Vending vs. Spending (major difference in losing $ in marketing)
The marketing landscape is a wasteland.
Of money...
… and of opportunity.
Here’s why…
If you look at the structure of 95% of the marketing messages out there, it can be summarised by this
Company Name
Company Logo
Laundry list of service offerings
A claim they are the best, superior, or of high quality
Contact Details
Doesn’t sound very compelling does it?
Yet, this is the go-to strategy when business owners launch their marketing campaigns, hoping and praying that a prospect will be in an immediate need to use their services and take action upon seeing it.
Sometimes it happens.
Often it doesn’t.
When sales do trickle in - unless there is an established cause and effect relationship (and more importantly effect size), we can only chalk up them up as being ‘happy accidents’.
I mean, any clock is right twice a day.
While this may sound positive, this actually makes things worse.
Business owners will feel that they need to continue what they’re doing because ‘it’s working’
Or at the very least, it gives the flicker of hope that it’ll get better one day, and they’re on the right track.
Without clear causation, and understanding the impact of specific marketing material along the customer journey - decisions are made from a place from convenience with little afterthought about the impact on the long game.
This is the equivalent of throwing money on the pokies (or slot machines for my North American friends) - gambling on the speckle of opportunity...
...addicted to ‘hopeium’
In the end, the house always wins.
The gambler (because that’s what it is)
... will always lose.
(it’s no accident that the vast majority of businesses fail to crack the five-year mark)
I wrote an article in December about focus, and how it can be the biggest difference maker in our marketing (read here, if you’re interested)
Focus and the ability to follow through on what matters is ultimately the currency of worth in our increasingly distracted world.
When we market with a clear strategy and purpose, we can create structured campaigns that resemble vending machines with a predictable input (cash / investment), and a predictable output (product / service sales).
This begins with the business, and flows through the marketing material and customer journey to enable the prospect to get focussed on buying the outcome that they desire (with your product, and service being the vehicle for that).
We cannot rely on them to connect the dots for themselves, we have to facilitate this.
Creating the right messaging comes from understanding your market right down to the intimate details.
When you understand who they are as a person, and how they relate to the customer journey - it becomes clear, and they will resonate with the steps you have laid out for them to engage with you.
Start with drawing a map from enquiry to sale, and writing a list of questions that come at each stage.
From there, create pre-emptive answers in your marketing material - educate, and provide value upfront, and you’ll be surprised how quickly they reciprocate by way of commitment and cash in the bank.
Zac
Before I go,
(1) This transitions really beautifully into one of my favourite concepts from Carl Jung which I’ll be discussing in my next article.
Essentially, to paraphrase - until we bring the awareness to what is holding us back, the cycle will continue to repeat, and we’ll call it fate.
It’s time to take responsibility and understand patterns in our business, and our market otherwise all of our results will be ‘in reaction of’.
I’ll also be weaving in some teachings from the soul of money (great book).
(2) Back to my original point - the ‘business card’ style content has to go.
I’m running some workshops over the next two months around my ‘100 Ways’ framework - this helps clarify your messaging and hone in on key pillars that you can easily build off to structure your marketing material for years to come.
Just email me at zac@tenasu.com with 100 ways in the subject line you’re keen to see the framework.
(3) Final chance to pick up the free M0 Method guide before it’s taken offline.
>>>> www.them0method.com/guide
We’ll be releasing all of our new material for 2020 in February and beyond!