Is It Time To Kill Your Marketing Program?
Ouch . . . sounds pretty drastic I know, but . . . If you've been in business for any length of time, you've no doubt been faced with the question, "Should I dump this marketing program or should I wait a little longer for it to start producing results?" Even if you're new in business, you may have tried a new way to market your business and with lukewarm results found yourself wondering how long you should stick with it before giving up and trying something else. It's the age-old question of "When is the right time to put a marketing program out to pasture?" This reminds me of my advertising agency days. We'd create a new ad campaign and run it for awhile, and because we (and the client) were exposed to that campaign day-in and day-out, we'd all tire of it quickly. Knowing when to hold and when to fold Often, the client would want a new campaign and we'd have to remind them their prospects hadn't seen the campaign nearly as much as we all had, and that it was best to let the campaign keep running. How do you know what to do? Just how do you know when it's time to let an ad campaign or marketing program keep on running and when it's time to try something new? The answer is very simple. Look at your results It's time to make a change when the marketing is no longer producing results. And by results I mean, it's no longer moving you toward your objective. Are you achieving your objective? Every marketing activity should have a specific objective - that is what you hope to achieve. Your objective may be to generate a certain number of phone calls, or web site hits, or even sales. Tracking your results will tell you You'll want to track the results of your marketing activities from day one, so you'll know how well they are producing and you can monitor their trends. For example, you may get consistent results for weeks, months or even years. In this case, my motto is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" Don't be tempted to make a change just because you're tired of it. If it's working, leave it be. Are your results on the decline? However, if your tracking shows you are steadily getting fewer and fewer responses (e.g. phone calls, web site visits, sales) it's probably time to freshen up that marketing or start anew. Or, maybe your results never really materialized And, if your marketing program has never really generated the response you are looking for, even if it's relatively young, it's also time to take a good hard look at reworking it to make it more effective. Just be careful not to give up too soon You do need to give your marketing time to work - most people will not act after seeing your message just once, but rather need to be exposed to it repeatedly before taking action (industry standard is between three and seven times). Having said that, if you've given your marketing ample time to produce results and nothing's happening, odds are you missed the mark and either the message or the medium is off. Is your message missing the boat? If your message is off, it means you are not effectively speaking to your prospects or hitting their "hot buttons." Do you really understand their problem or challenge? And does your marketing speak clearly to that issue and position your product or service as the best solution? Or are you missing your audience? If the medium is off, it means you have put your marketing message in a place where your prospects aren't likely to see it. It's important to understand your prospects and where and how you can best reach them so you can put your messages in those places. After all, if they don't see your message, they can't respond. What type of response rates can you expect? For direct marketing efforts a response rate between 1% and 3% is considered good. On the web a 1% conversion rate is the norm, so if you're doing better than that consider yourself lucky. You can expect a higher response rate from your current subscribers or clients because they already know and trust you. As far as new mailing list subscribers, expect between 5% and 15% of your web site visitors to join your mailing list. The key is to make sure your marketing is reaching enough people so these response rates yield results you can be happy with. If you've given it time and it's still not producing . . . If you've given your marketing program time to work and nothing much is happening, or if your results are on the decline, it's time to kill that program. Or, at least, to give it a makeover. Starting fresh can breathe new life into your business Consider starting over with a fresh new approach, a new message, and some new mediums. Make sure your new marketing program is grounded in solid marketing strategy (The 10stepmarketing System is a simple way to be sure of this - and you don't need a marketing degree to figure it out!) If your marketing program is not delivering the results you want, it may be time for a 10stepmarketing Extreme Marketing Makeover. I'll help you take your results from drab to fab in just six short weeks. But only a few lucky people will get the chance to get my help making over their marketing this year. If you'd like to be one of them, you can learn more here. (C) Copyright 2005 Debbie LaChusa 20-year marketing veteran Debbie LaChusa created The 10stepmarketing System to help small business owners and solo-preneurs successfully market their business, themselves without spending a fortune on marketing. To learn more about this simple, step-by-step program and to sign up for her FREE audio class and FREE weekly ezine featuring how-to articles, tips and advice, visit http://www.10stepmarketing.com
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First, some background on today's topic. I've had a terrible week. Not
terrible as in I got nothing done because I did actually get quite a bit done.
But man, I struggled. And I didn't even really understand why.
I have to admit, most of what I got done happened between Thursday and Sunday.
Have you ever had a week like that where you struggled to get things done?
Or worse yet, struggled and didn't get anything done? Or maybe it just FELT LIKE
you didn't accomplish anything?
I hate weeks like that and I rarely feel that way. So why was this week
different? At first, I couldn't put my finger on anything specific. Looking back
and replaying my week in my mind didn't cause anything to stand out either. In
short, nothing really clicked as the cause for the way I was feeling and acting.
So then I decided to do what I always do when I am trying to solve a problem. I
just kinda let it go for a while and did something else.
And THEN, I finally figured out what the problem was!
It wasn't anything specific about THIS week. It was related to something I had
done several weeks ago. And it's very ironic that this was the cause of my
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You see, several weeks ago I had drafted my 90 marketing plan. This document
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It's actually not that hard to figure out but it is something that you need to
track closely and see which weeks of marketing effort have the biggest payoff.
