Is There a Magic Marketing Formula? - Part 1
Written by Jane Hendry

One of the biggest mistakes that I see small business owners make is to spend their money (or time) on marketing or advertising, not get the results they want and then conclude that marketing doesn't work. Or they keep on spending their money and time on advertising, despite their lack of results and convince themselves that it's "raising their profile". (In reality, it's probably just money down the drain.)

The main reason that their marketing doesn't produce the results that they want is because they've usually missed out or half done one of the ingredients of their "marketing formula" or are doing things in the wrong order. Getting your marketing right is a bit like baking a cake - you need the right ingredients, in the right proportions, added in the right sequence and baked at the right temperature.


What can a good "marketing formula" do for you?

A good marketing formula can help you to:

* raise response to all of your marketing activities so that you have more leads in your pipeline for the same investment
* make your marketing profitable (as it should be!) rather than an expense
* secure more sales from the presentations you do and the appointments you attend

Once you've worked out your formula, most of your campaigns will be successes and you can use your formula over and over again to continually reproduce outstanding results.

To illustrate the point, one famous marketer claims to have done a direct mail campaign that got a 100% response! In other words, everyone that he sent his letter to bought his product or service. Now, that is unheard of in a world where a 3% response rate is considered to be good. Another marketer claims to turn 98% of all telephone consultations into business (and 40% is generally considered to be doing OK in her field).

These people have got their marketing formulas highly tuned and working very hard for them. Can you achieve the same results? Well, you may not ever achieve a 100% response to a mailshot, (that was probably an exceptional case) but you can certainly improve the performance of your marketing and start making it pay once you know and understand the ingredients of marketing success.
So what are the ingredients and steps of a good "marketing formula"?

Your marketing formula is comprised of two parts:

The ingredients
This is really the foundation of your marketing - it's the groundwork that allows whatever marketing activities you undertake to actually work and give you good results. The ingredients are:

* a very clear target market (preferably one that is hungry for what you offer)
* a thorough understanding of your target market - what concerns them, why they would buy your services, what motivates them and how you can identify and locate them
* a good value proposition (the tangible outcome you deliver)
* an irresistible offer
* an understanding of the competitive landscape and where your company fits in (or in other words - your differentiation and your positioning)
* a strong, client-attracting message

You can have brilliantly executed marketing, but if the ingredients are wrong, then you're either going to attract all the wrong types of people, or attract multitudes less than you are really capable of. Either way, you would be wasting your marketing effort and budget.


The steps
These are the steps that you take to implement your marketing, and the sequence you move your potential buyers through en-route to them becoming loyal clients. These include:

* the strategy you use to get your compelling message in front of your target market
* where and how you place your message for maximum impact in the budget you've allocated (your message can be delivered verbally or in written form)
* the timing of your message
* the steps your prospects need to be taken through to turn them from strangers into paying clients

A weakness or failure at any of these points will lead to reduced response and lowered conversion rates - and that means weak results and wasted investment. It's somewhat like a chain - the system fails at the weakest points, so all points have to be as strong as possible.

So if you want your marketing to succeed, you need a good formula - the right ingredients combined in the right steps. Just like baking a cake - if you do things in the wrong order, or miss steps out, you'll end up with a result you didn't want - a burnt cake, a cake that's rock hard or biscuits instead!

In part two of this series of articles I'll discuss the ingredients in more detail - so look out for it in a couple of weeks.

Nice post Jane!

Very impressive.

I agree with your list of ingredients BUT let me emphasize the MOST IMPORTANT ingredient by far of successful marketing is offering something that some identifiable group wants (I'm not going to get into the whole "want" and "needs" debate here) and it's not "could need" or "might need" or "kinda need" but most definitely needs.

This is the biggest ingredient I see missing in virtually all unsuccessful marketing efforts... not offering a product or service that someone (that you can identify) truly wants.

Eugene Schwartz in his classic book, "Breakthrough Marketing" stated the obvious that we as marketers can't create demand... that "demand" has to be present for marketing success to occur.

Yes - I think I stated that first as "a very clear target market (preferably one that is hungry for what you offer)"

Well, yes and no.

1) Demand can be created by educating the market about what is available or possible. If they don't know that a solution to their problem exists (or a solution that works the way they want it to work), then they won't go looking

2) Demand for innovations tends not to exist until after the thing has been invented. Like, was their a demand for the A-bomb? Not specifically, no. It was a by-product of scientific research and then people thought "what can we do with this technology - I know - let's invent nuclear weapons". In the same way that a 13th century peasant has absolutely no need or demand for stocks and shares.

