5 Things To Know About Marketing:

Marketing Is Compound Interest

 

Have you ever been asked this question: If you were offered (a) £1000 a day for 30 days, or (b) a Penny on day 1, two pennies on day 2, four pennies on day 3, and so on, doubling the amount everyday for 30 days, which would you take?

 

For those that know the answer, you know what I am talking about, for those that don’t, you’ll have to read on to find out.

 

The main problem with marketing especially for small businesses is applying patience and consistency. Now this in itself has its setback. Recently, some of you have shared with me the problems that you are facing in your marketing and knowing where to advertise was one of the issues.

 

Advertising is perhaps the most expensive way to market your business with the least guaranteed results. This means that if you are spending so much money on advertising then after a short amount of time you run out of money and then it’s good-bye to advertising.  Below are a few tips that I would strongly recommend:

 

# 1. Find cost effective ways that gets your brand name, service or product out there. If you are a service business, a very cost effective way to market yourself is by writing articles. I know I have mentioned this in my 10 Tips but I don’t think we know the power of having something written in print or on the internet that can work for you even while you sleep.

 

Give yourself a goal to write maybe one or two articles a month. When you read books, listen to the news etc make notes and find out what people are interested in and look for ways that this can fit into the service you provide.

 

# 2. Eliminate the least effective methods you are using and focus on what works. The moment you notice that a marketing method isn’t working, adapt it; if it still isn’t yielding any results, then stop it. You can then either focus more energy and time on the most effective methods or you can explore by trying out other methods.  

 

I have really got to be honest with you: there are only 6 to 7 major ways to market yourself – Direct Contact, Networking, Public Speaking, Writing, Promotional Events and Advertising – in most cases, whatever you are doing at the moment will fall under one of these topics. So focus on 2 or 3 of these so that you don’t spread yourself out too thin, stay with it for sometime and see the results! It will pay off a lot more than changing too soon.

 

# 3. Focus on only marketing where you’ll find your target market. This is another area I see many making big mistakes. If you carry a bucket of water through a village were there is water in abundance no one will take any notice of you, however, carry that same bucket of water through the desert, someone might even want to exchange all his gold for it!  I am sure you catch what I am saying.

 

If you find out where your potential market exists, what they read, where they go etc and you only market your services in those areas, you are more likely to be effective than if you advertised in your local evening newspaper which is very general. Do you know were to find your potential clients? It works like magic, in fact they will say, “where have you been, I have been looking for your service or product”.

 

# 4. Remember that people need to hear your message consistently. When I was in sales, I was always astonished when I’d call back a potential client that was previously very abrupt with me on the phone a few times and now was suddenly eager to know more about what I had to offer. I learned something really important about people. They need to hear your message consistently because when they are finally ready to buy your services you want them to come to you.

 

How can you do this? Develop a system for follow up, maybe you’ve heard of the acronym Save Your Self Time & Money; imagine if you had a system that enabled you to keep in touch with every person you’ve met at a networking event, meeting, course, etc.  Well, that should be your goal, i.e. to build a huge contact list so that you can be in touch with them frequently enough so that they don’t forget you. You can do this via email. 

 

 # 5. You’ve got to give before you receive. Buying is an emotional thing; sometimes we forget that people will buy when they are in the right mood, or when they now need your service or product. Take as an example the retail shop that treats all it’s potential customers with extra care whether you buy or not – when this same potential customer is in need of retail therapy she will more likely go to where she was treated well. Marketing is everything you can do for that customer before they finally decide to go with you. And in today’s society, people expect a lot up front.

 

The problem with small business owners is that they are afraid of giving away too much and the customer/client still does not end up buying from them. I want to tell you never to worry about that, word of mouth is a very powerful method of marketing and I don’t think it would ever fade away. Therefore, if you are known to give things away for free, people are more likely to talk about you!

 

That is what marketing is all about you’ve got people checking your website to download your free article, you got people coming into your store because it’s buy one and get the next one free – With a good plan these people that have come to you for the free offer can soon be converted into clients/customers and, might even be some of your best ones.

 

The accumulated result of you following these principles is that at some point your business will explode with clients. I think in today’s world, we are spoilt because we expect everything to be instant; we have instant coffee, microwave food etc. So we expect instant return on our Marketing Investments.

 

Lets go back to the question I asked at the beginning: If you were offered (a) £1000 a day for 30 days, or (b) a penny on day 1, two pennies on day 2, four pennies on day 3, and so on, doubling the amount everyday for 30 days, which would you take?

 

If you answered that you’ll take the £1,000 then you’ll end up with £30,000 which you might say isn’t bad.

 

However, the person that decided to take the penny would end up with

£10, 737, 418.23 by day 30! Yes over 10 and a half million.

 

This is the power of compound interest. So even if all you were doing at the moment was collecting a few email addresses, this could be your ticket to your fortune in the near future. Marketing is compound interest!

 

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           Compass Coaching & Training Ltd