A gentleman called this week and asked if I would mail him a catalog and price list.

“Sure,” I replied, but noted that he could also download it immediately off our website.

“I don’t know what your website name is,” he said. “I got your phone number off an ad in an old magazine.”

After I put down the phone, I was again reminded of a fundamental truth in business: never stop marketing. You can never know which advertisement is going to motivate a potential customer to call.

It works like this:

• building business is the goal, marketing is the plan, and ads are the steps you take to achieve your goal.
• Your marketing plan answers a simple question: How can I put my brand and/or offer in front of folks that are in need of my service?
• Brand builds trust and name recognition, offers generate sales.
• The rule of thumb is that a potential customer needs to see your ad seven times and be ready to purchase before they will pick up the phone.
• The closer you can put an ad (in time) in front of a potential customer who is ready to purchase, the more likely they are to respond.
• Measure results. If it works, re-use it. If it doesn’t try something else.

There isn’t any other secret sauce. marketing is a critical component of every successful business. As a business owner, you should expect to spend 2-3 hours every day marketing. A better rule could be, if you aren’t shooting or selling, you should be marketing. Outsource everything else.

I’ve long forgotten which magazine the ad was in, but I am confident it was according to the plan.

Tags: advertising, marketing

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 8:37 am and is filed under marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.