You Can't Handle A Bigger Logo
What I'm sayin'.
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June 30, 2009
June 29, 2009
Hard Working Logos
I've commented more than once on trying to make a logo do more than it can.
I'm reading a truly incredible book, "Designing Brand Identity" - the best book on branding I've ever read. The whole back third of the book is examples, and one of them is Amazon.com and the re-branding done in 1999 when their current logo was developed.
Now don't misunderstand me, I think it is a terrific logo. But the design team put things into the logo that won't be noticed or even subliminally absorbed by one person in a thousand. I mean, did you ever notice that the orange line under the name makes a smile with a dimple that pushes up the "z"? Or that the line connects a to z, signifying the fact that Amazon.com sells everything?
It reminds me of the way significances are assigned to modern art (great book on that, "The Painted Word" by one of my heroes, Tom Wolfe). They make a great read, and sure help sell something, but they don't make it better art.
June 28, 2009
Don't Make Them Look Elsewhere
One of the great gurus of sales, Les Dane, talks about "the brick overcoat" of sales resistance. Most people in most purchasing decisions look for reasons NOT to buy. These manifest as various forms of sales resistance. You have to remove those bricks (objections) to get the sale.
There is however a flip side to this. Most people don't want to have to keep looking. They are busy, they don't have the time. They already picked you out as a likely source for the item or service and don't want to have to change their minds. So what do you do?
Don't Make Them Look Elsewhere.
I put it in that form because this is something you can very definitely do something about. Assume the viewpoint that if people are leaving your website without buying, in greater numbers than necessary, then you are driving them off.
Companies that specialize in Online Marketing Research do in-depth studies of factors that make a difference. It is not random, you can find out what matters, and you can make adjustments to improve it.
You have to systematically examine each aspect of your marketing and sales operation.
Isolate the points where you are scaring people off, not giving them enough reassurance, or reasons to buy or stay on your website or to continue to fill out the form.
Any change you make in these that improve your process has a cumulative effect that can rapidly add up to a huge difference in closes or sales.
New Business
Revisiting the subject of new business development.
If you have all the business you can handle, need or want, then you don't need marketing. You just need to buy more houses or cars or whatever.
If you are ambitious, struggling (or sinking), then you need to do something about it. Kind of obvious, but maybe not so obvious is WHAT to do about it.
Improving the quality, speed and efficiency of your product or service delivery, and of your customer service, is always a good idea.
Promoting to your existing clients / customers / patients for more work or for referrals is usually the cheapest way to get more business.
But if those aren't sufficient, now you are into marketing. And for many small businesses, that is a whole new territory.
Huge numbers of small businesses have NEVER had a working new business development model. One that is scalable (can be increased at will) and viable (doesn't cost too much to generate a new customer).
This is especially a situation in the current economy, where lots of people, out of work, are starting their own home-based businesses. And where many companies can no longer rely on their usual methods to get enough new business.
People often are surprised at what it takes to develop one and keep it going. It's frequently a lot of work, time and trials to get there. We're really good at it, but it still doesn't mean our first efforts always work well. Or maybe they are singles and not home runs.
The main point is to recognize when you really need to confront getting your marketing going, and then to work at it and keep working at it until you DO get it working.
I mean, it's not like there's a lot of alternatives. In many cases it's that, or hunker down and hope to ride out the economic downturn, or shut your business and (hopefully) go to work for someone else.
June 27, 2009
Photographic Quality
| Good quality photography is a major element of effective marketing. It is also one of the lacks we frequently run into in developing marketing for new clients. |
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It's often less of an issue if you're selling services rather than products. But great photos of the staff and office are a big plus for, to give an example, marketing a dental office.
One of the problems in all this is "professional photographers." First of all, you have to get someone who specializes in the type of photography you need. Wedding photography, portraiture, product and architectural photography require four very different skill sets.
