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What Marketing Can Do For You
By Michele Pariza Wacek
© 2005
I thought I would clear up some misconceptions about marketing in
this two-part series: What Marketing Can Do For You and What Marketing Can't Do
For You. We'll start with the positive.
Some business owners have a rather skewed perception of marketing. They
think you throw a few ads out there, get a couple of press releases printed and
voila! You're a big success.
Oh, if it only were that easy. (Although if
it were, I probably wouldn't have a job.)
But there's no getting around
that to have a successful business, you need a solid marketing plan.
So
what CAN marketing do for you? Increase your business no question about it. You
need to be marketing if you want to grow your business.
However (and this
is a really big however) marketing is not going to result in overnight success.
Marketing is about slow growth, building on last week's success and forgetting
about last month's failures. (Or what you THINK are failures. It's not uncommon
that a campaign you think is a dismal disappointment may be what caused the next
campaign to take off.)
Marketing is about frequency - about your target
market seeing your offer over and over again until they're finally ready to buy.
Without that very important frequency, your business will start to stagnate
and
eventually die.
Now that doesn't mean you won't have a major success with
a campaign. Even a massive, amazing, unbelievable success. You'll run one ad or
be featured in an article and wham! You end up with more orders than you know
what to do with. While that's a great shot in the arm, it probably won't last
unless you keep building upon it. Eventually the orders will dry up and you'll
be back to where you were before.
Marketing is also about being
consistent. This goes back to building on successes. Your customers need to see
your message over and over again. This builds trust and credibility. Plus, your
current customers will also respond to that frequency. Not only will they not
"forget" about you and go to your competitor, but it will help build their trust
in you as well.
Lastly,
marketing is about working hard. There's no getting around it. To be successful
means putting in the time and energy to continually market yourself. (You can
also pay someone to help you with it, but basically it comes down to someone
somewhere has to put in the time to continually market you.)
If you remember nothing else,
remember this: If you don't implement your marketing strategies, nothing is
going to happen.
That last sentence seems obvious, but again, I'm amazed
at how many people I run into who aren't willing to do the work. They talk about
it, but when it actually comes down to doing something, they somehow never seem
to get around to it.
One way to overcome that is to plan on doing one
task or a little marketing every day. Then it doesn't seem quite so
overwhelming. Me, I make a commitment to do X number of marketing tasks a week,
regardless of how much time that takes.
Marketing is a commitment.
There's no getting around it. If you have a business, then you have no choice
but to make a commitment to marketing on a consistent basis until the day comes
when you decide you don't want a business anymore.
Creativity Exercise --
Make a Commitment
Since I'm interested in having all of you succeed, I
want YOU to make a commitment right now to market your business on a regular
basis.
Write this statement on a piece of paper, filling in your name in
the proper place.
I,
{YOUR NAME}, am making a commitment to market my business on
a regular basis from now until I decide I don't want to be in
business any more. |
Sign and date it.
I suggest posting it in a place
where you can see it while you're working. Or, if you really want to add some
accountability to your commitment, tell someone about it. You can even tell
me
about it -- just send me an e-mail at Michele@theartistsoul.com There's nothing
like announcing your intention to keeping you honest.
Copyright 2005
Michele Pariza Wacek
About the Author:
Michele Pariza Wacek is
the author of "Got Ideas? Unleash Your Creativity and Make More Money." She
offers two free e-zines that help subscribers combine their creativity with
hard-hitting marketing and copywriting principles to become more successful at
attracting new clients, selling products and services and boosting business. She
can be reached at http://www.TheArtistSoul.com. |

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