Why Your Marketing Efforts Are Failing

Posted on September 16, 2009
Filed Under Email Marketing, Marketing, Networking

j0387302 Have you ever heard the phrase, “It goes in one ear and out the other?” well, besides referring to my 4 year old daughter, I secretly think this of my clients or potential customers at times. In this case I’m referring to your marketing plan…you know that somewhat seemingly great plan you drafted when you first began your business. Or maybe you meant to or, as one client tells me, it’s all in her head. Well, in her head it will stay unless she actually puts the plan in writing and puts it in motion. (She’s heard this all before by the way)

So where is your marketing plan? There is no other way to say this, but marketing is constant. It is a process that never ends. It is not a one-time project. When you stop marketing, people WILL forget about you, or never know you exist. Keep your name and message in front of them and it doesn’t matter if you’ve done business with them before or not, the next time they are in need of your service or product, they will think of you first. Why? Because you’re consistent and have established a relationship with them. If they only hear from you once or twice a year, chances are you’re not going to hear from them.

One of the biggest mistakes a business can make is maintaining this mentality of only marketing when they need the business. Not only is this a very dangerous road to follow, but it is ineffective, time consuming, and this will not solve your problem. Sure it might get you one or two customers, but then there you are again a few months later wondering where you’re going to get your next client from to pay the bills.

If you’re like the client I mentioned earlier, then you might be thinking, “I don’t have the funds to market all the time.” I’m not sure why business owners discount marketing as a way to save money. I’m going to throw another well-known phrase at you now, “you have to spend money to make money.” Now where this phrase is somewhat true, it is not entirely accurate as I’m pretty sure it was coined before the Internet existed.

The fact is you can do a whole lot of marketing, direct or indirect, that costs you absolutely nothing, and almost all of them are using the Internet. A few examples are:

Start Talking! Start a blog and share your expertise with the world. You don’t have to be a great writer…unless of course you’re a copywriter! Sharing tidbits is a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your field.
Get Writing! Start an electronic newsletter, or eZine. It doesn’t have to be a book and it really shouldn’t be. Again, just sharing informational tidbits is enough. Be short, be concise and be helpful. You’ll gain subscribers and life-long relationships. DO NOT make your eZine a sales pitch or about selling them something.
Article Marketing! Everyone is an expert about something. Write articles about what you know and publish them in the myriad of article banks online. But don’t stop there. Post it to your blog, use them in your eZine, send them to your local newspaper editor, be a guest blogger on someone else’s blog, and the list goes on.
Press On! Did you send out a press release when you first started your business? Well, how’d that go for you? If that was the only one you sent out, I’d be shocked if you had an overwhelming response. In fact, I’d be surprised if it actually got picked up by your local media. The rules of marketing apply here as well. The media get hundreds of news releases a day and starting a business is not necessarily news worthy to them with all the world happenings. You have to be consistent, keep your name in front of them, and follow-up, but if you can get your release published, even if it’s the 5^th one you’ve sent, then you’ve made progress!
Be a Star! If you’re savvy enough, and not camera shy, grab that webcam you never use or your personal camcorder and video your way through marketing. Upload them to your own website or blog, add them to the many podcasting directories, upload them to YouTube and more.
Join a Clique! Remember back in high-school your status depended on what “clique” you were a part of? The Jocks, the nerds, the cheerleaders, the head-bangers, etc. Well, that’s NOT the type of clique I’m talking about here. I’m talking about networking. If you’re networking online, then find groups and forums that include your ideal customers and join in on the conversation. Don’t go there to sell them, just be helpful with your knowledge. Or if you market locally, then network in person with other business people. Your local papers will list networking events, or call and get an invite to your local Chamber or other networking group.
Get Social! If you’re not connecting with people on FaceBook or LinkedIn, just to name a couple, then you’re missing out. Find your friends, business contacts, associates, previous employers and co-workers, old classmates, previous client, family members, and more. Connect with them, set up your profile, and share useful information.
Get Twittering! Ok, if you’re not on Twitter, then I have to assume you’re living under a rock somewhere. Seriously, besides just being plain fun, even if you think telling people what you’re doing is just ridiculous because why on earth would anyone want to know what you’re doing, it is a great business tool! You don’t have to post your status 100 times per day, just make a consistent effort to a couple of times per day or several times per week. Post your status, what you’re working on, maybe a link to a new blog post or to your eZine. Again, don’t just post to sell people. It’s like getting spam and they will stop following you!

These are just a few ideas to get you going. If your marketing efforts are failing, then it’s time to reevaluate your methods. Of course there are plenty of ways to market using paid avenues. But that’s another post for another day and the point to this one is there are plenty of ways to market your business without paying a dime.

As a side note and to give you a perfect example using 2 of the above methods, I follow a local restaurant called Sal & Mookies on Twitter. A few weeks ago I saw a Twitter message from them – they were giving away 2 $100 gift cards to their restaurant. To enter all you had to do was to re-tweet their message using Twitter or leave a message on their FaceBook page. I of course sent a tweet out and then left a message on their FaceBook page…not expecting to win because I NEVER win anything. Guess what? I was one of the winners! Hubby and I loaded the girls up last weekend and headed over to Sal & Mookies for dinner. What they didn’t know was that we have never been to Sal & Mookies prior to this visit and all because I won a gift card. We’ve heard of them of course, we see their name all over town…they’re kind of famous around here, but we had just never been in all our years here. The point to all of this is that they will have a customer for life. Not because we won a gift card, but because they got us into their establishment, we had fantastic service, and the food was OMG good!

So be creative and don’t drop the ball on your marketing plan. Oh, and if you don’t have one, then now’s the time to draft one out and start implementing it immediately. You don’t have to do everything at once. Start small and work your way up to bigger things.

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