Do something…..anything!

It’s been another busy week this past week and I’ve done what I try with all my might to avoid.
I’ve worked almost exclusively in the business. I’ve been working away on various projects in an effort to make sure everything goes smoothly and we don’t get behind.
As soon as I do this, the business starts to slow down.
My main role is getting the business. Plain and simple. As soon as I work in the business (rather than on it) the whole business slows.
To get out of the trap we had a quick meeting today where I delegated (gotta love that word!) to Joanne, our manager. I then took the role of leading the development of our marketing strategy for the next month or two.
Here’s what we’ll be doing
* Printed newsletter
* Newspaper advertisments (display in a major national newspaper and local classifieds)
* PR campaign
* Change our “on-hold” phone message
* Sponsorship of high profile charity
* Public Speaking
* Promotional material (“Tailored” caps)
* Survey by us – results distributed to local/national media
* Write and distribute articles
* Get this web site re-designed (being done right now!)
* Networking
That’s the gist of it and, like any marketing, should work. If you complete a marketing activity, then the odds are that you will attract new customers. The key is to DO SOMETHING!!!
What if the prospect doesn’t like your ad or direct mail?
We run an ongoing direct mail campaign to various targeted businesses. These letters are always very targeted – for example we review a web site and send through to the web owner a critique of the site, along with a pitch for a meeting. At the meeting we try and demonstrate the benefit of dealing with us.
One of the people who received a letter like this rang me to complain about the letter – “How effective is your web site? We’ve had a look at your site and, based on our experience, think it isn’t providing a big benefit.”
Those 2 sentences are quite aggressive, but I don’t know if they are worth a complaint!
The point here is that marketing is a numbers game. If you send 100 letters out in a Direct Mail campaign, you may well receive some complaints. Take those complaints on board and learn from them, but don’t lose sight of your campaign objectives.
Will we stop using the letter we sent that attracted the complaint? Nope, we’ve used that letter before with great success – so our numbers tell me that the copy works just fine.
Marketing is a numbers game. Send 100 letters. Get 4 sales. Sell $1,000 worth of your product. Make a profit. Now move onto the next thing. Good luck!
Regards
Brendon
(from a post on www.tailored.com.au posted July 2003)