200-Proof Marketing

Right now I’m watching a show I like called “Deal or No Deal.” It’s usually an enjoyable game show but tonight it’s a 2 hour commercial.

I’m “roughly” timing it and there’s 5 to 6 minutes of the show followed by 3 to 5 minutes of commercials.

It’s incredibly annoying…

Typically there are about 15-20 minutes of commercials for every one hour of TV, and somehow people have learned to live with that. But a commercial every 5 minutes?!?!

I know that’s a little off topic but it leads me to what I really wanted to talk about…

Image Marketing aka “Marketing Made by Idiots”

Direct Marketer’s generally dislike Image or Brand Marketing because it isn’t sales driven.

The goal of Image Marketing is to make a company or product look good and to get customers to remember it.

The goal of Direct Marketing is to SELL! Screw everything else, just sell the damn product.

Obviously any successful business needs to provide a quality product and build repeat business, but you can’t have repeat business if no one ever buys your product.

Company’s like Pepsi or Reebok, can benefit from Image Marketing because their customers are often faced with two very similar products and rely on “Brand Loyalty” to make the decision.

But Entrepreneurs who start a Small Business get little benefit from Image Marketing.

They usually go to an Ad Agency that makes all kinds of promises, charges a ton of money, and delivers very little.

This leads to the failure of countless small businesses every year.

Sure everyone in town may know your business’s name but if you don’t give people a reason to come to your store and buy something, they won’t.

If you’re going to start a business, take the time to learn about Marketing first, and don’t rely on an Ad Agency to take care of the most important part of your business.

In Direct Marketing your Ad’s should always give you a measurable increase in sales. Exploit the Ad’s that sell and throw out the ones that don’t.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 3rd, 2006 at 10:42 pm and is filed under Marketing Under The Influence, Random Stuff. 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.