Beware: Is ‘Flavor-of-the-day Marketing’ Draining Your Marketing Resources?

(Part 4 of 4 of the ‘Marketing Recipes for Failure’ Series)


“He who fails to plan, plans to fail” – Author Unknown

“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.” – Peter F. Drucker

Before we begin this discussion, let’s do some housecleaning. First, let’s define ‘Flavor-of-the-day Marketing’ as unplanned, spur-of-the-moment marketing. You get excited about a new marketing strategy or tactic and act on it without clearly thinking it through. You do it to ‘keep up with the Jones’s’ so to speak – justifying it to yourself by thinking “they’re doing it, so I should be doing it too”. This is typically caused by the lack of a solid marketing plan and/or the lack of discipline to follow it. Additionally, if you’re guilty of ‘Flavor-of-the-day Marketing’, most likely you’re worrying too much about what others are doing and not necessarily what’s best for you.

Second and last bit of housecleaning is that we need to make a few assumptions about your business:

1. You are clear on your “What” – your vision of what you want your business to be, do, and have


2. You are clear on your “Why” – the reason your business exists in the first place.


3. You are clear on your “Who” – the target market you will serve.

If these 3 core concepts are currently not clearly defined for your business, please for your own good, take the necessary time to define them now – it will be in my opinion some the best spent time you will ever invest in your business.

Now that our housecleaning is complete, it’s time to lay out your game plan, your driving directions so to speak to help you move effectively and efficiently towards your vision of what you want. To do this you need a solid plan, more specifically a solid marketing plan that provides your “How” – a step-by-step roadmap that you can follow to lead you from where you are to where you want to be.

Trust me, you do not want to ‘shoot from the hip’ here – that’s where the big marketing and financial mistakes are made. It is incredible how much money is spent by businesses every day on poorly planned ‘flavor-of-the-day’ marketing strategies and tactics.

So what should your marketing plan consist of? At a minimum it should spell out what marketing strategies and tactics you will use, where you will use them, when you will use them, the forecasted dollar amount you are setting aside to carry them out, who will be responsible to ‘champion’ them, and who will hold your ‘champion’ accountable for getting them done.

To take it up a notch, I would recommend that you define what would constitute success for your business in each of those marketing strategies and tactics, set goals for each of them, and put mechanisms in place to track and measure their effectiveness.

Now we can go on an on here with more of what else could be in your marketing plan however, your marketing plan does not have to be elaborate to be effective – It just needs to be well thought out. Keep it simple! There’s no need to over-plan here. Get it on paper though because for some reason once it’s on paper, it becomes real.

In parting, I’d like to leave you with a pair of key distinctions: First, your marketing plan is a living document. It should be tweaked as needed to keep you on a straight-line path to getting what you want. And last, it’s important to understand that no amount of planning in the world is going to help you achieve what you want unless you take action based on that plan – so in essence, pave your way to success by planning your marketing and working your marketing plan.


© 2006 Online Marketing Muscle -- All Rights Reserved.

Liked this article? Want to use it in your eZine, blog or web site? You have my blessing so long as you include this complete blurb with it (including links):

Online entrepreneur Dean Mercado, "The Motivational Marketer", is creator of the acclaimed 'Pumped Up Networking' system geared to explode your business through professional relationships.  To learn more about it and to sign up for his FREE eZine the 'Marketing Minute' – a weekly multimedia eZine designed to give you a jolt of marketing wisdom in less than 5 minutes, visit www.OnlineMarketingMuscle.com.

Are You Guilty of Using a ‘Spray & Pray Marketing’ Approach to Attract Your Target Market?

(Part 3 of 4 of the ‘Marketing Recipes for Failure’ Series)


"The odds of hitting your target go up dramatically when you aim at it" – Mal Pancoast

Ah, the wasteful ‘spray & pray marketing’ approach. It’s just like using a shotgun to hit your target instead of a sniper rifle; the shotgun spraying ammo all over the place and maybe catching a piece of your target while the sniper rifle zooms in and hits your target dead center. Choose your weapon carefully as the wrong choice can prove costly. In marketing, for my money, I choose the accuracy of the sniper rifle. I want to hit my target market dead-on every time.

Now unless your business is drowning in excess cash, so much so that you have an extreme need to just throw money overboard to lighten your load, a real strategic approach is needed to ensure that your marketing gets the biggest bang-for-the-buck.