Sometimes products get "pushed" into the market by the supply side, rather than being "pulled" in by the demand side. Think of electronic shopping carts - there was no need for them until someone said "you can have an electronic store because I've invented an electronic shopping cart".

On that basis, I think Eugene Schwartz's comments are incomplete.

And then you have direct demand and indirect demand. I have a demand to keep my flat clean and tidy by the most efficient and energy saving methods available (because I hate cleaning, but I hate dirt as well). I had no prima facie need for a steam cleaner. I had no want for a steam cleaner. However, after I'd watched the ads for the Polti steam cleaner a few times, I then WANTED a steam cleaner. Why? Because they helped me join up the dots and see the connection between their product and my ability to keep my house clean with minimal effort.



Jane

I apologize Jane... I wasn't trying to be a wise guy by posting what I did about a "hungry market". I'm just a firm believer in the 80/20 principle and if I were to apply that to the rules of marketing then finding a "hungry market" is indeed the "20%" that will contribute 80% of the results.


Jane I disagree with this and I'll tell you why. I've literally seen too many businesses go broke trying to "educate" the market.

I think it's difficult enough to get the consumer to pull the money out of their pocket for something they want without having to educate them first.

I guess this it goes back to the whole "easy money", "hard money" debate. I agree with Dan Kennedy and others that say the bank really doesn't care if you're earned your money the easy way or the hard way. And to me it is far easier and cheaper to sell something to someone that I don't have to educate them first on.


I think the "demand" for this market was the desire to create a powerful weapon that killed as many as possible without endangering lives of the friendly side. I think that type of desire has always existed in warefare. Atomic and nuclear weaponry was just the cream on the cake.


True. But I think that type of product introduction and the subsequent marketing effort for a product like that is like playing the lottery. If you hit you're going to score big but the chances of getting a hit are pretty remote for most of us.

You're 100% right. There is direct and indirect demand and indirect demand can be very lucrative! But you have to be able to harvest that indirect demand at a cost that obviously leaves room for a reasonable profit. Testing will tell you if it's worth pursuing or not.

Hi Michael,

Maybe we can re-phrase and not be so absolute about things by saying:
it is rarely profitable for a small business to endeavour to create demand.

And I think that's probably what Eugene Schwartz meant. It's not that it's impossible to create demand, it's just best left to the Sony's of this world. When people like Sony come up with a new innovation that has to be pushed into the market, they tend to adopt a "skimming" strategy. Just in case anyone reading doesn't know what that means, it means putting the product in at a premium price and only putting it in front of innovators (typically people who want the latest and greatest and don't care how much it costs). They recoup their R&D costs from this market, and then over time, other players enter the market with copycat products and eventually the technology becomes dirt cheap, so that everyone has one.

From what you said in your post, your comments are based on marketing products to consumers. My business is:
a) selling my services to other professional services businesses
b) helping them to sell their services, usually to other businesses

In that scenario, you DO have to educate your market - there's no getting away from it. This is because services are not usually commodities, and therefore you have to explain in some detail what you do and what results that gets. People do not tend to inherently WANT these services, although they may have a vague nagging feeling that they need them. They're not sexy, and often, the decision to buy them is procrastinated on for lengthy periods of time.

In a sense, we are talking about indirect demand. Someone in my target market might have a need or desire for more clients. They do not particularly want a marketing service. Therefore, it's my job to educate them that the way to get what they want (more clients) is to use my service. And, obviously, I have to educate/persuade them that what I offer gets better results, is better value etc. than any of their other options (including doing it themselves, or doing nothing at all).

On the other hand, I have seen a small business contemplate trying to educate everyone in their locality about a piece of software. They wanted to run all manner of advertising (including radio, I believe) - but this would be financial suicide. A company that size does not have the resources to undertake such a huge project, and they'd never get payback on it. So, in this respect, I agree with you and Mr Schwartz.

The point (for me at least) is that it's not a black and white argument. Sometimes you do have to educate your market to stimulate demand - hence the popularity of PR, ezines and newsletters. If people really understood the benefits and advantages of a product or service, then they wouldn't need to be educated through these channels.

And anyway, isn't writing copy an exercise in educating the market about your product or service? (After all, if it was all blindingly obvious, then all you'd have to do is say "I've got some __________, it costs $x and you can buy it here".

Jane

Yes. I think you and I are on the same page with this.


