Effective Marketing Campaigns

ing and marketing. Big mistake. Now is the time to ham- mer your business into the marketplace with cost-effective marketing plans that let the world know who you are, what you do, and what you have to offer. Despite your tendency to want to save money in any way possible, now is not the time to retreat. Let your competitors? contract to the point that they no longer exist while you press your bet, and if you are going down, go down swinging.

It?s especially important now to be at the fore in your clients??and potential clients??minds. While this expand- and-conquer action is completely counterintuitive to all the bad news, you must effectively and aggressively market yourself and your business if you are going to survive, pros- per, and capture market share from your competitors.

Obviously, you want to be smart about this tactic and avoid spending money on strategies that don?t work. When things get slow, increase the amount of time you spend on marketing and prospecting for new business. You?re usually able to get the best price for traditional advertising and marketing campaigns during slowdowns since other people are doing less advertising. In addition to traditional approaches, research and employ creative ways to make your organization more widely known

within the circles and communities in which you sell. For instance, if you usually devote 10 percent of your time and energy to marketing and prospecting when things are fairly busy, you might increase this to 50 percent when things are slow.

As we?ve discussed previously, a lull in business requires that you expend extra effort to attract clients, follow up on leads, and stay in contact with and extend your power base. While you can accomplish this through traditional advertising, you can also utilize some activities that don?t cost any money: phone calls, personal visits, mail, e-mails, fliers, social networking on the Internet, church activities, newsletters, seminars, briefings, ?good news? newsletters, instructional videos, community involvement, magazine writing, taking on a public office, speaking at rotary clubs, coaching your kid?s soccer team?and so on. Most if not all of these methods are fairly original, build tremendous goodwill, get you better known, and cost nothing but your time and energy!

The second part of this approach dictates that what- ever you do, be sure you stick with it. Take action consis- tently and aggressively during every day, week, and month and throughout the year. You must commit to a market- ing program throughout the year?not just when you need the business?in order for any one of these initiatives to work. Whether it?s a traditional advertisement or some of the other, more innovative marketing strategies already mentioned, make sure you can stay with it because all mar- keting takes some time to get traction. When planning

a public relations or advertising campaign, I look at how much it will cost to run that program over the course of a year, not a week or month. While this technique ensures a steady stream of new business contacts in the future, it isn?t guaranteed to reap immediate results. The promotion you conduct today sets in motion a selling cycle that will result in new business when you need it six months into the future.

It is just as important that this campaign enhance your reputation throughout the community or circles in which your product is needed. In addition, the fact that you are out there doing something about your business?instead of just sitting idly at your desk, waiting for things to turn around?will give you added confidence.

The types of marketing that work best in an economic contraction?and during all economies, since they are most effective?are a combination of results-oriented direct marketing (direct-response print ads, sales letters, self- mailers, special offers) and low-cost or no-cost visibility- enhancing publicity techniques (press releases, articles, speeches, booklets, seminars, newsletters, radio and TV interviews). For instance, my company offers free seminars. I do at least 25 of these per year to introduce people to my company, ideas, products, and services in order to con- tinue to expand my future possibilities. Yes, it costs time and energy, but not doing these things risks the company?s future. Don?t think of marketing in terms of just cost- ing money since a lot of efforts can be made without any budget just by utilizing your energy. For example, over the

course of one week, I personally did 15 radio interviews, met with a group of businesspeople who were located three hours from my office, had two free post-seminar private- speaking engagements, sent out 50 books with a personal note to business owners around the country, and wrote and mailed a combination newsletter?video e-mail to contacts in my entire database.

Attack every aspect of your marketing platform with massive action and energy. Massive is defined in the diction- ary as ?large in comparison with what is typical.? My own personal definition is ?that amount of action that will create new problems for yourself and your company.?

Yes, you read that right. You want to create new prob- lems. Most people stop short of this approach; in fact, they usually try to avoid all problems, just to end up with the same old boring recurring situations that they have had for years. People don?t advance and conquer because they don?t take enough action or follow this up with more mas- sive action. They then end up with dull, familiar problems instead of adventurous and positive problems. Massive is critical to making your marketing efforts effective.

Never try to replace the more labor-intensive market- ing efforts mentioned earlier with traditional paid advertis- ing. And never assume that just because you don?t own a company that you don?t need to advertise and market your- self. The goal is to advance and conquer, not just be along for whatever ride the economy provides. Increase your responsibility to change your conditions by doing more marketing for yourself, independent of the company.

One of the reasons people become so insecure when unemployment goes up during a period of contraction is because they become aware that they are at risk. You have to aggressively and effectively learn to market yourself, or you will experience downturns in your business?even during thriving economic conditions. It is a misconcep- tion today among salespeople and employees that the com- pany should do the advertising and marketing and those who work there should just collect paychecks. This line of thinking renders the individual more dependent upon the company, leaving him or her more intensely affected by whatever the business experiences. That person ultimately becomes a slave, with no control over his or her own economy. Individuals should be treated and conduct them- selves like a business within the business, with the intent of creating their own economies that run because of their own production.

Regardless of your position, you must effectively mar- ket yourself as an individual to make yourself more valu- able to your company, its clients, and the marketplace. You want to be invulnerable to the downturn. When markets contract, jobs do too, and those who appear the least valu- able to the business are the ones who are let go first. Even good, loyal workers lose jobs during tough times?not because they didn?t do a good job or weren?t loyal to the organization. It is usually due to the fact that they did not do a good enough job of marketing themselves as too valu- able to be terminated. So make sure that you present your- self as one of the irreplaceable members of your company.

Increase your value to the business and its clients and in the marketplace and you will never lose your job, no matter how significant economic problems become.

It is certainly not my intention to offend anyone in regard to this very sensitive issue. However, when I hear that someone has lost his or her job of 20 years with a com- pany that didn?t close its doors, well, that person must real- ize that someone made a decision to let go of him or her instead of someone else. During my first job out of college, middle management attempted to fire me on at least six occasions because?as they so eloquently stated??Grant is difficult to manage and causes problems.? Yet each time, upper management overturned middle management?s deci- sion because I was doing such a good job of marketing to my customers and selling the company?s products. Execu- tive management was not willing to risk losing the rela- tionships I had created or the business I generated. On one occasion, upper management laid off my manager instead because the organization perceived me as being more valu- able than him. In hindsight, I do agree that I was unneces- sarily difficult to manage at that time, but my production levels were so high compared with those of others that it made me almost invincible. (I added almost in there to feign some humility.) Nothing will provide you with more protection than the ability to generate revenue?something that?s done by taking massive action, effectively marketing, staying in front of customers, and getting the job done!

Unless you or your family owns the business (and some- times, even if your family does), the only way you are going

to ensure your own success is to outproduce everyone else. Your career?s future should never be left up to a manager, the company, or the economy; it must always depend on your ability to get into the marketplace, effectively promote yourself, establish and cultivate relationships, inform people of who you are and what you do, and then turn those con- tacts into contracts. Do that, and you will never be without work or money. You will advance and conquer accordingly. Remember: Effective marketing is about more than merely spending money to advertise. It?s about investing energy to make yourself known and valuable throughout the market.

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Date: 2016-06-12; view: 105