You are in the Marketing Business

1. You are in the marketing business.  Everything you do ultimately affects your marketing.

2. Your business or industry is not different.

3. You must build a marketing system using several different
marketing strategies.

Understand the business that you are in.  Regardless of the product or service that you sell, you are in the business of marketing that product or service.  Marketing brings you clients and until you have clients you don’t have a business.  You may have a store, a profession, a practice, a factory or whatever else your product it but without clients, you are still in the idea phase.

Management guru Peter Drucker tells us Marketing and Innovation make money, everything else is a cost.  When you understand you are in the marketing business, you realize everything about your business is part of your marketing.  They are either taking you closer to more sales and profits or moving you away from them.

One of the biggest business marketing mistakes that prevents businesses from succeeding in the marketing business is to think their business is “different” and that they are somehow “special.”

They think their profession or industry is different and that the marketing rules don’t apply to them.  If you happen to have this mindset, let me ask you these questions:  Are your customers people?  Do they have emotions?  Do they make emotional decisions? Do they want to be taken care of and get quality products and services?  Do they want a better life for themselves, their families and businesses?   Do they want to be happy and have fulfilling lives?

If your clients are people and have the above traits, guess what?  Your business is not “different.”  What if your clients are businesses?  Well, the client may be a business but the the buying decisions are made by people who are making them based on their emotions and feelings about the products.

I have personally been involved in and made buying decisions from as small as the ad specialty pens to give to clients to multi-million dollar shipments manufactured overseas and shipped in on containers.  I made those buying decisions as a person, not as a business.

These business owners also think their industry is different and they have standards to adhere to.  I am not referring to professional standards, codes of conduct and behavior or ethics.  These, of course are valuable  standards that may protect the public and the integrity of your industry.  I’m talking about marketing standards.  These are not official but have become the norm.

After many years of experience, I am still astounded by the number of times an owner shows me a web site, ad or brochure of their competitors and tell me they want their materials to look the same.  I ask if they are different or better than the competition and the answer is always a resounding, “Of course!”  I then ask, “If you are so much better, why do you want to look the same and have the same message?”  What I really want to say is “What the hell are you thinking?”

The lesson is this:  Everything you do that potentially impacts your clients and prospects is part of your marketing.  Your products, your staff, your policies, your building, your restrooms and the list is nearly endless.

You must have a marketing system built on multiple pillars (or strategies).    The exact strategies vary but the key is to use several.  At the top of the list are strategies to maximize the value of a client (which we will address in a later chapter) and to build a long-term relationship with them.

Direct mail, media advertising, sales representatives, email, fax, a web site, telemarketing, referrals, joint ventures and alliances networking are all examples.   The key is to never rely on any specific one strategy because if it fails for any reason, you have problems.