| |
| |
|
Marketing Information |
|
|
|
Are You Sabotaging Your Marketing Success?
What?!? Sabotage your own success? Who would do that? Well, you'd be surprised how many small business owners think they are effectively marketing their business, when in fact they are cutting their own throat. Yes, they may be running ads that are pulling in leads or customers. And yes, they may be writing a regular column for their local newspaper so they are perceived as the expert in their industry. And yes, they may even be doing a pretty good job of marketing on a regular basis to their prospect list. So if they are doing all of these things "right," how are they sabotaging their success? Well there are lots of ways. Following are just a few of the ways small business owners unknowingly sabotage their own success. (1) They have not taken the time to develop a marketing plan. A plan focuses your efforts and allows you to make the most of your marketing budget. Unfortunately, you can market without a plan. Yes, you read that right. You can do it, and people do market without marketing plans everyday. But that does not mean you should. To make the most of your marketing efforts and budget, make sure you take the time each year to create a plan. (2) They don't have written goals. Smart business owners have written goals and objectives for what they want to achieve with their business and for each of their marketing activities. I know this sounds b-o-r-i-n-g, but it's a fact. There is proof that people who put their goals into writing have a higher success rate than those who do not. Plus, how can you develop a plan if you don't have concrete objectives? You need a clear vision and target to aim for. You can't possibly determine what marketing or how much marketing you need if you don't know what you are aiming for. (3) They have a short-term attitude. They are reactive in nature, and while on the surface it appears they are doing a lot of marketing, they are not doing anything consistently or long enough to make an impact. Running an ad or sending out your newsletter a few times and giving up when you don't get immediate results is worse than doing nothing at all. How so? Because at least when you do nothing it doesn't cost you any money. Pulling the plug too soon costs you money. And statistics show it takes somewhere between three and 10 exposures to a message for the average consumer to notice it and take action. So it is quite possible your audience was just beginning to take notice right about the time you threw in the towel! (4) They don't know their USP. Probably the worst way business owners sabotage their marketing efforts without even realizing it, is to NOT have a clear Unique Selling Proposition (USP). The greatest marketing plan in the world will not be effective if you have not clearly defined why someone should buy your product or service instead of all the other products or services available to them. If you have not figured out what is unique and better about your product or service, and found a compelling way to communicate this in everything you do, you can market 'til the cows come home and you will be wasting your time and your money 10 Tips to Banish Marketing Sabotage. (1) Develop a marketing plan. Make sure you make it your number one priority to develop a marketing plan every year. (2) Write objectives. Write at least one objective that states what results you would like to achieve with your business over the next year. And, write at least one objective for every marketing activity you undertake, that states what results you would like to achieve from that activity over the next year. (3) Stay the course. Check in on your progress toward your objectives every three to six months, but give your plan a good nine to 12 months to work. (4) Determine your unique selling proposition. And make sure it is represented clearly and in a compelling way in everything you do. (5) Don't try to be "everything to everyone." Focus on a few specific benefits and a specific audience. (6) Track all of your marketing activities. It's the only way you'll know exactly what is working and what is not working. Use this knowledge to make smart marketing decisions. (7) Don't rely on one marketing activity. Employ a mix of several marketing activities to reach more people more times. (8) Create a system to help you stay on track. Your marketing plan will do you no good if it's filed away in a folder. Make sure you have a system to stay on track with your marketing activities every month and to help you plan ahead for future activities. (9) Create a realistic budget. Your budget should be based on a percentage of your projected revenue or the dollars you have available for marketing. Whatever budget you decide to allocate to marketing, stick to it. Marketing is an investment in your business. You have to spend enough to make progress but not more than your business can financially support. (10) Understand your environment. The economy, competition, the strength of your particular industry, your prospects' situation. You have to understand them all so you can create an effective plan to either overcome obstacles or take advantage of opportunities. Follow these guidelines and your business stands a much greater chance of succeeding. All of these activities are part of a good marketing plan. And no business that wants to succeed should be without one. © Copyright 2005 Debbie LaChusa 20-year marketing veteran, consultant, author, teacher and coach Debbie LaChusa has developed The 10stepmarketing System to help small business owners successfully market their business, themselves. To learn more about this simple, step-by-step program and to sign up for her FREE audio class and FREE weekly ezine featuring how-to articles, tips and advice, visit http://www.10stepmarketing.com
MORE RESOURCES: Warning: set_time_limit() [function.set-time-limit]: Cannot set time limit in safe mode in /srv/www/vhosts/testmagazine.com/httpdocs/inc/rss.inc on line 8