Photographers, I'm afraid, are a bit like lawyers. They are expensive and the fact that they make their living at it doesn't mean they know what they are doing. But a really good photographer who DOES know his way around the type of photographs you need is worth his weight in gold.
I mean, wouldn't it be valuable to have your prospective customers drooling over the thought of owning YOUR product or having your service?
That being said, a lot of the photography needed for marketing doesn't require high high skill. It isn't that hard to learn the basics of good photography. With digital cameras, you can try lots of shots to get one you can use. You can buy inexpensive kits online you can use for product photography.
So you don't necessarily have to spend a fortune to get the photography you need.
The main point is to realize the importance of the subject, and to have a system in place to get, validate, save and organize the good quality photographs you need - and will need in the future - for marketing purposes.
June 26, 2009
How Expensive Do You Look?
It's one of the finer points of judgment in marketing: How expensive should you look?
At the high end, the answer is always: As expensive as possible. Whether it's a Rolex watch, a Ferrari, a big yacht or a 12,500 square foot custom home, part of the reason they command the prices they do is because of how they look. By "look" I don't mean just the physical appearance of the actual product. I'm referring to all the aspects of branding. Usually no expense is spared not only on product design, but on marketing photographic quality, copy, public relations and other factors.
Usually it's better to look more expensive than you are. It enhances perceived value and makes it easier to sell at your actual price point. I think the Mazda Miata is a great example of that. It looks more expensive than it is, one of the reasons I'm sure dealers were actually selling it above MSRP when it first came out.
BUT, you can also turn off potential customers that way. They take a look at your website or your ad and decide they can't afford you. You never get the call. That's one reason real estate ads usually give an idea of pricing. They try to look incredibly pricey, then tell you "from the low 90's."
You can also look too cheap. Your real prospects never call because they assume your quality isn't up to what they are looking for or you don't have the features they want. The prospects you do attract are blown away by your prices.
How expensive do YOU look? Too expensive, too cheap, or just right?
June 25, 2009
Warm chocolate chip cookies
| The single biggest challenge in trade show marketing is to get people to come to your booth, stop and look. |
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This is one marketing area where gimmicks work just fine. Visual gimmicks are common but SMELLS work great.
We've attracted visitors to a poorly located booth with a popcorn machine.
A client told us recently of using warm chocolate chip cookies the same way.
People follow the smell from aisles away....
June 24, 2009
Touchpoints
Even the smallest of companies benefits from good branding.
One non-negotiable element of good branding is consistency.
That means at every instance where your business contacts potential customers - or even your own staff, vendors, etc. - your company, product or service has the same look and feel.
Most people understand that for your ads, direct mail and websites - that they should have a similar look, forward the same message, and so on.
But there are many others of these "touchpoints" . Here's one (certainly incomplete) list of such:
1. Websites
2. Corporate identity materials (letterhead, business cards, envelopes, etc.)
3. Brochures
4. Trade show displays
5. Ads (print, radio, TV, Internet)
6. Billboards
7. Signage
8. Vehicles
9. Office or store design and layout
10. Uniforms
11. Equipment
12. Product packaging
13. Sales materials (sell sheets, line cards, order forms, Powerpoint presentations, etc.)
14. Point-of-Purchase (POS) displays
15. Promotional items (hats, t-shirts, cups, buttons, coasters, refrigerator magnets, etc.)
16. Direct mail
17. Door hangers
18. Other Internet (directories, portals, search engine listings, blog postings, webinars, etc.)
Every one of these where you have a presence, can be turned to your advantage, often at no or little additional expense, by making sure brand consistency reigns.
June 23, 2009
Surveying - False Results
This article highlights the fact that it is very easy to get a bum steer from a survey.
Some types of questions are notorious in this regards.
Just try to survey consumers for what they would pay for a product or service!
Any question where those being surveyed are likely to feel their answer may affect how others feel about them - or even how they feel about themselves - is subject to bias.
In political polling, how race affects the accuracy of polling results is a controversial subject with no definitive answer.
