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How To Avoid Becoming A Marketing Victim?

What does it mean to be a marketing victim?? That's someone who is putty in the hands of advertising sales representatives salivating over your marketing budget, just hoping you'll blow every cent with them. They promise you the world, but ...

Is it because their medium is right for you, or the commission they will make is right for them?? How do you know if they are telling you the truth for just what they think you want to know?? That's what being a marketing victim means.

It happens so frequently that sometimes it's hard to avoid unless you know what certain things to look for in your own marketing practices. Sometimes these advertising sales representatives look for unsuspecting marketing managers too busy with daily fires to really know better. Maybe they will prey on the willing executive who doesn't know what you know, but once convinced it's too late for you to change their mind.

Let me ask you, who in your company approves your advertising?? Is it you, is it your executives, maybe even a board?? This is a trick question and gets industrial marketers all the time; the fact is ... the only person who can tell you what works about your advertising is ...

The buying customer!? Those people who give you money for specific products and services they desire, want, and are willing to purchase from you over anyone else - only these people can approve your marketing!

For maximum results with minimum effort, your marketing materials must speak to these people, the buyers. What buyers in your market think is more important than any advice anyone can give you, especially when choosing which marketing efforts you will invest in.

Then why do so many people have an opinion on what you should try in your particular industry, especially those folks selling trade media, television, radio, and Internet advertising?? Many of these individuals have no more interest in your success than what they ate for breakfast, for many of them it's all about your value in advertising commissions.

In the world of advertising space has huge margins, many media channels pay generously to advertising firms and sales representatives. That is why it's so important to know what you must do to avoid being a marketing victim with even the most cunning advertising sales representative.

Sure, you are busy, but there are a few easy things to understand beyond what advertising will cost your business. While there are many questions you should ask, get started by checking yourself against this list:

• What percentage of the intended audience are BUYERS of your product or service?? Don't fall for the Yellow Pages representatives' statement that "everyone looks for your service" in his or her book, so all you need to be is there. Your message needs to be in front of the maximum number of buyers in whatever medium they interact.
• What motivates your audience to buy now instead of buying later?? There are key triggers that create urgency in the minds of your buyers, points that makes them jump out of their chairs to buy from you - once you find that in them, you'll be able to pull them in your direction at time of purchase.
• How are other people selling to your buyer already, and what's the core of their message?? It's helpful to see where your competitors have tried to reach buyers and failed, and what works well for them now, not to copy them but to identify other companies who already reach your customer. These complementary solutions can open doors for your business.

There are about twenty-two other questions to ask, but these basics help you refine your message to prevent you from throwing away your marketing budget so quickly. But there is more to learn.

The key you must understand to avoid being an advertising victim is that you make choices about marketing only by measuring dollars spent by customers, not the opinion of a advertising sales representative. Almost any channel highly saturated with real BUYERS can be made to work - but buyer beware, some advertising sales representatives will tell you anything to make a commission.

By Justin Hitt at April 11, 2006 1:40 PM  Subscribe in a reader