The 7 Commandments of Marketing
by Michele Schermerhorn
Marketing is the key to success with any business, online or traditional.
You can have a website or business location. You can have a great product.
However, if no one has heard about your business or your product, you have
NOTHING!
Marketing is everything you do to promote yourself and your business.
Without an aggressive marketing effort, your website is just one of EIGHT
BILLION listed on Google. Without an aggressive marketing effort, your
store
better have a location next to Walmart and hope for their overflow. How do
you stand out from the crowd?
There are seven (let's call them) commandments for your marketing efforts.
Keep these in mind and you are well on your way to creating an effective
marketing machine. Remember, there is only one way to score the
effectiveness of your marketing efforts - SALES!
Commandment #1. Use a Rifle NOT a Shotgun
Rifles leave a neat, clean hole where you point them. Shotguns scatter
shot
in the general direction you point them. Most failed marketing efforts are
born in a scattered marketing message aimed at the world.
Let's say you were trying to sell a snowboard. To effectively sell a
snowboard to a fifteen year old requires an entirely different
conversation
than selling the same item to his mother. Therefore, commandment #1
directs
us to segment our possible customers into different groups who share
common
concerns. If your product could be sold to a fifteen year old or a 40 year
old, you'd better decide who you are going to focus your marketing efforts
upon for the greatest success.
Commandment #2. KNOW Thy Customer Like Thyself
Following commandment #1, we selected a targeted group of people for our
marketing message. Now, we MUST understand that targeted market as well as
we know ourselves. We must crawl within their mindset. We must understand
what they think about our product, what they want from our product, and
the
alternatives they have to our product.
Customers buy for their reasons, not yours. If you want to sell them your
product, you MUST sell to their concerns, not your own. Every piece of
marketing copy must FOCUS upon them. If you don't speak their language,
you
don't get their money.
Commandment #3. Be PASSIONATE About Your Company & Your Product
Attitude is infectious. If we are around upset people, we begin to take on
that attitude ourselves. If we are with positive people, the same
phenomenon
occurs. Most people like to associate with enthusiastic people. And, most
of
us like passionate people. If you aren't passionate about your company and
your product, why should anyone else be?
Commandment #3 means to show passion for your product by speaking and
writing about it with enthusiasm. Talk about what your product can help
people accomplish in their lives. If you can't work up enthusiasm for your
own product or business, find another business or product.
Commandment #4. Accept the fact that "NO" won't kill you
In the process of running a business and selling a product, you will hear
"no" more frequently than you hear "yes" (if you're doing it right). What?
By "doing it right", we mean you are TRYING things. Some work. Some don't.
Whenever you think of a new marketing approach, remember, the worst that
can
happen is they say "no". So, try it! This is not a matter of life or
death.
This is a great experiment!
"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most
intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." - Charles Darwin
Commandment #5. Wear a CLOWN SUIT! It's hard to ignore!
The cheapest and easiest marketing in the world is free advertising. How
do
you get free advertising? Wear a clown suit! Do something OUTRAGEOUS!
Become
news worthy. How?
When Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream first tried to expand to a nation-wide
operation, it had trouble finding distributors. They determined the
problem
was that Pillsbury put out the word to all distributors not to work with
Ben
& Jerry's. Pillsbury's edict effectively blocked Ben & Jerry's from the
services of the national distributors. What to do? Put on a clown suit!
Ben & Jerry's set up a one-man picket line outside Pillsbury headquarters.
The picket sign read "Who's the Doughboy afraid of?" The result?
National-wide FREE publicity on television and newspapers. Publicity they
couldn't afford to buy.
In order to differentiate yourself from the crowd of competitors, you MUST
be DIFFERENT! Design your own clown suit and wear it proudly!
Commandment #6. NEVER Give Up!
Albert Einstein said, "Many of life's failures are people who did not
realize how close they were to success when they gave up".
In marketing, everything you do moves you forward. If one campaign fails,
you are that much closer to the one destined to succeed. Watch others.
Learn
from others. Learn from your own mistakes. BUT KEEP GOING!
Commandment #7. Always Be Closing
"Always be closing" is often referred to as the "ABCs of sales". However,
it
also applies to marketing. The objective of marketing is to increase
sales.
Not to "inform", "educate", or "entertain". I repeat: The objective of
marketing is to increase sales.
Therefore, this last commandment directs us to write all marketing copy
with
the sale in mind. Only information that moves a potential customer toward
a
sale is allowed in our marketing copy. How do we know what should stay and
what should go in our marketing materials? Read through it asking yourself
one question - "So what?"
Another way of stating "so what?" is asking "why should the customer
care?"
You've been in business since 1972. So what? Your product folds flat. So
what? You're a family owned business. So what? The alternative?
"We have been in business since 1972 so you'll always know where to find
us.
Since we are a family-owned business, you're always talking to an owner
who
can answer your questions and solve your problems. Our product folds flat
to
save you valuable office space when not in use." See the difference? Now
you're
talking about the customer's issues, not yours.
There you have my seven commandments of marketing based upon 33 years of
business experience. "Commandment" is defined as "A formal pronouncement
or
rule". Keep in mind and put into practice these seven commandments of
marketing. When you do, your marketing efforts will result in the only
true
value of marketing - increased sales!
PERMISSIONS TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in its entirety
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Courtesy of http://hombyz.com
About The Author
Michele Schermerhorn has over 30 years experience in the business
world and over 12 years running her own successful online businesses. She
is
President of Online Business Institute Inc. (www.obinstitute.com) and
regularly conducts free online seminars. Online Business Institute Inc.
exists to "Create Successful Online Business Owners One Person At A Time".
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