4 Rules to Maximize Your Marketing & Differentiate Yourself from Your Competition
Have you ever walked into a business and were the only person there? And the salespeople outnumbered you by many multiples? You probably have felt like crawling into a hole or slipping out the door unnoticed.
Now imagine the same scenario only you are sitting at home and the mailperson drops off the mail. There are dozens of advertising pieces carrying the same message about the same products, month after month. All of those printed pieces are like all of the salespeople who outnumbered you in the store.
There are too many of them and they all look alike and have the same message. At least you don’t have to run and hide and you can always throw every advertising piece away.
What happens to your mailers? Not doing direct mail? No problem. Maybe you’re doing radio. Maybe you’re doing TV. Let me ask you this then: How is your marketing any different from the competition? Not doing any advertising? Oh man… that’s a topic for another blog, but I can tell you should reconsider and reconsider soon!
Too many people think they can throw a few dollars at a few different advertising initiatives and the calls will just start pouring in. Well, that’s not so. Here are 4 strategies to keep in mind when looking to advertise correctly:
- Be Creative. Whatever medium you choose to advertise—and almost all are effective, but not all are effective in every market—be creative in your advertising. More specifically, be different. If you’re pushing that you’ve been in business for 20 years and you’re professional. Well, so what? Lots of companies can make the same claims. Pick something you do really well, and emphasize that.
- Frequency Matters. You can’t expect to run four or five radio or TV spots and get results. You can expect to mail one mailer and get results. In any campaign you do, you must have frequency. People must see your message over and over before they remember you.
- Display Professionalism. In whatever you choose to do in your marketing, make sure it sounds or looks professional. Nothing is worse than a grainy sounding ad, a cheap looking TV spot, or a direct mail piece filled with misspellings.
- TRACK! Every time your phone rings, you MUST ask people how they heard about you! Even better, assign specific phone numbers to various marketing campaigns, so you know how people discovered you.
Follow these four quick rules, and you’ll be a much better marketer!
