Moving Targets

By Jeff Lindblom

Is there such a thing as "traditional" marketing for businesses, and if so is it still relevant and effective today? When first starting out to market a business, most business owners will copy, to some extent, what the masses are already doing for their marketing. Some key factors on deciding what kind of marketing to do might include cost, effectiveness (the two together constitute return on investment or ROI), knowledge of or feeling comfortable with the marketing product, and insights from others in our specific industries. For the most part these factors will bring us to a set of marketing tools that have been tried and tested and have worked for the majority of their users.

This article is meant to give suggestions that will help us all in our marketing  efforts and may bring us to decide to try things that are not so main stream. This is in no way all comprehensive and each industry will have its own indiosyncrasies. One thing that's for sure is that our businesses are ever changing. I have grown up in a family owned service business and I can't tell you how many times our business has reinvented itself due to a number of factors that that changed including economic, technological, operational methodologies, population movements, and customer expectations necessitating changes in how we market. Here is what I suggest.

Be on the lookout for changes in trends and prepare to meet those changes. You will notice especially in this digital world we now live in, how quickly changes are made. Marketing that worked last year or even yesterday might not be effective now. For example, only a few years ago we would use newpaper inserts to advertise sales and specials on holidays. The repsonse we would get was amazing and well worth this pricy form of advertising. Within a twelve month period of time, newpaper advertising went completely bust and this was no longer a viable form of marketing for us. We could see the changes happening and we needed to find other ways to reach new customers. No matter what form of marketing we use, we will need to change it up from time to time. The key is to be looking for those changing trends and try to stay ahead of it.

Listen to your customers by giving them a way to communicate with you, along with a reason and method to tell others how great you are. Surveying our customers is a very powerful tool that get overlooked too often. Ask your customers the questions that you want to know the answer to. They will tell you what things you are doing right and what might need some improvement. Ask them about your operations. Ask about your marketing and what caught their attention enough to come in to your place of business. You can be as generic or as detailed as needed. You will probably be surprised to hear some of the feedback your customers have for you. By asking the right questions, you will be able to pinpoint your marketing efforts making it both more effective and less expensive. Along with the survey, give your customers an easy way to refer other to your business. They will refer because they are already demonstrating emotional attachment by responding to your survey.

Always be reinventing and refreshing your marketing plan, and at the same time stick with a program long enough to allow you to track its effectiveness. I know this sounds like double speak, buti it should be done to fully understand how effective your marketing is and where you need to be with it. Just like the example of my family's business always reinventing itself, so should your marketing plan. Always be thinking and searching for better and different ways to market, but be sure to stick with something long enough to receive some good data as to its effectivemenss, then make changes and track again.

Using these principles will help to focus your marketing efforts, the key is to just keep moving forward.