The truth is -- most companies have sucky marketing.
It's a rare campaign that gets the results in increased
sales or prospects that are envisioned when the
company decision-maker cuts the check or clears the
campaign launch. If you outsource your marketing,
odds are you are just paying oodles of money to see
your company's name in print. That's great for the ego,
and gives you something to fill your brag wall, but
there's no real return on your investment. And if you're
a do-it-yourselfer you just aren't trained in the elusive
art of marketing and probably don't have the time to
learn. That's the pain writer Mark Stevens outlines in
his book, Your Marketing Sucks, published this year by
Crown Business, a division of Random House.
Overall I thought the book was great at getting me
thinking about what I'm doing to market my business,
but there's not a lot of meat on that bone. It's more
along the lines of a Who Moved My Cheese for the
business set. Stevens' principles will strike a chord with
anyone feeling the pinch of the currently recovering -
but still sluggish - economy.
Light though it may be, I took the book to heart largely
because of serendipitous timing relative to the caution-
turned-sloth that particularly characterizes the
business climate lo these last three years. The guide is
quite useful in forcing readers to think outside-the-box
(as "inside-the-box" as that phrase may now be) and
putting together a cogent plan. Not just any plan, but
one with lines drawn from one campaign to next
-- to the next - with defined targets useful in judging
how the campaigns interact. In chapter seven, titled
Ready, Aim, Fire... Stephens says that having a plan at
all is a solid start but that developing small sample
campaigns to test its effectiveness is the big
challenge. His mantra for this process is "Test,
Execute, Monitor," and it's a good one. To me this is
akin to making three versions of great business cards -
but only printing 100 up from each. You pay 80 percent
of the cost of 1000 business cards, and put in most of
the effort, but the one that wins out is going to be
most effective. And you know it when you've got an
effective card. That's when you print up 1000 more.
Another lesson learned here is to concentrate on one
campaign at a time and keep your timelines less
aggressive than your hopes. Once you have the system
working, that monitoring part can take more and more
time. If you have too many campaigns going at once
you will get overwhelmed trying to keep pace with
growing monitoring demands and your data will suffer -
and you need that data like a fish needs water. In
nursing the old saying is "if it was never written down,
it never happened" and that applies to tracking your
results. It's the same way with monitoring your
marketing campaigns - so be vigilant in tracking
results.
When you embark on an integrated marketing
campaign, it is a time consuming process that requires
dedication. If you have a plan in place, and a system
for improving and testing that process, you can turn
sucky marketing into a success with time and
dedication. Your Marketing Sucks is a great starting
place when you are serious about taking that first step.
Even though it's only a start, and doesn't supply all of
the answers a more sophisticated marketer may
demand, I will definitely be referring this book to
business associates of mine because while not meaty --
this book's bone is worth gnawing on for a while.
Buy it Now!
