There’s a good lesson for small business marketers in the corn field I can see from my office. (The neighbors have been growing corn in that field for over half a century.)
Imagine a nervous farmer who plants his seed and—when he doesn’t see any plants growing after a couple of weeks—starts digging up plants to see what’s going on.
Ridiculous, I know. Farmers know better. And yet small businesses often react like this nervous farmer when it comes to marketing. They say things like…
“We tried direct mail once and it didn’t work, so we’re not trying it again.”
“We’ve run this ad every week for a month and not much has happened, so we’re pulling it out.”
The truth is, marketing is like farming. It takes patience and persistence.
In his best-selling book, Guerilla Marketing, Jay Conrad Levinson talks about this in a chapter he calls, The Three Most Important Marketing Secrets of All. Here are his three secrets:
1. You must be committed to your marketing program.
2. You must think of that program as an investment.
3. You must see to it that your program is consistent.
Actually, these don’t seem like secrets at all. They are just common sense. And yet they are commonly overlooked. Let’s think about each one of them.
Be Committed
Levinson points out that you have to be fully committed to marketing. If you’re just “testing the waters” or playing around with marketing, it probably won’t work.
You must take time to develop a plan that you have confidence in and then stay with it—making changes as necessary. What if you give up on the plan as soon as the going gets tough? What if you bail out the moment you get nervous? You will have lost out.
Levinson tells a story about a new business starting in Colorado with one small store. Levinson worked with the owner to develop an advertising plan, and they got started. Six weeks passed, not much results. After twelve weeks, the owner was beginning to see some hints of activity. After six months, he opened his second store. After nine months he opened his third, and by the end of the year he had five stores. Within six years he had forty-two stores in five states.
Every business is different, of course. But the lesson applies to all: take time to create a well thought-out, sensible plan, then stick with it. Even a so-so swimmer will reach the shore if he keeps swimming long enough.
Think of Marketing as an Investment
Levinson also says that you should think of marketing and advertising as conservative investments. They are not miracle workers. Or magic formulas.
He says, “Suppose you buy a blue-chip stock. If it drops after a few weeks, you don’t sell it. You hold onto it, hoping it will go up. And in all likelihood it will. Such is the nature of a conservative investment. Think of marketing the same way. If it doesn’t produce instant results, that’s because most marketing doesn’t.”
Sure, you might get lucky once in a while and find a marketing technique that doubles your sales. But you can’t build your business on that expectation.
Realize that marketing is not a cost, it is an investment. And the more you invest in getting your name in front of the right people, and staying with it, the more this will pay out over time.
Be Consistent
This is the third secret. I’ve mentioned this before but, to be consistent, I want to stress it again.
As Levinson puts it, “Don’t change media. Don’t change messages. Don’t drop out of the public eye for long periods….Instead of running a couple of large newspaper ads once every few months, you’ll run smaller newspaper ads, and run them frequently.”
There are good psychological and marketing reasons for this. Consistency leads to familiarity and familiarity puts people in the comfort zone and creates trust. The more people see and hear from you, the more they begin to feel, “This business must be good we see it around town all the time.” People feel more comfortable with a name they know.
These three secrets—be committed, think of marketing as an investment, and be consistent—may seem obvious. But for that reason, they are often neglected. If you’ll be determined to follow them, you’ll already be ahead of most of your competitors.
And when you’re tempted to pull out of marketing because you’re not seeing quick results…remember that farmer!
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