Marketing Essentials
Marketing is the most important activity you can ever engage in as a business owner.
Marketing is the most essential activity business owners can ever engage in.
And contrary to the received and common wisdom, your marketing strategy is the most valuable asset your business has — it’s worth more than the stock, the cash in the bank and all your capital plant and equipment combined.
That’s a fact.
Why?
Because…
Without Marketing You Have No Business
Let me explain.
Your business’s survival ultimately depends on sales, because that’s what drives income (which in turn drives profits). And sales are the natural and direct result of marketing.
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So, without marketing, you don’t make sales.
Without sales, you don’t have income.
Without income… you very soon don’t have a business any more.
So…
Why Do So Many Business Owners Get Marketing So Wrong?
I don’t think there’s any one answer, just many different reasons. But I think the most common reason is simply that most business owners know nothing about marketing and how it should be done.
When they start their business there’s usually a sudden influx of customers or clients (because anything new is interesting to people), but this soon wears off and sales and revenues plummet. So, in desperation, the business owner looks around to see what his competitors are doing — and copies them. The only problem is, his competitors are doing exactly the same as he is — looking around them and copying everyone else.
The upshot is it all looks the same and no one’s very successful at it.
Good (i.e. successful) marketing is, by definition, marketing that makes you money — awards and accolades be damned.
And the only way to enure your marketing is profitable is to:
- Ensure you can measure it. You must be able to track every sale you make back to the ad., sales letter, postcard, email, Adwords ad, or other marketing piece that led the buyer to the sale. If your marketing mix isn’t trackable and measurable in this way then you should not be doing it!
- Marketing magazines and business marketing schools will try and sell you on the idea of “branding” and “image marketing”, but this is folly. You should always be focusing on your prospects’ needs, desires and wants ahead of your own ego. They don’t care about you. All they care about is their own problems and your ability to solve them.
- You should be following the tried and tested rules of direct response marketing, rules that have been formulated over hundreds of years and have been proven to work over, and over, and over again.
Apart from anything else, marketing is actually great fun. And not only is it enjoyable in its own right (personally, I enjoy the challenge of trying to beat my last ad or sales piece), but the pleasure coming from the extra (and predictable) income you generate is immeasurable.
So that’s the basics. There’s a lot more on this site, so feel free to look around and see what you can uncover, learn and discover for yourself.
And remember… marketing is not optional!
Jon McCulloch
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