Spraying your marketing message out to anyone and everyone and hoping that the right someone will immediately come knocking at your door just doesn’t cut it. On many occasions I’ve seen businesses get frustrated and give up on a great marketing strategy because when they applied it, they used a ‘spray & pray marketing’ approach. And guess what? It didn’t work out well. They essentially threw out costly resources and got extremely frustrated and discouraged in the process.

So how do you avoid the ‘spray & pray marketing’ approach? Well here are 3 steps to a more strategic marketing approach:

1. READY!
   Know exactly what you are trying to accomplish with your marketing – have a clear vision of what you want and set specific goals to accomplish it. Set your sight on the desired end result in your mind’s eye and ready yourself to go after it.


2. AIM!
   Who do I want to serve and why? Are they hungry for what I’m offering? Do they have the money to spend on what I’m offering? Does my product or service solve a specific problem or need for them? If so, what problem or need? Ask yourself these questions and more until you have clearly defined your ideal prospect from your target market. See a model of your ideal prospect in your mind’s eye and set you aim on them.


3. FIRE!
   Now with the accuracy of a sniper’s rifle, display your marksmanship and deliver your marketing message right to the heart of your target market – no where else. Essentially you want as close to a bull’s eye as you can get with every shot. Extra, wasted shots cost money so accuracy is a critical. Additionally, hitting the right target is also a critical.

So in closing, a little clarity can go a long way in positioning your small business for success.


© 2006 Online Marketing Muscle -- All Rights Reserved.

Liked this article? Want to use it in your eZine, blog or web site? You have my blessing so long as you include this complete blurb with it (including links):

Online entrepreneur Dean Mercado, "The Motivational Marketer", is creator of the acclaimed 'Pumped Up Networking' system geared to explode your business through professional relationships.  To learn more about it and to sign up for his FREE eZine the 'Marketing Minute' – a weekly multimedia eZine designed to give you a jolt of marketing wisdom in less than 5 minutes, visit www.OnlineMarketingMuscle.com.

The 3 Biggest Marketing Recipes for Failure and How You Can Avoid Them

(Part 1 of 4 of the ‘Marketing Recipes for Failure’ Series)


“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.” – Abraham Lincoln

Fact: According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, over 50% of small businesses fail in the first year and 95% fail within the first five years.

Now that’s a very scary and unfortunate statistic and in my opinion, one of the biggest reasons small businesses fail or underachieve is the lack of effective marketing.

Therefore, what I’d like to do in part 1 of this 4-part article series is to expose to you what not to do with your approach to marketing. In the subsequent articles that follow, I will break down each one of the 3, as I call them, ‘marketing recipes for failure’ and share what to do to avoid them.

So without further adieu, here is what I believe are the 3 most common and biggest small business ‘marketing recipes for failure’:

1. ‘Casual Marketing’
   Let’s start out by defining exactly what ‘casual marketing’ is. In a nutshell, it’s trying a marketing tactic once, maybe twice, and when you don’t see immediate or expected results, you drop that marketing tactic and either try something else or worse yet don’t do any marketing for a while – hoping clients will just magically appear. This is the old ‘build it and they will come’ disorder. I don’t know if you’re one of the charmed ones or not, but sitting and waiting for clients to show up has never worked for me or anyone I know of.


2. ‘Spray & Pray Marketing’
   Essentially it means spraying your marketing message out to anyone and everyone and hoping that the right someone will immediately come knocking at your door. In the online world of the Internet we call this technique spamming and it’s illegal in that world. So why do so many small businesses use this approach in the offline world? This sort of untargeted and in my opinion inappropriate marketing is a huge time and money drain that needs to be plugged up immediately if a small business is to succeed.


3. ‘Flavor-of-the-day Marketing’
   Did you ever hear of the phrase ‘wing it’? How about the old cliché ‘flying by the seat of your pants’? Now there’s a time and a place for unplanned, spur-of-the-moment action, however it should not be the main approach to your marketing. Lack of a solid marketing plan and/or the lack of discipline to follow it are typically the driving forces behind this problem.

So let’s be honest now, are you guilty of using any of these ‘marketing recipes for failure’? I admit it; I had been guilty in the past and have learned some hard lessons because of it. If you are guilty, first off go easy on yourself. The past is the past; it’s over and done with. It’s what you do with your marketing from this moment forward that will ultimately determine the success of your business.


© 2006 Online Marketing Muscle -- All Rights Reserved.

