Trite and True Observations on Marketing to Inspire You
Staying the course isn't exciting, but it's necessary!
Yes, these thoughts on marketing have been tried so often that they are trite, but that doesn’t make them less true! It’s best to just accept the facts – and take advantage of them.
You’ve heard it all before. After all, there was “nothing new under the sun” when the Old Testament was written more than two thousand years ago, and that goes for marketing, too. But that doesn’t make these truisms less true. Here’s what we mean:
If you build it, they don’t just come.
Brick-and-mortar stores don’t expect enough folks will just wander in to make a profit. Instead, they hold ribbon cuttings, hand out coupons, and budget for plenty of other marketing, which online businesses need to do as well. And all of your marketing channels, from website to social media to print, needs to be coordinated because there won’t be enough traffic from folks who happen to stumble upon any one source. It’s important to drive the traffic from one to the other.
When the student is ready, the master appears.
Until your customer needs what you are selling, you are basically invisible. They may toss your postcards and delete your emails, but consistently marketing puts your name in all sorts of places to rack up those “marketing touches.” The object is to be everywhere so when a prospect decides they need the service or product you offer, you “suddenly” appear.
A prophet isn’t honored in his hometown.
Some folks are influenced by the slick marketing of an out-of-town company and figure they must be bigger, and therefore better, than any local competition. Projecting professionalism in all situations is a must, but it can also help to point out the ways that your local-ness is an advantage.
When they already “know a guy.”
On the flip side, other folks prefer to work with someone they know, even if that person doesn’t have the skills needed to do the job. Constant networking builds the contacts necessary to be the skilled guy to know, but don’t hesitate to point out the advantages of working with a professional rather than with a relative or friend.
Toot your own horn.
Nobody trusts a braggart, but if people don’t know what you do and how well you do it, how will they think of you when they need your product or service? News releases, blog articles, social media posts, and conversations are only some of the ways to show what your business does. Even better, talk about who you do it for so that people identify themselves with similar problems that need solving.
Consistency is probably the most important part of marketing and the hardest to do. It’s so much more fun to plan a one-off creative campaign, but without the day-after-day discipline of getting your brand out there, those fun campaigns can fall flat.
If you are having trouble staying interested in your marketing, it makes sense to hand off that task and that’s just what the Sprocket Websites team can do for you. Give us a call to discuss the possibilities!
Photo by Jeswin Thomas from Pexels
This article is an update to “Feel Like You’re Marketing to a Wall?” dated 3/3/2014.
Kate Gingold
I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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