Market Researchers have responded to this challenge by using focus groups to try and illuminate what is going on in buyers' minds. Unfortunately this descends easily into group think, is subjective and very dependent on who is conducting the research. Focus groups have a bad odor amongst many marketers.
It is possible to get usable answers to emotionally charged questions, but to do it you have utilize the emotion, not try to get around it. L. Ron Hubbard's method using "encoded" questions, wherein the question you ask is not the question you are seeking an answer to - provided a breakthrough in this. It is a sophisticated technique, not for the dabbler, but extremely effective.
Who Needs LeBron?
Aaron Shutway, 8th Grader in a Cleveland Ohio suburban middle school:
June 22, 2009
Great Marketing
June 21, 2009
Market or Die
The title of this blog is not just hyperbole (exaggeration), you know.
If you haven't gotten the idea yet, it is time to get a clue.
Serious marketing takes work. It is not done with "a lick and a promise."
Because you have a better mouse trap does not mean the world will beat a path to your door.
Because you've always done well doesn't mean it is automatic. General Motors is in bankruptcy court, the world's largest insurance company took billions of tax dollars to save it. The government isn't rushing to save us small businesses.
I'm not trying to paint a grim or hopeless picture. Far from it.
Given a good product or service, a commitment and the ability to deliver as promised what you sell, viable pricing and smooth handling of leads, you still have to generate prospects in sufficient quantity.
Every week I get emails and phone calls from marketing personnel looking for jobs. If I didn't otherwise know it, that would certainly tell me that not every company in the marketing world is thriving.
So why is Fast Forward Marketing doing just fine, despite the economic troubles?
We practice what we preach of course. Here's an example:
The vast majority of our business comes from Tampa Bay, and the vast majority of our new clients come to us from the Internet, and mainly from searches.
Currently, about 10% of visitors to our website from local searches turn into leads. That is a phenomenal, almost unbelievable percentage.
It took hundreds of hours of work over several months developing a new branding for our company, new look for our website, developing unique navigation, restructuring our site, rewriting copy, studying statistics on the site, making changes, etc. etc.
All of our marketing is aimed straight at the small percentage of businesses out there that are in our exact niche: Big enough to have a marketing budget, small enough to be hands on by people to whom the survival of their business matters. Too small for office politics to be a major barrier to getting anything done. Serious about getting professional, quality marketing. They know they don't know it all, and they are too small to have all the necessary talent in-house.
Those kinds of businessman call us up and just start gushing about our website and the samples of our work on it. The others? Who cares! There are more companies in our target market than we could possibly handle if they all found and called us today.
You can thrive and survive in these times. BUT.
GET SERIOUS ABOUT YOUR MARKETING.
June 20, 2009
Logos - Multimedia
Since we're on a roll on the subject of logos, it's worth noting that especially in recent years, logos have evolved from static visual symbols to often including motion and other senses - sound, even smell - or being simply a shape or color.
Of course logos with motion and sound in them have been around for a long time in the movie industry. Think the famous MGM lion at the opening of their films. That dates back to 1924, and with sound, 1928. But this has become far, far more common in other industries.
Harley-Davidson tried (unsuccessfully) to trademark the distinctive sound of their motorcycles. But the Harlem Globetrotters have successfully trademarked their use of the song "Sweet Georgia Brown".
UPS has trademarked their distinctive brown color.
Toblerone's triangular chocolate bar shape is recognized as a trademark in Europe.
Animations in logos are now frequently seen on the Web.
So when it comes to logos, feel free to "think outside the box."
June 19, 2009
"Signature" Logos
| To follow up on yesterday's post on types of logos, there is one particular "combination" logo that is very common. |
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It is called a "signature".
It consists of a graphical element plus an adjacent wordmark (name of the company or product in a standardized font, color, etc.).
The CBS eye plus "CBS" would be an example. Here's another.
As I said, very common, to a point where sometimes people think that is what is meant by a logo. It is very useful, but not always the best in any given situation.
