I was working with a client a few years ago when this truth really hit home with me.
It’s one of those things that you know but over time it kind of crystallises in your mind and you begin to understand it deeper and deeper.
You probably have things like this in your industry, you can think of it as ‘rules of thumb’ or the ‘golden rules’ or something like that.
The client I was working with in the women’s health industry has a great business, it’s a product that the customer needs and lots of customers come to this client all by themselves – which is great.
That means that even without marketing they can make some sales. This is a common situation that some businesses are in. Your local plumber, your local electrician are people like this. They have been in the local community for 10 – 20 years and their word of mouth and referrals makes their phone ring 2 times a day with a new job with NO marketing.
But when they want to grow and get a second and third truck with employees doing work for them they need to reach outside their circle, that’s where marketing comes in.
Ok so back on track..
The client I was working with in the women’s health industry often came to the table with lots of ideas on what they wanted to do to get more customers. It;s always great when you have a client who is very interested in the marketing but sometimes, it can take some time to get them back on track.
The Marketing Lesson
Of course I would work with the client and try to work with their ideas too, but when something doesn’t work it simply doesn’t work. No matter how much the client might want it to.
The conversation often turned a corner when I asked them
“So what’s the strategy here?”
Which meant, what will happen after that? And what;s the reason we;re going to tell the customer we’re going to do that?
And so on…
This client was great to work with and they knew tha marketing was not really their thing; they were just excited to get the product in as many hands of people who needed it as possible.
They would realise “ok yes… I can see I was a bit off the track there”.
Local Businesses
Let’s talk about local plumbers again for a moment, I’m no plumber or tradesperson. I did spend a few years after high school working odd jobs in construction for days and sometimes weeks at a time – just for cash of course. (that’ll probably be a story for another time).
About plumbers, when they come into the lay the pipes for a new house I’m sure they don’t just come in, dig some holes and put pipes in the ground and connect them to sinks.
They would have a strategy, a plan of attack first. Forgive me if you’re a plumber, because I’m probably about to say something totally incorrect, but maybe a plumber needs to connect the highest point first or maybe they need to make sure the drains at the lowest points of the house are connected first or whatever.
The details are not important. What’s important is that the industry has a reason for the way they need to do things, and for marketing that’s the strategy.
This company in the women’s health industry can;t just put signs outside saying “Come buy this stuff”, there needs to be more thought. More strategy.
75% Of This Job Is This
When it comes to marketing and attracting and winning customers in a way that will actually work for your business, the strategy behind it all is going to be 75% of the job.
This means if you don’t have a good strategy in place, you’re only going to get 25% of the way to the goal of having a successful marketing campaign.
If you want to grow your business some type of marketing needs to take place. I’d never say that something common-day today like “Facebook Ads” is a must do or that it’s the only way to grow your business. It’s a great and a powerful way but yes there are others.
What’s more important is the strategy that you would take to Facebook Ads (for example)… and just as important is the strategy you would take to putting flyers in people’s mailboxes. The strategy component is the same.
I go through all my strategies on my web class so if you want to go deeper into that just click here craigmarty.com/class , it’s free, you’ll get a lot out of it I am sure. Just click here and see the date and time for the next class.
So let me wrap this up here. If you have tried to market your business before, maybe you ran Ads on Facebook or maybe you paid for a spot in the local newspaper it doesn’t really matter… if you have marketed your business before and you did not get the results you needed to at least pay you back for the cost of running the Ads… it’s likely the strategy you took was wrong.
Maybe you didn’t think about the strategy – that is a common response to that. And that’s ok, you’re probably in a business where marketing is not really the main thing you do.
Maybe you’re a plumber, or you have a local law firm or whatever, marketing isn’t your thing and that’s ok. This is what I do full time and have done full time for over a decade now, but I’ve been in the marketing world for over 16 years, it is a full time job.
Before I end this post just let me tell you that spending the time to get the right marketing strategy in place will get you 75% of the way there, to having a successful marketing campaign.
Ok that’s it, I’m marketing my book on Facebook Ads right now, so if you’ve got a product or service that is already selling Facebook is a great place to go to find more people. Between Facebook and Instagram (which are both owned by Facebook), there are 4billion people who log onto either Facebook or Instagram every single month… 4 billion with a ‘B’. So are your customers on Facebook, yes… they are.
My book on Facebook Ads is free, get a copy of the book and see how you can reach your target customers on Facebook, how you can do small tests to find out what works, so you don’t overspend and waste money… Just $5 a day for a few days will get you started.
Get a free copy at craigmarty.com/facebook . We’re sending out these books every day, so just add your name to the list. Go to craigmarty.com/facebook and click the button, tell us where to send it.
Plus there is a heap of other bonuses that come with the book that will help you get the results you’re looking for. Just go to the link to read all the details.
Ok that’s it for today, I’ll speak to you again next.
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