1) Become non-fungible.
2) It's only expensive if it doesn't work.
3) It takes time to know if your ads are working.
Amplification:
To be fungible is to be a commodity. Think sugar or salt.
If customers think you're fungible, it's a roll of the dice--or matter of price--whether they buy from you or your competitors.
The role of advertising and marketing is to make yourself non-fungible--so customers will see that buying from you is the only way to get what you've got. You'll also be insulated from price competition and customer stereotypes about your field. Skeptical? Think Diamond Sugar or Morton's Salt.
Yes, advertising and marketing costs a lot of money--money that can be especially hard to part with during difficult or uncertain times. But, effective advertising returns many times its cost in greater sales revenue and paves the way for future growth.
There are many reasons why it's hard--especially in the short run--to tell if your marketing is working.
- It takes time and repeated impressions to establish a beachhead for your business in customers' minds.
- Maintaining or expanding your territory there requires continual exposure to your message.
- Not everyone is ready to buy at the same time.
- Lack of realistic and meaningful goals. Without them, you'll have no way to evaluate success.
For superior, long-term results, advertise/market to establish a marketplace niche where there's no one else.
For over three decades, Peter the Publisher has communicated professionally for national associations, fortune 500 companies and Mom & Pop clients. The Business Solution Group, which he founded in 1989, provides custom publishing, marketing and advertising services to businesses and organizations throughout Florida.
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