June 18, 2009
Types of Logos
The generic word is "logo" for a symbol that represents a company, service, product, etc.
Logo is actually short for "logotype" or "logogram" which literally mean struck or written word. Of course a logo doesn't necessarily consist of, contain or stand for a word at all. "Logo" "Brandmark" "Trademark" "Symbol" "Mark" "Service Mark" are more or less synonymous.
There are several different types of logos and it helps in thinking about or designing logos to know from the beginning what kind of logo you are looking for. There are different terms used but I like this classification:
1. Words: The company or product name, presented in a certain color, font, etc. (Coca-Cola, Disney, Tide)
2. Emblem: Company or product name as part of a unique graphic representation (Starbucks, Harley-Davidson).
3. Pictorial: A stylized image that becomes recognizable as a representation of the company, product or service (NBA, Apple)
4. Abstract: At most loosely based on anything real (Nike, Mercedes-Benz)
5. Letters: One or more letters represented in a unique graphical form to stand for the company, product or service (Unilever, GM)
6. Combinations of one or more of the above. The AT&T symbol is pictorial, but is usually presented with the company name, similarly for the NBC peacock.
June 17, 2009
Effective Marketing versus Big Budget
I judged the annual trade show marketing competition for Exhibitor magazine yesterday. There were four of us, all experienced trade show marketers, and submissions from companies of all sizes with projects that cost from $20,000 to $900,000.
Guess what? There was no correlation between how much they spent and how good the work was.
Most of the submissions, it was either a good idea poorly executed, or a poor idea in the first place.
The moral of the story of course is that it isn't the amount of money spent that makes for effective marketing (You CAN often make up for mediocre marketing just by throwing a lot of money at it).
It is a good idea, well executed.
June 15, 2009
Brand versus Brand Identity
A lot of times you can add clarity to a subject by adding terminology.
This is such a case.
"Brand" is what your product, service, or company means or stands for, hopefully in the minds of your market.
"Brand Identity" is everything that symbolizes that brand.
A logo is an example of brand identity. It doesn't establish your brand - though it can help. If skillfully done, it can come to symbolize that brand. When Starbucks was first starting out, their mermaid emblem didn't mean a thing to anyone except perhaps the owners of the company and the designer.
Now, hundreds of millions of people can see that logo and know immediately that this is a place where they can get a good, if pricey, cup of coffee.
Color scheme, tagline and other brand identity elements work similarly.
Nike's ads breathed life into "Just Do It!" - not the other way around - and made their famous "swish" logo stand for the same thing. That the logo fits the sentiment and the ads dramatized it, is a matter of integration and consistency - both essential if branding is going to work.
June 14, 2009
Disney
| It's been said that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains. From what I've read, that is an apt description of Walt Disney. |
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Clearly, Disney World is carrying on that tradition.
I spent the day at The Magic Kingdom, and the attention to detail is stunning. Art is everywhere.
I've described marketing as art in the service of sales. That's not completely true, of course. There's little of art to search engine optimization, for example.
It certainly describes every inch of Disney World. It's something else though. It's art in the service of a sense of magic. At The Magic Kingdom, we are all kids.
You want an idea of the potential of marketing?
This is it.
June 13, 2009
Economic Scene - Click Ads Trends
Needless to say, we monitor closely how the economy is affecting our clients' marketing, so we can make necessary adjustments.
The latest trend, over the last couple of weeks: cost per click is decreasing and average position is improving, without any other change (such as maximum bid amount).
This is operating broadly across many industries.
Our analysis is that the economy is now affecting enough businesses so there is less competition - at least in this particular marketing arena. The same is probably true in other marketing channels, but I don't have any statistical data to back it up - though there is LOTS in the advertising industry trade publications about how TV networks, magazines, newspapers, etc. are having a harder time filling their ad space and in maintaining their rates.
Every economic downturn has its opportunities.
