Archive for the 'Marketing' Category

Most businesses, including all successful businesses, have a marketing plan, but all too often that plan is missing a key ingredient – the holes.  Marketers get too focused on the product or service they are selling and they forget about their customer, and more importantly, exactly what their customer is looking for.  They forget about the holes!

So what’s a hole?  Remember that nobody buys a drill because they want a drill.  They buy a drill because they want holes.  The “hole” is the solution to your customer’s problem.  The “hole” is what you should be addressing in your marketing, not the drill.  The hole is what your customer is really looking for.

Being creative with your marketing can help attract a lot of attention to your ads, and when done well, can even create a buzz. There’s nothing better than when people like your ad so much, they tell all their friends to look for you ad.  They tell them where to find it in which magazine, TV show, or they post it in facebook and forward it in emails.  They spread the word for you, for free, to people that trust them.  It’s modern day word of mouth advertising, and there’s nothing more effective.

Just one word of warning – don’t get so caught up in the creative side of your advertising that you lose sight of your core message.  After all, if your ads don’t make an effective offer to the consumer, then you’re really paying for brand recognition, and most small businesses can’t afford an effective brand recognition advertising campaign.

When was the last time you created a raving fan in your business, someone who not only returns over and over as a repeat customer, but someone who tells everyone they know, and maybe a few people they don’t, how they need to try your product or service because it’s so wonderful?  Someone who is so excited about your business that their friends want to try it out, even if it’s just to see what all the fuss is about?  If this happens several times each day in your business, you probably won’t find this post very useful, but if not, let me tell you about about a mocha cappuccino I encountered today.

Running a business is tough enough without trying to attract customers with a marketing message that is outdated, irrelevant, or just plain wrong, yet I continue to see businesses struggling with exactly these kinds of messages. A great message that has outlived its relevance to consumers is no longer a great message. Let me show you an example of a company that has effectively used this principle to expand their market share during this recession.