Marketing - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Helping Your Prospects Overcome "Buying Fears" By Using Testimonials You DO use direct marketing for your small business? right? If so, you're taking advantage of the most cost-effective means of advertising available. (Yes? I'm biased? I admit it!)Let's talk for a minute about how you can make your sales copy and direct marketing more effective. Promotional Lanyards to Market Your Products and Services It has become fairly common place to see Id badges dangling from a persons neck on a short cord, and on the cord or small rope itself, is printed the name of a company, or a school or an event on it. When you spot one of these, you can be sure you're looking at a lanyard. Top 10 Benefits of Hiring a Marketing Writer to Write Your Marketing Materials 1. It costs less to delegate to a professional than to waste your valuable time trying to do it yourself. Wooing Women With Packaging In just one month three California vineyards have introduced new wine product lines specifically targeted to women. The product offerings are intriguing with names such as "White Lie" and "Mad Housewife" to the latest introduction "Working Girl White. Take The Test: Does Your Marketing Copy Sell? Your marketing materials must grab your prospect's attention long enough to convince them to investigate further. Assuming you get past this hurdle, your piece's message must next convince the reader to call or buy. Marketing Brain Trust Rest assured that no matter how smart you are, you do not know everything about marketing. You don't even know anything about marketing your product! You can't figure everything out yourself, or see all the angles, or provide every bit of critical thinking. Are Keywords Destroying the Flow of Your SEO Copy? With all the shuffling that's been seen in the search engine world within the last year, the issue of obvious optimizing has become a hot button. The current line of thinking is that most engines (especially Google) are on the lookout for sites that purposely make an effort to optimize their pages in order to get high rankings. Why Great Companies Survey: Martian Logic! If an alien civilization from Mars was planning a friendly takeover of our planet they would seek to make sure they understood our way of life and our way of thought.The only way they could accomplish their objective would be by asking questions which they could genuinely understand and then plan a strategy accordingly. Future of Marketing Part 2 In Part 1, I discussed how traditional marketing is no longer working the way it used to. This is happening for a variety of reasons -- people have too many mass media choices, they're bombarded with way too many marketing messages, the Internet is adding accountability to advertising, etc. The Power of a Survey How many times have you been asked to participate in a survey? If you are anything like me then the answer is probably hundreds. I am often being stopped in the street and invited to take part in a survey that will only take a few minutes. Mortgage Marketing - How to Find Your Niche Ann Landers, Dr. Phil and Roger Ebert take pleasure in being recognized as leading experts in their respective fields. Color Part 1: Accuracy Color is one of the most difficult parts of a design to show accurately to a client.Color perception can be affected by many factors, including:Human perception:The way each person sees color can vary, depending on the structure of the individual's eye. 11 Rock Solid Techniques For Generating Product Ideas Anytime Anywhere! Whatever business you are in, either online or offline, you've got to constantly generate business/product ideas.If you've ever wondered how on earth those big corporations and companies generate wonderful and irresistible products plus powerful and revolutionary ideas, here are the 11 basic principle behind it all and the greatest of news is that it can be applied to any business. Want to Increase Your Business? First You Need to Understand where You are at! Are you having trouble understanding basic situational marekting concepts? Then this article is for you.Alex Margarit shows you a simple step by step way on how to put together a basic situational analysis. Web Site Marketing: 10 Little Known Upsell Strategies That Will Magnify Your Profits What is Upselling?It means pre-selling any additional features of yourproducts and services even before your customersmake a purchase.For example, let's say you're selling a computer with a 15" monitor for $600. Benefits of Developing & Maintaining a Database A database is more than a simple list of names and addresses. What turns a list into a database is the additional information, coupled with your ability to select names from or report on the list using any combination of data elements. Five Steps to a Web Site That Sells I'm always amazed that people would spend months to develop their web site, pay thousands of dollars to have it put together and then.. Postcard Direct Mail Marketing Tips And Ideas Postcards are perhaps the least expensive way of reaching a large number of people with your sales message. Although they have their drawbacks, they are cost-effective at attracting new customers. Two kinds of Advertising for a Marketing Strategy Advertising is the lifeblood of any business. If you do notlearn how to advertise your products and services bothefficiently and effectively, you won't be in business long. Linking Features & Benefits I'm sure that you've had those Eureka! moments, too. When a piece of information suddenly helped you see or understand something that hadn't been apparent before.
|
|
home | site map SEO Request | Wing Chun | Home Business Help | Klick Marketing Resources | Recommendation for Internet Business |
© 2006 GetWebMarketing.com - All Rights reserved. - GetWeb Media Webdesign Muenchen |
