Five Costly Marketing Blunders:
Are They Preventing Your
Marketing Messages From
Getting The Results You Want?
Which Of These Marketing Blunders Are You
Making?
Adapted from Bob and Shirley Hanson's
"Marketing Energizer E-Zine For Consultants"
(copyright 1999 )
What marketing tools don't work for you?
We ask this question when we welcome subscribers to our
zine, "The Marketing Energizer for Consultants." Their
answers are consistent:
"We sent out a mailing and got no response," they
may say.
Or they tell us, "Our direct mail, postcards, and brochures
bombed."
What went wrong?
You may be surprised. The reasons you find here may not be
what you suspect. You may be thinking, "Direct mail letters
(or a Yellow Pages ad, a brochure, a newspaper ad, etc.) just
won't work for a consultant like me.
Maybe. Maybe not. But there are other reasons to consider.
We've seen consultants make these five costly mistakes again
and again. And just by reversing these errors your marketing
communications can become winners!
Costly Blunder #1 - Not Precisely Pinpointing
Your Target Market
One of our clients, a leading networking company, relied heavily
on seminars for its sales. To boost attendance at one seminar,
it placed an ad in the local newspaper inviting anyone and everyone
to attend. As seminar guests, the company really wanted the managers
and executives who make decisions about networks. Instead, with
its wide-open y'all come invitation the ad attracted students
looking for information and a free lunch.
Even if your message is the greatest, it will fail if it doesn't
attract the right people.
Costly Blunder #2 - Spending Money On The
Wrong Marketing Medium
Suppose your market is Chief Information Officers in the health-care
field in the Philadelphia region. It would be futile to advertise
in the "Philadelphia Business Journal" if they don't
read that publication. An ad in the Yellow Pages may be equally
worthless. Instead, your best bet could be a list of names you
obtained from the directory of a professional association they
belong to.
The better you can describe and understand your market the
more likely you are to find them. And the less likely you are
to end up with a time-and-money-swallowing choice of a marketing
medium.
Costly Blunder #3 - Putting a Fog Around
Your Message
Sometimes consultants write marketing communications with
the belief they should, above all else, be clever. As a result,
their message becomes clouded. Another frequent fault is to obscure
a message with technical talk.
Or they may bury their message beneath a display of sensational
verbal or graphic fireworks. Think of the number of Web sites
you've seen where the message is submerged or nonexistent.
Be alert! Don't let anything come between you and the message
you want your prospects to remember and respond to.
Costly Blunder #4 - Relying On Image And
A Brochure To Carry The Day
By image we mean marketing communications with the sole purpose
of creating an image and awareness of your firm, product, or
service. They attempt to be a work of art. (Watch out! Sometimes
they take the form of a glossy brochure with slick photographs
and attention-grabbing layout. That's the kind of brochure nobody
needs.)
The problem is they do not produce measurable results, nor
do they provide feedback to guide you in improving your marketing
message.
If you have $10 million to spend on marketing, your image
brochure (or ad) may work for you . . . some day. It will not
prompt your prospect to act now.
Read on to find out exactly what goes in your brochure or
ad to grab your best prospects and urge them to respond at once.
Costly Blunder #5 - Not Acting On The Power
Of Marketing Leverage
What is marketing leverage?
Controlled studies by successful direct marketing experts
have measured the impact of headlines, offers, copy, and graphics.
By testing -- changing these elements one at a time and comparing
results from direct response ads -- experts discovered the following
differences between responses to the best and worst versions
of each element.
And here are the champions:
- Headline: a response that was 21 times greater
- Offer: a response that was 10 times greater
- Copy: a response that was 5 times greater
- Graphics: a response that was 5 times greater
How can you take advantage of this information?
If your marketing communication does not have an offer, develop
one. If it has a lackluster offer, make it irresistible. If your
marketing document does not have a headline, create one. If it
has a humdrum headline, generate one that is attention grabbing.
How about you? Do you suspect that one of more of these marketing
blunders caused your marketing messages to fall short?
By avoiding these expensive mistakes you will improve your
chances of success. Put these mistakes behind you and begin to
produce marketing communications that get attention and the results
you want.
If you would like to avoid
marketing blunders and get your hands on additional high-voltage
marketing techniques...
Hanson Marketing
Group, Inc.
Certified
Professional Consultant to Management
8011
Navajo Street, Philadelphia, PA 19118
Phone: 215-753-2620 Fax: 215-753-9223
hanson@hansonmarketing.com
www.hansonmarketing.com
