Monthly Archives: August 2016

Guaranteed marketing results- Really?

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From telemarketing to SEO, delivering furniture to investment, everyone wants a guarantee these days. As I like to keep my customers satisfied, I decided to look into it and started with a definition.  I found three:

  1. A formal assurance (typically in writing) that certain conditions will be fulfilled, especially that a product will be repaired or replaced if not of a specified quality.
  1. Provide a formal assurance, especially that certain conditions will be fulfilled relating to a product, service, or transaction.
  1. Promise with certainty.

I think you can already see where I am going with this. Whilst I can understand how one can guarantee a delivery time or food quality, I cannot see how anyone can guarantee marketing results in advance with certainty. Clever as most marketers are, they cannot predict the future and whilst experience might help their estimation, you don’t really know until you start.

‘Why is that’? I hear you cry…. Well, unfortunately, you can only make a future guarantee to a process you completely control within your actions. As we started with a definition, the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) defines marketing as ’the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably’. Notice the order, first you have to identify then anticipate before you can satisfy requirements profitably, making a future promise hard to make. Marketing is also a two way process, designed to elicit a response from your audience: one you cannot guarantee or predict, making a future based promise even less likely.

So what do you do as a business owner looking to grow your business? Here are the options as I see them:

  1. You walk away from any form of marketing, leaving your business to the mercy of clients’ referral and organic growth (or no growth)…
  1. You find a marketing company that is prepared to offer you a guarantee, you spend money with them for three months only to discover that marketing results guarantee is a difficult matter…
  1. You find a marketing company that will guarantee to offer quality in terms of strategy and delivery, one you feel you can work closely with and develop a long term working relationship with…

It is entirely up to you what you choose to do regarding this. In my latest Blog covering instant success I have already made it clear that I believe that an investment in any marketing strategy should be long term and include a number of tactics in order to see results. That is not to say that you should not expect or measure results, of course you should. It also helps to have specific goals in place to help focus the mind but looking for a guarantee puts unnecessary pressure on the whole process thus working against it.

You can read more about how we can help you grow your business through developing a tailored sales and marketing strategy here.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you want to discuss anything further and share the Blog if you found it useful.

 

Sales and Marketing strategy – Why it’s not wise to look for instant success

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I recently read an article entitled: ‘The Truth About Overnight Success’ by Maru Labichela who explained how having started her business looking for overnight success, she then found herself in debt as a result of paying top dollar to coaches and consultants to help her find the magic bullet to instant success.

I strongly recommend that you read the article, especially if are looking for an overnight success in your business.  Personally, I don’t think that there is anything wrong with overnight success or dreaming as long as it helps you shape your sales and marketing strategy and motivates you to carry on. I do however agree with Maru’s recommendation that you concentrate on doing one meaningful thing towards marketing a new product or improving your sales skills every day, as opposed to looking for the magic bullet.

Being in business development, I do come across many people who think it must be the magic bullet for their business. In many ways it is because they feel that it is more tangible perhaps than other strategies they have looked at before.  Business development is a good strategy of course, but just like sales skills training, SEO, e-mail marketing and advertising it is influenced by two main factors:

  • It does not work in isolation and must be a part of an overall strategy
  • It needs time and investment to make a difference

A prime example of this is telemarketing and campaign follow up. To this day, regardless of digital development, many business owners regard the telephone as a spiritual tool steeped with magic. Perhaps it is because so many people dislike cold calling and following up….  In any case, when people employ us to do telephone work for them they very often expect instant results.

However, Telemarketing, like all other sales and marketing strategies does not work in isolation and requires time. In fact, in my experience telemarketing works best in the following context:

  • As a tool to clean up your database and identify broad opportunities and dead ends
  • As a way to speed up your understanding of your target markets and how they perceive you
  • As a relationship building tool
  • If you are prepared to then follow up on these broad opportunities and turn them into appointments and sales further down the line

So next time you find yourself looking for the magic bullet to instant success, remember that the only rules that apply to the silver bullets of your sales and marketing strategy are:

  • Have a good strategy
  • Review it often
  • Give it a realistic amount of time to work before you move on

If you are not prepared to do this, then do yourself a favour and don’t waste your marketing budget….

As always, please let me know what you think and share the Blog if you found it useful.

Of course, if you need help considering your sales and marketing strategy, get in touch.