Liked this article? Want to use it in your eZine, blog or web site? You have my blessing so long as you include this complete blurb with it (including links):

Online entrepreneur Dean Mercado, "The Motivational Marketer", is creator of the acclaimed 'Pumped Up Networking' system geared to explode your business through professional relationships.  To learn more about it and to sign up for his FREE eZine the 'Marketing Minute' – a weekly multimedia eZine designed to give you a jolt of marketing wisdom in less than 5 minutes, visit www.OnlineMarketingMuscle.com.

Warning: ‘Casual Marketing’ Leads to Business Casualties

Part 2 of 4 of the ‘Marketing Recipes for Failure’ Series)

Let’s start out by defining exactly what ‘casual marketing’ is. In a nutshell, it’s trying a marketing tactic once, maybe twice, and when you don’t see immediate or expected results, you drop that marketing tactic and either try something else or worse yet don’t do any marketing for a while – hoping clients will just magically appear. This is the old “build it and they will come” disorder. I don’t know if you’re one of the charmed ones or not, but sitting and waiting for clients to show up has never worked for me or anyone I know of.

Now when analyzing reports provided by the U.S. Small Business Association, I noticed a shocking trend. Basically, for every small business that opens its doors each year, another one closes theirs. That’s a pretty scary statistic! And it’s my belief that ‘casual marketing’ is one of the main causes of that statistic being as bad as it is.

So how do you ensure that you don’t wind up on the bad side of that statistic? Well from a marketing standpoint, here are 3 steps to avoid the ‘casual marketing’ curse:

1. Vary Your Marketing Approach to Ensure the Most Comprehensive Reach

Approach your target audience from different angles using a variety of different mediums. First off, I believe it’s important to note that different people like to be communicated to in different ways. Visual people may give more credence to messages that appeal to their eyes – eye candy so to speak. For example flashy display ads, photographs, and video would most likely be their preference. Auditory people most likely would enjoy hearing your messages. Therefore, marketing campaigns that used tactics such as radio, teleseminars, and audio postcards would probably yield the most success. And lastly kinesthetic people who typically prefer something they can put their hands on. For example, test driving your product or service and physical samples would most likely appeal to them the most.

So being that it’s close to impossible to know the communication style preference of every one in your target audience, which approach do you choose? How about a combination of the three? For example, if you are a car dealership, why not offer a combination of flashy display ads, audio postcards, and test drives? This way you appeal to your entire target audience in one way shape or form.

Additionally, you may want to approach your target audience using different mediums. Don’t be afraid to mix it up here because once again different people tend to be more comfortable with different mediums. Some like print media like newspapers and magazines, others prefer Internet-based mediums such as web sites and email, while still others prefer mediums such as television – and the list can go on and on here.


2. Marketing Consistency Is Key to Building Relationships

While you may want to vary your marketing approach, it is critical however to communicate a consistent message and image of who you are and how you can solve your target audience’s problem. And for small businesses, the byproduct of this effort should lead to branding.


3. ‘All-the-time marketing’ Is Vital to Your Survival

Marketing should not be a some-of-the-time thing; it needs to be an all-of-the-time thing. And in the absence of your leadership, your target audience will tend to listen to whoever is doing the talking. And with the vast array of competition out there screaming in your target audience’s ear, your allegiance to ‘all-the-time marketing’ is more critical than ever. Now how you stand out from the pack is a whole other story for another day. Just know that you have to at least be in the game. So always don the marketing hat and learn how to sense and make the most of marketing opportunities.

So let’s be honest now, have you been guilty of ‘casual marketing’? Whether you have or you haven’t, know that that’s not what’s important here, it’s what you do from now on that counts. So decide right now to employ ‘all-the-time marketing’ in your business. I urge you to try this persona on for a while and see how it fits. I’m sure that you’ll notice that it gets much easier over time – it becomes second nature. And better yet, it brings results.

© 2006 Online Marketing Muscle -- All Rights Reserved.

Liked this article? Want to use it in your eZine, blog or web site? You have my blessing so long as you include this complete blurb with it (including links):

Online entrepreneur Dean Mercado, "The Motivational Marketer", is creator of the acclaimed 'Pumped Up Networking' system geared to explode your business through professional relationships.  To learn more about it and to sign up for his FREE eZine the 'Marketing Minute' – a weekly multimedia eZine designed to give you a jolt of marketing wisdom in less than 5 minutes, visit www.OnlineMarketingMuscle.com.