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Despite
what many people think, marketing is not the same thing as advertising.
It includes advertising, but it also includes a whole lot more. To
quote Anthony O. Putnam, author of Marketing
Your Services, “Marketing is not just one part or function of
your business. . .marketing is a perspective, a distinctive and
essential
way of looking at the whole enterprise.” Even if you never spend a cent
on advertising, you must market your business to prosper.
If you are at a party and someone asks you, “So what do you do?”
whatever you answer them, that is marketing. If your business sponsors
a free Christmas dinner for the homeless, that is marketing. If you
send out a newsletter to your regular customers, that is marketing. If
your business gets written up in the local newspaper, that is marketing.
You may be
thinking, “But I’m a doctor (or a writer, artist, inventor,
etc) not a business person.” Well, like it or not, we must ALL be
business people--and we must all pay attention to marketing if we want
to be successful.
Too many of us are so busy in the day-to-day operation of our business
that we don’t take time to stick our head out of our shell and look at
the BIG PICTURE. Unfortunately, if this is you, your business may be
suffering. And if it isn’t now, it could be in the not-too-distant
future. You need to make a “business” out of your profession, whatever
it is.
But don’t despair! You can make changes in your business with a small
investment of time and money. And you can make HUGE changes with a
large investment of time and a small one of money. Your success will
ultimately depend on your P-A-C-E.
This stands for Planning, Attitude,
Creativity, and Effectiveness.
Planning is the obvious
starting point. Depending on where you are on your business path--just
starting out, up-and-running but still new, in business a while but
experiencing a slump--your planning stage will need to reflect the
current needs of your business. It’s best to start with a marketing
plan in any case, for the next month, the next 6-months, even the next
year or several years. If you simply start doing things willy-nilly
with no real plan, you’re going to run into trouble.
Attitude is probably the
most critical. It’s the one thing that can make or break any endeavor,
business or otherwise. You have to recognize that any marketing is
going to take TIME, and that not everything you do will work out as
planned. But don’t give up! If you persevere, even if business is down
and things look grim, you will eventually hit on a winning formula.
Creativity is key when
trying to market on a low budget. If money is not an issue, then you
can always hire someone who’s got the talent you may be lacking. But
many of us have to watch our budget, and thinking of creative ways to
stretch your marketing and advertising dollars can help
tremendous. In addition, creativity comes
into play when designing marketing material, as the more unique,
eye-catching, or inventive your message, the better your results. And
don’t go thinking “I’m not creative.” Everybody is creative! You just
need to have some confidence in yourself and TRY. You’d be surprised to
see what you can come up with if you give yourself permission to try.
If you really need to, you can team up with a friend who has their
creative juices flowing and get some help.
Effectiveness refers in a
large part to follow-through. You can plan a great marketing strategy,
have a positive attitude about it and come up with some creative copy
about your business, but if you don’t take action and follow-through on
every step, then you won’t get results. For example, you write a great
press release, but you only send it to a few publications or email it
to a small group, and don’t follow-up, so it never gets published. Does
that sound like a winning formula? Or you locate a great publication to
advertise your business, you get them to give you a good deal on the ad
rate, and you write a very creative ad. But then you only run the ad
once and you don’t track the results. How effective would that
be? