Are you getting the biggest bang for your buck… when it comes to your marketing and advertising dollars?
Given the ongoing state of the economy, there is a very good chance that your marketing is not getting the rate of response that it once did. Nor is it bringing you the same quality of customer that it once did. I’d like to call your attention to a specific marketing circumstance that you can learn from that is occurring at the national level and in the end provides little if any real value to the consumer.
It involves 5 national “name” brands that you will instantly recognize, which are… Nationwide, Geico, Allstate, Progressive and Century 21. These mega insurance companies are all competing heavily for your automobile insurance and at the rate that they are collectively saturating the radio, TV, internet and print medias, they are all parting with some big bucks in the process.
What I find highly interesting is that they are delivering what amounts to the exact same message… “Switch to our company and we’ll save you hundreds of dollars on your car insurance.” So, exactly how does the consumer (which includes you) make an intelligent informed decision on which company to choose? Perhaps you should keep changing car insurance companies for the next five years at which point you would be paying “zero” for your car insurance. Of course that’s not reality… but it is a nifty idea!
The current estimate for building a “national brand” is about 120 million dollars. Clearly, these five companies initially invested extraordinary sums of money to build their brand status. And In current time, they resultantly all have enormous marketing and advertising budgets. So, how is it that none of these national brands can find a way to effectively differentiate themselves from their competitors? Why is it that they can not provide the consumer with some means of measuring real “value” and now find themselves in the classic default position of having to compete solely on the issue of “price”?
The fact that national brands are having difficulty in maintaining or redefining their brand image should serve as a clear warning to you the small business owner and solo-preneur of the very real need to find ways of clearly differentiating your business from your competitors. However, with rare exception this is simply not happening. Case in point, my office received a new 2012 phone book recently and when I performed my annual reference check of several prominent Yellow Page categories – they looked exactly as they had the year before.
The Attorney classification has 38 full page advertisements followed by a similar volume of half page listings thereafter, then smaller display ads and lastly the regular column phone listings. The marketing message (or lack there of) on the 38 full page ads were all virtually the same… the attorney’s picture, name of the law firm, address, telephone number and they all performed every legal function from soup to nuts. In essence, the classic “everything to everybody” marketing message. And of course… a gross failure to differentiate or otherwise distinguish themselves from their competition.
Other prime business classifications such as realtors, banks and insurance firms also failed to differentiate themselves as well. The last time I looked, full page Yellow Page advertisements weren’t exactly cheap. It is most unfortunate that so may business people would spend so much money to keep doing the exact same thing that they have always done “out of habit” or because they haven’t figured out what else they can actually do to improve their marketing and thereby get a leg up on their competition.
As we have all collectively witnessed these past several years, the big national companies have been struggling to survive as their brands have become stale and they have been sluggish in responding to change. It is you the small business entrepreneur who is potentially more agile and able to quickly adapt and then make the appropriate changes in operating and growing your business.
So if you want to get more bang for your advertising buck… Then the time has come to revamp your marketing!
The consumer of 2012 is looking to stretch their hard earned dollar further than ever before. Your prospects are also your competitor’s prospects as well and they are earnestly searching for real value and exceptional servicing. These potential customers that you are competing for are more informed, better educated and have more buying options than ever before. If one thing is absolutely certain, it is that your business is going to have to work hard to “earn” the prospects business.
Your prospect simply isn’t interested in all of the old marketing games and have frankly grown weary of the advertising gimmicks, precocious children and over sensationalized product hype. They are also tired of advertisements that knock your competition. If the only thing that you have to sell is negative smack about your competition… then you’re in real trouble as you don’t have much to sell!
So following below are six strategic ideas for revamping your marketing:
Revamp Your Marketing Message. If you want to truly have a leg up on your competition, then you must finally differentiate yourself from your competition. What do you do or what “can” you do that your competitors don’t do? Secondarily, what are the most common problems that your potential customers have? Use your marketing message to make yourself the hometown “expert” who can solve the customer’s problem better than anyone else can.
Make Your Marketing Message Congruent. Once you rethink and revamp your optimum marketing message, be congruent by uniformly placing your message in the right distribution channels where your customer sales will actually take place. The act of having a consistent message in every advertising medium that you utilize will increase the effectiveness and efficiency of your marketing plan.
Take Control of Your Content. There isn’t a marketing agent, advertising representative, web designer, radio station or TV provider that knows your business inside-out like you do. They don’t know who your ideal customer is, so don’t entrust your content to anyone else ever. Your responsibility is to provide your customer what they “want” or “need” – which constitutes the substance of your marketing message. The responsibility of the media outlet is to “window-dress” your message and place it in the path of your prospect. Control your content and you will control your destiny.
Hold Your Margins. Stop giving your profit away. Stop competing on price. Your prospect is searching for “value”… so why send them a message that conveys that you don’t believe your pricing is worth it either by drastically discounting or slashing your prices. Set fair pricing structures and then start providing your customers with more, by giving them legitimate “value added” product and service extras.
Motivate Your Prospective Customer. When your prospect comes face to face or ear to ear with your marketing message… what is supposed to happen? What is it that you want the prospect to do? Your marketing message must have a compelling “Call To Action” that is crystal clear about the next step that the prospect needs to take and that will place them directly into your sales funnel.
Outlast Your Competition. It has often been said over the years that competition is “fierce”. Perhaps never more so than today. Yet, a recent report states that 99% of all sales people don’t follow up appropriately with their prospects. This is tragic since it takes on average 9 customer contacts before the prospect makes their buying decision. By simply crafting a real program of ten procedural customer contacts that have purpose and meaning to the prospect – you are almost certain to outlast your competition and earn more business.
There is plenty of business is out there for the taking… if you are willing to do what it takes!
Copyright © 2012 Developing Forward Thomas H. Swank, CBC All Rights Reserved.
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