Using Pull Quotes
I've described "pull quotes" also known as "break-out quotes."
What I didn't say was that it is effective to include a break-out quote on all or nearly all pages of every marketing piece.
Every page of a brochure.
Every page of a website.
In ads.
On postcards and other direct mail pieces.
On trade show displays.
Can you overdo it? Possibly. In most cases I don't think I'd include more than one per page or side.
They are one of the best things you can do to build interest and credibility.
Ideally, as with other situations in using testimonials, you show the full name of the person, their job title, company name or location, and even a thumbnail picture of them. You can't always get an okay to do all that, so you do the best you can do.
June 12, 2009
Down the Rabbit Hole
| When I started this blog, I was required to sign an attestation in blood that I wouldn't blog very often on off-topic subjects. |
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Just kidding.
Now and then I can't resist going on a rant.
I won't rant, but I'll say it:
Surely we are living in a mad, mad world.
The new head of General Motors, one of the largest corporations in the world, doesn't know anything about cars.
But he says he's not too old to learn! And business is business!
Come to think of it, I don't really need to say anything about it, do I?
June 11, 2009
Art Versus Business
Marketing exists at the intersection of two very different worlds.
The artist doesn't care how long it takes. He wants it to come out right. He is often far out, well beyond what most people will appreciate. In every age, artists have been attacked as radicals, subversive influences.
Business is much about getting along. You're providing people what they want, at prices they can afford. You have to be able to deliver at a price where you can make a profit. Speed and efficiency are hugely important.
Marketing isn't only about art. But it is a big part of it. When we design a website, my artist has to come up with a "look" that is pure art, even though at the service of a commercial purpose. It can't be done on a schedule. Luckily, we can at least tell the client "usually we will have something to look at in a week." That at least is something that can be understood.
Good marketing is a bit radical, edgy, subversive. Sometimes we have to tone down a campaign because it is a bit scary to the businessman who is, however, looking for the response good marketing produces.
It's an interesting game:
Somehow making these two worlds live together.
June 10, 2009
Bold is Beautiful
I've said before that "boring" and "marketing" shouldn't appear in the same sentence.
Oops.
Well, I want to make the point even stronger.
Effective marketing gets noticed. It gets remembered. It stirs emotions. And people pass it around because it strikes a chord, they like it, they want to share it (goes viral).
You aren't going to achieve that with marketing that is ordinary, traditional, normal, acceptable to anyone.
I'm not saying you have to be shocking and violate everyone's idea of what is right, good and okay.
I'm saying good marketing is at least a bit out there, edgy, and startling.
Bold is Beautiful, Baby.
June 08, 2009
Bad Clicks - More on Running Click Ad Campaigns
With organic search, where you aren't paying every time someone clicks, it doesn't much matter why someone is coming to your site. If they are looking for something else, well, they'll just leave.
Sometimes even in organic search we try to reduce unwanted clicks, just because they can make it hard to read what is actually going on with your Internet Marketing. We had that situation where an article on our site about salesmanship was number one world-wide on a common Google search. Wonderful, except it didn't generate any business or even leads. Not the business we're in. In that case we took the page down.
With click ads it does matter, of course, because every click that doesn't result in action on the part of the visitor, costs you money.
Fine if they are looking for someone like you, but just decide to go elsewhere after viewing your site.
But it is common to find searchers clicking on your ad (for which you are paying!) on searches that have nothing to do with what you are selling or offering.
There's no perfect solution to this problem but there are three main ways to limit it:
1. Using negative keywords. Usually there will be certain searches you can distinguish by their search terms, as not who you're looking for (you have to have good web analytics that give you all the actual search terms). If you're renting condos on Clearwater Beach, a search with the words "Destin" or "Texas" in it is not going to get you a customer. So you add these as "negative keywords" to block such searches.