In other words, you want to track which things you did that resulted in the
biggest payoff in sales, opt-ins by potential customers, joint ventures,
branding, etc.
Basically all the stuff we need to do to as part of our Big Ticket Marketing
efforts. We want to repeat those things that give us the largest payoff in our
next 3 month marketing plans and drop those things that didn't work out. And of
course we always try new things that we think will work, as well.
Anyway, the reason that I was struggling and feeling like I wasn't accomplishing
this week was because...
I was in OVERWHELM!
I had a lot of tasks I wanted to accomplish, because I'm an ambitious guy. I
want to do well and I have a lot of goals I want to reach. This is all fine, but
the point of having a 90 day marketing plan is so that it will be easy to focus
on the specific set of tasks that I need to accomplish each week by focusing on
ONLY ONE main area each week.
And normally, this system is very effective at keeping me focused. But,
ironically, the act of creating the 90 day marketing plan made me look at
everything I had to accomplish in the next 3 months and I was sort of stuck in
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Have you ever experienced that?
I think we all have at one point or another.
However, I am disappointed that I didn't recognize what was going on sooner. My
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disciplined about focusing on what I needed to do and what our team needed to do
every week to accomplish our goals. And sometimes the ship cycles lasted between
1.5 to 2 years.
Plus I have a black belt in Hapkido (a Korean martial art like a cross between
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practice and long term view. But at the same time requires you to learn and work
on smaller portions of the entire body of techniques, patterns, because that is
the only way you can really learn what you need to know.
Anyway, my point is that I should know better and yet I still fell into the fear
from OVERWHELM. And I think everyone experiences not only overwhelm but other
fears about what they want to do as well.
The title of this article promised you a simple secret to keep your fears from
holding you back - from selling Big Ticket Items. Can you guess what the secret
is?
I'll give you a hint. It's not really a secret at all. In fact everyone knows
about this but unfortunately not everyone knows what to do especially in a case
like overwhelm.
Ready... the secret is ACTION!
Yes, ACTION. Now you are probably wondering... "Hey, wait a sec, you just said
you were in overwhelm, how can action possibly be the secret for that?"
Napoleon Hill, in his book "Think and Grow Rich" said, "Action is the real
measure of intelligence". Thomas Huxley said: "The great end of life is not
knowledge but action." Intelligence means nothing, action means everything.
I knew what I had to do this week and yet I was struggling to do it. I even had
a 90 day marketing plan with each week spelled out for me and yet I was stuck. I
got unstuck when I realized I was overwhelmed and decided to do something about
it. What I decided to do was to take action. But the type of action I decided to
take was influenced by my precious experience both in software development and
martial arts.
Have you heard of Kaizen?
Kaizen is a Japanese word which basically means 'continuous and incremental
improvement'. The word came from when the Japanese were introduced to the work
of W. Edward Deming when he was stationed in Japan to help them rebuild after
World War II. While there, Deming introduced them to what later became know as
Total Quality Management.
What I like about Kaizen is that it takes small action steps over time to solve
problems. The beauty of this approach is that you can take something that
currently seems daunting or puts you in overwhelm and start by only focusing on
one small step that you can take to help improve the problem. The small step is
so easy that you bypass your overwhelm and fears and just do that one small
step. Then after a little while you introduce another small step and
continuously improve the situation or problem until it is solved.
So in this way you CAN take action, even if it is very small, and slowly over
time each action you take has an effect that builds on all the others and
creates an unstoppable force until your problem has been solved. The fact that
the action is so small makes it easy for you to do SOMETHING and not focus on
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Maybe a short example will help. One of my goals is to increase the readership
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Well... there are over 1000 just in the built in database in the software I am
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I kept putting this off, because I had a bunch of other stuff I needed to get
done as well. But this was a major focus for me this week. Finally, what I
decided to do was to just add my information to ONE directory or list every time
I finished another task. Breaking it down so that I only had to worry about one
entry every so often REALLY helped me make some progress in this area, without
worrying about how many there were.
I still have a long way to go, but my initial goal was to get listed in 20-25
sites and I'm currently sitting at 17. A few more sites and I will have met my
goal!
Plus, Kaizen is really how I study martial arts so the process is very familiar
to me even when applied to something else.
Ok, so the one 1 simple step you need to take anytime you have a fear to conquer
or an overwhelming situation to deal with is to decide on one simple action that
you can do in a very short amount of time that will ultimately help you solve
your problem. Do this, and then increase what you are doing in that area by a
little bit each time and before you know it you will have your problem solved.
Try this! It works amazingly well with very little effort. And you get a huge
amount of satisfaction knowing that you are taking steps to accomplish what you
want to get done... and you'll be doing it almost effortlessly.
By the way, if you want a great little resource on how to apply Kaizen, you
should get The Kaizen Way - One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert
Maurer. It's a relatively recent book and a quick read at 182 pages. You can
find it on Amazon or at Barnes and Noble online. Maybe this is your first small
action step.
Also, check out the resource box below for some websites that will give you some
resources you can really use related to your Big Ticket Marketing efforts!
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Secret #4 - Get very comfortable asking for payment
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