I had a column open on TweetDeck yesterday for a search term and the following Tweet came up (I’m paraphrasing) “Let me teach you marketing and make money from Twitter. Just set it and forget it! Click here.” Guys like these give Twitter, and more injuriously, Marketing a bad name. There is simply no such thing as “set it and forget it” marketing
Many small business owners who feel uncomfortable with marketing, or who don’t have the time to devote to marketing their business, often look to hire an employee or retain a marketing consulting firm to help them. There is frequently a concern on the part of the business owner that the marketing person is not getting the needed results fast enough.
You may wonder and ask about putting all the marketing eggs in one basket: If email marketing is working, why don’t we quit attending events and just send out more email? If we aren’t getting any leads from direct mail, why don’t we quit mailing and spend that money on SEO? Or, yes, our direct mail is working, but do we have to send it out every month? Could we go every 6 weeks?
Small business owners may find themselves a bit hesitant when the marketing person approaches them with something new. A different visual or written approach to your materials might be just what you’ve always wanted or it might seem disconcerting.
Business owners, you are going to have to learn to trust your marketing people. I believe that if they are displaying the 6 characteristics below, you can relax. In fact, you can celebrate.
They should display a curiosity about the business. Good marketing people are curious. They are constantly looking to learn more about everything you do; the products, the services, the customers, the competition. They love to dive into the contextual aspects of how and where your products and services play within the market. Their brains are always looking to translate this domain knowledge into a more compelling message. When they are asking questions and digging for this kind of information, it’s a very good sign.
Consistent – Marketing people have been schooled on the necessity of consistency. They know the formidable challenge of your brand becoming top of mind with your target market. They know that there is a difference between frequency and spamming. They know that you can’t start a blog, post 3 or 4 articles, return a few months later, blow off the dust, and make another post. Consistent doesn’t mean uniform – so they will want to change up the look and feel from time to time to see if their consistent effort can engage in a new way and get better results.
Good marketing people are results oriented. They watch key metrics to ensure the marketing plan is hitting on all cylinders. They will monitor hits to website and responses to campaigns. They watch to see what works and what doesn’t work and examine the possible reasons why. They will test and refine. They will track how many raw leads are generated. They will calculate the number of raw leads that become quality leads and the percentage of quality leads that result in closed business.
Experimental – Good marketers are willing to experiment with new marketing channels, or to restore marketing efforts that previously had become tired. For example, maybe your company dabbled with webinars and didn’t see good results. When there is time to revisit and re-evaluate, good marketers like to take a fresh look at an old effort. Perhaps the content was less than compelling. Perhaps the title was unattractive – or failed to address what the attendee was looking to learn or solve. Good marketers are keeping tabs on things like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and how B2B are employing those platforms.
Good marketers look for ways to make marketing fun for the recipient. Some of the most successful B2C and B2B campaigns have been those that invite the prospect to have a little bit of fun with the marketing piece or message. Sometimes the fun factor can cause a marketing campaign to go viral and enjoy an unexpected reach when recipients share with their networks.
Good marketing people are open. They are willing to answer the business owner’s questions about the marketing strategy, plan and effectiveness without becoming defensive. When asked a question they don’t know the answer to, they are open to researching, and testing if necessary, to get the answer. In fact, they welcome the chance to share their findings with the business owners.
Learn more about strategic marketing. Stop by Dawn Westerberg’s site where you can find out all about integrated marketing2 and what it can do for you.