2. Get rid of search terms with low CTR's and lots of clicks. This is the problem with very general terms like "vacation" for a company that rents beachfront condos. There are huge numbers of searches on "vacation" so your ad is being served up in huge quantities. Your term is so general that only the tiniest fraction of searchers on that term are actually looking for what you sell. Even with a very low CTR, you can get lots of clicks - and use up your budget causing you to miss clicks on much more specific search terms.
But, if you have a CTR something like 0.1% on a keyword, chances are MOST of the clicks on your ad are accidental, malicious, made out of confusion, or just someone looking for something else. Maybe they are just looking for a picture of a sunset!
So a basic action in running a click ad campaign is to look at the CTR of your keywords and investigate those which are low (there can be several reasons for a low CTR).
3. Limit where your ad is being served - geographically or what part of Google (or other search engine's) network.
Geographically, sometimes you are selling goods or services that are only of interest locally. If you're in Milwaukee, why run your ad in Spokane? Any clicks, whether accidental or not, are not going to result in business.
Then, frequently Google's "AdSense" network generates leads of very poor quality. This is where Google serves up your ad on other websites (mostly news sites and portals) when it thinks your ad is relevant to what else is on the site. You can now select which of these your ad shows on, but a lot of the time it isn't worth running your ads on AdSense at all.
Finally, Google has many partner search engines who run Google click ads. A lot of them, however, are way less careful than Google about when they serve up your ad, resulting in lots of garbage clicks from people searching for something else. That may not be possible to handle with negative keywords, but you can completely opt out of the partner networks.
Optimizing a click ad campaign very definitely includes addressing all three of these, and revisiting them from time to time (On the Internet, things change).
June 07, 2009
Click Ad Campaigns, Effective
Running an effective click ad campaign is quite a skill. There's a lot to know, because there are so many possibilities.
There are a few top level considerations though.
The first is, what's your daily budget? Everything else is driven by how much you're going to spend per day. In the ideal campaign, on the average day, you meet your daily spend limit just as the clock strikes midnight. If you hit your limit before that, you've spent more per click than you needed to, or, you are shooting too broadly (spending on lower quality clicks than you need to).
Given the budget, the next question is the balance between cost per click and quality of click. Generally speaking, you can increase the quality of your clicks (how likely they are to turn into an action on the part of a website visitor) by a thoughtful increase in your average cost per click.
The best way to increase the effectiveness of a click ad campaign is by improving the quality of your ads. Here at Fast Forward we are always trying ad variations to see if we can improve ads. That way you can increase the quality of your clicks AND reduce your cost per click at the same time.
That's usually measured by the CTR (click-through-rate, the percentage of those seeing a page with your ad on it, who click through to your website). However, sometimes increasing the CTR just means that you are getting lower quality clicks. That is one of the more difficult to estimate factors.
More on this subject tomorrow!
June 06, 2009
Gray
| Gray may seem boring. It isn't even a color, really. It's a "neutral" or "achromatic." But oh, how it can make a piece of art sing! | 
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And just add touches of color to go with it, and you have a broad range of emotions you can paint.
Gray, especially charcoal tones, is classy. It tends to communicate dependability, to be associated with time and antiquity - solid, enduring, timeless. But silvery grays can be very futuristic, modern, techno, sleek, minimalist.
And look at the range of gray! My color dictionary lists some 200 different names of shades of gray - including pearl gray, aluminum, oyster white, cement, beige gray, silver, battleship gray, asphalt, dove, charcoal gray, gunmetal, steel gray, slate and ebony to name a few.
You can even spell it two different ways.
Gray! Grey!
The truly versatile color that isn't a color.
June 05, 2009
Email Broadcasting Successful Pattern
There is a successful pattern of marketing using email broadcasts.
There are also many wrong or bad ways to go about it. It's best to stick to this pattern closely:
1. Accumulate an email list of customers, prospects, anyone interested. Or, rent a list, but only "managed lists" such as from a magazine or association. They will send out your broadcast for you, and it will not be cheap (possibly 35 cents an address). There are no other legitimate ways to get email lists.
