Stop trying to be the town crier

When it comes to marketing your business, do you take the approach that most people take by trying to reach every human being within earshot, or do you take the approach that effective marketers take by engaging in meaningful dialog with your most relevant prospects?

I recently engaged in a debate with a rather uninformed member of the advertising/marketing industry who insisted that television advertising was the only way to go and that other forms of marketing, such as direct mail and search engine optimization, were not effective. Unfortunately, not only was this person completely incorrect, he was also squandering his clients’ resources with ineffective marketing advice. Not only is television advertising significantly less effective than it used to be, it’s also a medium that requires a fairly large budget to deliver decent results. A budget of several thousand dollars spent on television advertising would give you a reasonable number of commercials, however, they would be spread out among several channels and times, and you wouldn’t likely achieve any degree of consistency by reaching the same prospects on a regular basis ? which is critical to a successful campaign. On the other hand, a direct mail postcard campaign with the same budget would allow you to reach a more targeted group of prospects of a consistent and frequent basis, achieving greater results.

The goal of marketing is to convert your prospects into paying clients, which you will only do if you consistently communicate with them. This is especially important in today?s world of fragmented media. People no longer sit in front of the television all night long, or read the newspaper every day. More people are getting their news from the internet than ever before, and those people watching television are increasingly turning to technology such as video on demand and DVR, eliminating television commercials all together. In order to effectively reach your prospects in today’s world, you must utilize a variety of marketing mediums spanning both off-line and on-line options. Traditional mediums are not a waste of money, but they should be a smaller part of a complete marketing campaign, rather than the end all, be all solution that they were in the past. Businesses that fail to embrace the evolving marketing landscape will die out one by one, and thankfully, the marketing companies that fail to embrace it will die out as their clients either go out of business or move on to more effective marketing companies. Focus on convincing 10% of your prospects 100% to do business with you and you will succeed, focus on convincing 100% of your prospects 10% to do business with you and you will fail.