Copyright 2005 Terry Strom

Marketing is all about repetition, tenacity, monitoring, fine-tuning and focus on your target market. Many business owners send out one or two advertisements and don't get the response they wanted; therefore they stop that advertisement and move on to another advertisement or marketing tactic.

While others have no way of determining the response to their marketing and continue to throw away bad advertising dollars after bad advertising dollars because they don't have any type of direct response marketing in place in order to determine if their marketing is effective or not.

The first business owner has neglected to realize that for his/her company's product or service to gain trust with a totally cold market, repetition is one of the most effective marketing tactics. The first time your prospective client sees your advertisement, they glance at it and throw it away because you and what you offer have no connection to them. Then the second time you advertise with the same message that customer thinks "I have seen this before". The fifth time, he or she is wondering "what is this company about". The 10th time, they are thinking "this must be an established company”, and the 15th time they see your advertisement they are saying (if they are part of your target market and you properly marketed to that target market) "maybe I should buy this product or service". This was all by spaced repetition, where you send out your advertising weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly on a regular basis.

The second business owner did not use any type of direct response marketing and therefore had no idea whether his/her marketing was working or not, or how well it was working if it was having a positive effect. They just kept spending the money week after week and "hoped" their advertising was working. To give you an example of what direct response marketing is and is not, think of the difference between these two advertisements in a newspaper regarding a new restaurant in town. Advertisement 1 gives the name, location, phone number, and hours of operations. However, advertisement 2 gives everything in advertisement 1 plus a coupon for 10% off of their first meal at that restaurant. Which advertisement will tell the business owner if the advertisement is working or not. Of course, advertisement 2, because the customer will have to bring in their coupon to receive the 10% discount off their first meal, which will give the business owner much needed information regarding how his/her ad is pulling, and as important, what type of clientele that ad is appealing to.

The third very important ingredient to increase you marketing effectiveness is focus, and more specifically targeting.

Therefore, first of all regarding your target market you need to determine:

(1) Exactly what and who it is?

(2) Where does you target market hang out, what do they read, what do they attend; basically where do you find them?

(3) Is your marketing program properly addressing the needs, desires, wants, etc. of your target market?

I want you to think of a 250 lb man walking in loafers across a freshly watered lawn, and then I want you to think of a 100 lb woman walking across that same lawn in high heeled pumps. Now even though the man weighs two and a half times what the woman does, whose shoe heel will sink deep into the wet soft ground of that freshly watered lawn. Well, you know the answer to this question; it will be the heel of the much lighter woman because the pointed tip of her high heeled pumps will focus all of her 100 lbs on a much smaller area than the much bigger shoe heel of the 250 lb man. Meaning the woman's pointed shoe heel focuses much more weight per square inch on the soil than the man's much larger loafer heel. In even more basic terms, the woman's weight is targeted over a much smaller area than the man's shoe heel and therefore her heel has much more penetration into the soil of the wet lawn.

In the same way, you must focus your marketing into a smaller more targeted area (like the woman's pointed shoe heel), so that it has much more penetration into your target market. But to do that you must first be very specific on what your target market is. Too many business owners are targeting their market like the man's very large loafer heels, and as a result, just like the man's heel barely makes an indention (meaning little or no penetration) into the soil of the wet lawn, also the marketing of these business owners's barely makes an indention or penetration into their target market.

It's sad how much money is wasted by business owners on un-target and un-measured advertising. It's not bad for all the magazines, newspapers, circulars, mailers, and online and offline advertisers; however, many business owners could make their marketing and advertising dollars go much further if they were to spend more time on these very fundamental marketing basics.

About the author:

Terry Strom is a business coach, author, and professional speaker in the areas of motivation, sales, and communication skills. He has spoken in front of over 250,000 sales professionals, and has been the Vice President of three corporations. You can contact him at www.optimizeyourcompany.com