You are only interested in individuals who have expressed an interest in you or who are highly likely to be interested in what your are offering
2. If you have the opportunity to specify the subject line, think through carefully how to word it. Be truthful, but say something that will interest genuine prospects.
3. Make your broadcasts mostly text. If it is all in a picture, most people will never see your ad as they will not open your email on speculation. Make sure that what is "above the fold" (what they will probably see without scrolling down) is interesting enough to make them want to read on.
4. Make your communications mostly material of general interest to the people you are communicating to. Your commercial messages should only be a small percentage of what you send out. So if you have a newsletter make it 80% news and 20% ads. After all, most people don't subscribe to newspapers and magazines for the ads. Why should they subscribe to your email broadcasts for the ads? (in some cases of course, they will.)
5. Handle any unsubscribe requests, bad email addresses and complaints promptly.
Email broadcasting can be hugely successful. Successful email campaigns usually follow these rules.
June 03, 2009
The Answered Question
Just to prove I'm not hobby-horsing, here's the flip side of my post of the other day.
The fact is, marketers are FAR more likely to omit vital information from their items than the other way around.
Especially in a down economy, consumers and potential clients become more picky. In fact, that's almost the definition of a recession.... a period of time when people don't spend as freely. Money doesn't flow as freely and everything slows down.
It is more the job of the marketer and the PR to do something about it, than anyone else.
And how do you do that? It has to be a mixture of steak AND sizzle.
I've read two reports recently of surveys that found consumers feel advertising doesn't give them enough information.
How many times have you seen an ad or gone to a website and ended up wondering what they were even selling? Let alone why you should be interested in buying it?
For years, Blimpy's (a chain of sandwich shops) ran radio ads that didn't even mention they sold sandwiches. We were already all supposed to know that?
Of course that is pretty extreme.
There is a whole strain of marketing that runs to very lengthy copy - "the sales letter." You just keep reading and reading until you buy because they just keep giving you more and more reasons to buy. It's very effective in direct mail and certain types of websites.
So, strike a balance. YES, in most marketing situations you need to leave important questions unanswered. NO that doesn't mean you don't tell the potential buyer as much as you can within the limits of space, budget and effective design.
June 02, 2009
Wishful Thinking
I've written quite a bit about the subject of budgets and marketing.
To make intelligent decisions about marketing, you have to have a budget in mind. There's a big difference between how you promote if you have a $1 million budget versus if you only have $1,000 to spend.
It should go without saying, but unfortunately, it needs not only to be said, but stressed:
Wishful thinking doesn't make $1000 do the job of $3000.Or $10000.
It's easiest to engage in wishful thinking with website design, because there is always a cheaper way to get a website done.
But you aren't going to get a professional website for an amateur price.
When you are spending money on marketing, it is important to assess how much you really need to spend for something. There are lots of sharks out there surfing the marketing waters for easy pickings.
Of course, most of them aren't charging too much for something. They are charging for something worthless.
But, beyond that, you can pay way too much for marketing products and services.
It isn't hard to sort this out.
The point is to face reality and don't try and explain it away. Instead, adapt.
If you don't have the money to do A properly, don't do a lousy job of A. Figure out what the "B" is that you CAN afford, and do that.
If you can't afford to paying the going rate for a Mercedes, don't pay 1/3 the usual price because "it's a great deal."
Buy a Ford or a Toyota.
Things work out better that way.
June 01, 2009
TV advertising
I've written about this before, but a new study confirms it. Most TV advertising loses money for the advertisers.
The same study found that TV does work for the heaviest spenders.
Why? It takes a LOT of money to make an impact with television. Otherwise your advertising just gets lost in the weeds.
Well done, well-placed infomercials work. Otherwise, skip the TV unless you can spend enough to where it seems to people like your ads are on the air all the time.
Otherwise TV is vanity advertising. It's cool and makes you feel good -- and that's about all the good it does.
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