Aaaaaaaaaa... I dunno. Maybe. Maybe not. I think the same "rules" that apply to consumer marketing are also applicable to business-to-business marketing. I mean these prospects are "consumers" too and I think one of the major mistakes many marketers do make when doing business-to-business is treating this market as being "different"-- but that's another post.


I agree that certain segments of the market that you're trying to sell do have to be "educated" about what you can offer them. Heck I was "one" of those folks 20 years ago. And over the last 5 years I've consulted with well over 2,000 of them... I know that market well-- I think you're probably talking about businesses that have less than 20 employees and do less than say a couple million per year. It's a tough nut. Thank goodness I was being paid through a non-profit to supply marketing assistance because it is inherently a tough market to make money on from a consultant's point of view.

I honestly feel that to educate this market is very, very difficult (i.e. expensive) because most do not have a good enough understanding of marketing and business to properly utilize and understand what a marketing consultant or even a copywriter can bring to the table. Most cringe at the thought of having to pay someone with this knowledge more per hour than what they even pay themselves.

And then if you do somehow manage to "win them over" keeping them happy is many times an exercise in futility. They think every marketing campaign or initiative should bring immediate and large returns to their business. They have no understanding of direct marketing principles nor to they have the patience for testing-- unless of course you "educate" them but you'll be racking up large amounts of unbillable time because you just can't bill them for every hour that deserves billing-- if you did they would immediately pass out!

I know you're not pushing the copywriting aspect Jane, but I know many experienced copywriters that have suggested that to spend ones time on small businesses (like the ones I described above) is a waste of time and energy for the most part. The returns just don't equate the effort spent. I think that same rationale can be applied if you are applying services as a consultant-- in person.

Now, I do feel that if you do not have to spend a lot of time with these types of clients you can service them properly and profitably. That entails some sort of multi-step process that siphons out those folks that already have been educated to some extent. Those folks can be good clients that will be glad to exchange some of their profits to someone like you that can help them gain more profits.

But to go out and have to educate the small business owner prior to them actually hiring you is a very expensive process for any marketing consultant or copywriter unless you're using tools to educate them that cost very little in time and effort.

I think that's why focusing on slightly larger businesses OR having a system in place that pulls those prospects to the surface without you spending a ton of time or money educating them is almost mandatory if want to make a decent living as a consultant... if you don't then it's not a big deal.



Is writing copy an exercise in educating? Maybe. I look at it as an exercise in "selling"... maybe it's a little of both Jane.

I probably have something of a "lawyer" instinct, so I see it as making a case. In order to make the sale, you have to create the connection between what the buyer wants and how they can get it by buying your product or service. Most of the critiques I've done on this board centred around the fact that the writer was using a lot of hyperbole without building a good case for what they were selling.

Anyway, I suspect we're talking at cross-purposes, or perhaps we just fundamentally disagree. It seems obvious to me that selling a $1million consulting project is an entirely different animal than selling a 40c dishcloth. Apart from anything else, services are intangible - which makes them more challenging to sell. Similarly, they are not inherently desirable usually (unless it's a massage service or something like that). Do you desire to give your accountant $1500 of your hard-earned each year? No, you do it out of necessity and you go to the accountant that gives you the greatest value in that fee.

Yes, my market can be hard to sell to. But here are some of the advantages of working with them:

1) Decisions are not made by committee - they make their minds up quickly. This gives me a short sales-cycle - a desirable feature of any business model. Conversely, large companies and government can take months to make a decision.

2) There's lots of them and they are easy to find and contact. Getting your foot in the door of large companies (or government) can be extremely difficult.

3) They understand that they have to pay up front, and don't ask for 30 days credit AFTER you've completed the project (and then fail to pay until 90 days - thus using you as a free lending institution).


And yes, I've taken all of the other things you said into consideration in my business model. I've created a standardised process delivered through the coaching model which makes what I do very affordable compared with more traditional consultants. And I'm building a marketing system to get my message in front of as many people as possible. Eventually I'll turn what I do into a product to reach even more people.

And this is what I know:

1) I've bought marketing coaching and information even though I couldn't afford it, because the case made was so strong as for to be unable to ignore it.

2) It is not always the clients with the most money that buy. If you have a strong message that hits the right buttons with people, then even the most impoverished businesses will buy, because they so desperately want the outcomes, advantages and benefits you offer.

But here's where we agree:
my market is NOT people who haven't figured out how important marketing is yet

Jane