Facebook is the only way to market, all old
school methods are useless or dead
* Direct mail is mounting a major comeback, forget
about all those cluttered online methods
* Mobile is the future of marketing - get on board
now or you'll be left behind
So why does all of this drive me crazy? I mean nearly
stark raving mad??
Because it's all a load of crap.
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The partial truth - and then the full truth
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The partial truth is this: all of the statements above,
if neutered of their hyperbole, are good advice. What
I mean is that all of the marketing methods these experts
are touting can work well for your business. So from
that standpoint, they're all partially true.
The part that isn't true is the claim that one marketing
method is any better than the other - or that it's on the
verge of rendering all the other marketing methods
useless. That's simply false, and worse, could be very
damaging if you buy into it.
The full truth is this: different marketing methods work
better than others for different types of businesses. Oops,
sorry to inject a bit of common sense in here, but I'm
guessing you already knew this. But bad advice from
recognized experts can make you question what you
instictively know.
So this naturally leads us to the question...
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How the heck am I supposed to know which
marketing methods really work best for MY business?
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So glad you asked. It's really quite simple. The jumping
off point for determining the best marketing methods
for your business is this:
Go where your prospects and customers
already gather
If you're selling accounting systems to chiropractors,
then direct mail and space ads in trade journals for
chiropractors are the most likely places where your
prospects "gather".
If you're selling ring tones featuring rap groups or
action sports athletes, then Facebook ads to
demographically selected groups and banner ads on
fan sites would be the "gathering spots" you're
looking for.
Selling to senior citizens? For the most part, online
marketing is NOT where you want to go as seniors
still tend to be less technically savvy. So direct mail
and radio are great "gathering" options.
The bottom line is that you must know your customer.
Get to know their habits, get to know their likes and
dislikes, get to know the most critical problems they
want to solve and the driving goals they want to
achieve. Once you do that, it's reasonably easy to
figure out where they "gather" and use the appropriate
marketing methods to reach out to them.
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Final sanity check
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Remember to "check" what any expert tells you against
common sense. It's easy to take what someone has
written, or what a trade journal has published, as the
unvarnished truth. But if your gut is telling you something
is off, 99% of the time, you're going to be right.
Dig a bit deeper, ask people whose opinions you respect,
and learn to be a bit skeptical. Doing so will help you
avoid costly mistakes that could prevent you from
achieving your marketing goals.
Yours for more traffic... more sales... more often,
Bob Serling
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