During a discussion with one of my clients about different areas of marketing and how they affect a business, it was apparent that he was getting more than a little confused.

A few days ago, a friend of mine sent me the following article which I thought explained things quite clearly.

I thought I’d share it with you…

The 10 areas of Marketing Development Explained:

1. You see a gorgeous girl at a party.
You go up to her and say, ‘I am very rich. Marry me!’
That’s DIRECT MARKETING.

2. You are at a party with a bunch of friends and see a gorgeous girl.
One of your friends goes up to her and pointing at you says, ‘He’s very rich. Marry him!’
That’s ADVERTISING.

3. You see a gorgeous girl at a party.
You go up to her and get her telephone number.
The next day, you call her and say, ‘Hi, I am very rich. Marry me!’
That’s TELEMARKETING.

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I don’t know about you, but on the rare occasions I have a few spare moments to surf the net, I sometimes find myself drifting to YouTube.

Now, ok, there IS a lot of rubbish out there, but I recently came across a company who have used Social Marketing to successfully grow their business.

Let me tell you their story…

Not so long ago, Blendtec was a little-known company that manufactured blenders – their consumer grade blenders cost around $400, so not the cheapest on the market.

Things started to change for them when George Wright joined the company in 2006 as Director of Marketing. The catalyst happened one afternoon, not long after he had started working for there. On the day in question George came across Blendtec CEO Tom Dickson testing the new bearings for the blender – by blending a 2×4 inch piece of wood!

While this was going on, the rest of the company’s employees went on with their work unphased. Apparently the practice of “extreme blending” was a regular occurrence at the factory, as Tom was keen to make sure Blendtec blenders were the best.

Now George, being the smart marketer that he is, recognised the potential to turn this into a marketing story which would make Blendtec stand out from their competitors, both in market visibility and in proving the quality of the Blendtec Blenders.

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… Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

… Unique Sales Point

… Competitive Strategic Advantage (CSA)

… Key Differentiator

Whichever term you’ve heard, these are all different ways of saying the same thing. Regardless of the different “wrappings” given by people over the years, it still boils down to one thing… the ability to differentiate yourself from your competitors in the eyes of your current, and prospective customers.

Like it or not, competition in business across all sectors is becoming more fierce year on year. And as if that isn’t hard enough, along comes this latest downturn in the economy. So what chance do we really have to survive, let alone grow?

If you don’t set your business apart from that of your competition and if you don’t give your clients a compelling reason to buy from you rather than anyone else, then it only comes down to one thing…

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Advertising may or may not be a part of your marketing arsenal, but whether you believe advertising works for your business or not, there are certain times when you should consider using adverts as part of your marketing mix.

Traditionally, the main reasons to advertise are:

1. To increase awareness of your business and the knowledge of your products or services
2. To highlight why customers should buy from you rather than your competitors
3. To create a favourable emotional reaction to your product or service
4. To remind people to buy from you
5. To stimulate impulse purchases

All well and good, but don’t forget that you must remain focused on getting a specific response.

The following are examples of when advertising would be a good choice…

• When you have no other method of reaching your prospect
• When your budget permits
• When awareness of the existence of your company is essential before you approach your prospect directly
• When you can reach the most prospects who can and will buy what you offer cost-effectively
• When your prospects are reachable by one or more different media
• When most of your competitors advertise
• When most of your competitors don’t advertise
• When your target prospects are the mass-market consumer
• When you are increasing the range of products or services you offer
• When you are moving into a new market

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If you have ever been involved in sales for your business, then chances are you’ve heard stories about the pushy “foot-in-the-door” salesmen of days gone by.

The principle they used is fairly straight forward. A salesman would roam housing estates knocking on doors, and the moment someone answered, would jam his toe in the door so the householder couldn’t slam it in his face.

With foot successfully lodged, he would then deliver a well rehearsed sales message about the particular product or service it was he was selling – to the somewhat captive homeowner (whether they were interested or not) – when all THEY wanted to do was to get this irritating man to remove his foot so they could shut the door!

The process these salespeople used was simple…

1. Chase down leads (find a housing estate)
2. Find a prospect (someone who opens the door)
3. Get their attention (jam foot in the door)
4. Pitch to them (recite carefully rehearsed sales pitch)
5. Try and sell them (don’t give up if there seemed to be any chance of a sale)
6. Either sell to them and take the money, or
7. Give up and move on to the next house

It was a numbers game, pure and simple. The more doors that got knocked, the more doors got opened, the more people heard the pitch, the more people bought, the more sales were made.

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Most people make the mistake of selling what they offer to the wrong people, because they don’t truly understand WHO their customers are and WHY they buy.

But that’s just the beginning…

Did you know that your prospect makes their decision to buy, or not to buy from you within the first few minutes (at most) of meeting you… yet they won’t necessarily know it themselves?

This all happens at the subconscious level.

Of all the articles I’ve read on the subject, I think Michael Gerber explains it the best in the ‘E-Myth Revisited’ – if you want to read the full version, then you can find it on page 218, but this is the gist of it:

Picture your customer standing before you – neither happy nor sad, not frowning or smiling – he is completely neutral.

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In case it has escaped your notice, we are in troubled times – heading for a recession at lightening speed if the Media are to be believed.

Whoever you listen to at the moment, whether they are experts on the economy, Politicians or other figures of authority, the word on everyone’s lips is…

“Recession…”

But is the economy really as bad as we are led to believe? And if it is, what can you – as the owner of your business – do to reduce the impact it will have on you?

It’s definitely the question I’m asked the most at the moment:

“What do I need to be doing in my business in order to survive?”

It’s true that consumer and some business spending is down. It was announced recently that retail spending for April in the UK was dramatically down on the figures for the same period last year. Indeed, the annual midsummer retail report states “this is the worst retail market since the early 1990s”.

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Over the last 60 years or so, billions of pieces of mail have been sent by businesses, with the sole intention of growing sales.

These mailings have included everything you could possibly think of:

Simple letters and postcards, CD’s and DVD’s, three dimensional brochures, dustbins and even boxes of cereal have all found their way into letterboxes across the Globe – including the UK!

It goes without saying that billions of pounds are dependent on the success or failure of these mailings.

But what can YOU do to make your Direct Mail Campaigns more effective?

Campaign success is measured as return-on-investment (ROI) – or how many total sales were generated compared to the cost of the marketing campaign.

It’s a proven fact you can dramatically increase the response you get with a personalised telephone call as a follow-up. This has the advantage of making it easy for customers to respond to your message and for you to be able to measure the results. The downside is that it does require extra resource (and cost if you outsource), but certainly worth considering a test on a sample of your list.

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It’s been 18 months since the first issue of my “… For Profit” newsletter was published.

From the comments I’ve received over that time (and the fact I now have 2000+ subscribers) I’m pleased you are finding the articles of benefit.

At the beginning of this year, I announced the change in focus of the way I teach the systemisation and implementation of marketing systems through 2008. This change in delivery format helps me to offer a better service to you, whether a direct client of mine or not.

It also helps answer a number of requests I’ve had to present the information in smaller – but more regular – “bite-sized-chunks” as it would help you to implement things in your business(es) more easily.

It is a little sooner than I had originally planned, but it also fits in better with the new range of learning formats which will be going live over the summer.

An added benefit of using the blog format for Marketing for Profit is the ability to link to the RSS feed, but there will be additional benefits to those of you who subscribe – once a month you receive a little “something extra” which won’t be available to non-subscribers.

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