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I get the question posed in the title of this post often so I have two questions myself to preface the answer - How long do you plan to be in business? and, How long does it take to build a really high quality home?
See, the problem with this question is it is based in the “marketing idea of the week” syndrome that pervades all too many small businesses. I know you need customers, I know you need more business, but marketing is not an event, it’s a business long practice.
If you are just starting out or focusing on growth then you should take the time and effort to build the necessary foundation of an ideal target client and core message of difference. Then you can put in motion an increasing series of lead generation tactics to spread that core message.
Done properly, it is likely going to take six months to a year for you to see the kind of long term momentum that you want. The kind of momentum that has people talking about you and commenting that they see you everywhere. Marketing is a living and evolving system.
If your are a business owner the message is think long term, build the system and work the system. If you are a small business coach or consultant the message is set the proper expectations with your clients.
Comments
This entry was posted on Monday, February 12th, 2007 at Feb 12, 07 | 1:08 pm and is filed under Marketing Plans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
The first two paragraphs say it all. Too many are lost in magical thinking and the seduction of instant gratificaiton. Can I get the winning lotto numbers from you?
I can’t agree more. So many business owners - small business owners in particular - see the web as some magic bullet to build their business. They often see it as put up a site, do the latest marketing program and generate untold revenue. But we all know that’s not the way to real, sustainable growth.
Excellent!
My small business customers are tired of hearing it (but they I tell them anyway).
Marketing’s not an event, it’s a process - one that never truly ends.
Many are frozen by their fear of “doing something wrong” - a fear I try to alleviate with the idea that the most successful marketers are always doing something, even if it’s not exactly the right thing.
The cumulative effect adds up over the course of the months and years.
Good example of “instant” gratification that really wasn’t? The other day a newer employee at a client’s repeated the “process” line back to me…
By nature, we are all rather impatient people and we want to see the fruits of our labor instantly. We want to send an e-mail and get an instant reply. Play a great gig and have the phone ring off the hook. Release a CD and sell 10,000, 250,000 or a 1,…
“Marketing is commitment.” That’s what I tell my clients - but the good ones already know it.
It’s pointless running a solitary ad or attending just one trade conference once a year, and expecting results. Or, as happens more often, doing the above, not seeing results, and then saying, “We tried it and it didn’t work.”
Sustained success requires sustained marketing.
Well said. Many business owners confuse marketing with selling. Personally I do not like to sell, but I love marketing. Your comment of taking the time to build ideal target client and core message of difference is right on. When business owners create a clear vision of their business purpose (the need they fill, how well the fill it in their own special different way, and exactly who they fill it for) and then communicate it (Read educate) the their targeted clients, good things happen, especially when they listen to their targeted clients to discover what their products mean to them.
In response to Bill –you can’t leave out the fact that the whole goal of marketing is selling. I mean all this information and feedback you are getting from your audience is all headed towards the same direction=the sales.
Marketing is a learning process and it’s most importantly a conversation between the company and the customer/client in which both sides learn and gain valuable information. The important thing is to not forget how valuable your customer’s feedback is and to take it into consideration.