Thoughts
Dart Shoot Economics
Advertising to lots of people is probably a bad idea for your business.
It may be unusual to hear that from a communications consultant who makes a living helping people promote their business, but it's true. The more people you divide your valuable marketing resources among, the less each is likely to be worth.
On the other hand, if you sit in your office waiting for the phone to ring, talking to no one, you can expect to be doing that for a very long time.
So the question is, what works?
More may be less.
A poorly thought out marketing approach is to expose your company to anybody and everybody. The reasoning goes something like this: if you talk to a thousand people, surely something good is going to happen.
It's a dart shoot. You throw the darts into a dark room, and when you hear someone yelp, you know you've got a "hit".
The problem is, your unfocused approach is bringing you a scattered range of prospects, few of which are likely to line up with your picture of an ideal client. The result - you spend hours of your time screening out inquiries that you can't turn into a decent sale, or make second rate sales that take more work and deliver less profit. Meanwhile those ideal prospects haven't heard about you at all.
I see this specious thinking in directory advertising. Whether it's the yellow ones or the online ones, companies invest many thousands of dollars in listings that try to attract prospects randomly. Like flypaper, they hope that some living thing chances upon their listing and sticks. Then, after twelve months, the directory gets thrown away or expires, and the residual value is zero.
Ask yourself:
Which of my five most profitable clients came to me at random, or through some generic listing?
If you're like most of the people I deal with, the answer will be zero.
Persistence only pays off if you're right.
So why do we persist with the dart shoot mentality? Several reasons, I think.
We think we've got a grip on the numbers. We may only get a .1% response, but then if we increase the number of darts, we'll be sure to get more results. Unfortunately, this does not consider the quality of response we get.
It's easier than real work. Face it, the path of least resistance is very tempting. I can get in front of 10,000 people simply by adding a few hundred dollars a month to my phone bill. It seems to be a better use of our time.
Our competitors do it. Not wanting to look second best, we cringe when we see our competitor's snazzy new ad in the directory. Our first thought - they must be doing well to afford that big thing. Their first thought - oh my gosh, this had better work.
We're half right. There's an old joke that 50% of all ad budgets are wasted. Unfortunately, no one can ever figure out which 50% it is. We need to get in front of prospects, but that's only half the battle.
So let's keep our darts in hand instead of chucking them away, and take a lesson from ancient Chinese medicine.
Acupuncture
If you only get one thing out of this article, let it be this: Pre-qualify your prospects and develop a relationship with them.
Don't leave a flytrap for 100,000 people at random, make direct contact with one hundred, and from those create ten ideal clients that will make all your effort worthwhile. Forget the dart shoot and think acupuncture.
The acupuncturist knows his client before he makes contact, and that makes all the difference.
By targeting the right people, you can start addressing your client's need from the very first contact. The person on the receiving end experiences this as a sudden stab of recognition as you "hit a nerve."
I have been very consciously developing this approach with my clients. Generally we've already spoken with a client several times and spent meaningful time understanding what they are about before we present a proposal.
Once that preliminary work is complete, I can present my client with a solution that truly fits their need. When I'm with the client face to face, I often see a change in their expression as we step through our understanding of the problems they face. They may say out loud "exactly" or "we were just talking about that." I've had prospects interrupt me mid-sentence so they can get their staff in on the meeting, because we've captured the essence of what their business is about. Now that's hitting a nerve.
When we present the program that addresses those needs, the trust level is already there, because we have shown that we understand the client's business.
You can do this. Really.
We will help you with a program that builds relationships with your prospects and clients. The materials we create for you will have a long-lasting value, and the relationships you create with clients will build your business for years to come.
Guess what? I don't send out thousands of copies of this newsletter to all the addresses at my disposal. Just the few who need to read it.
But you already understand that.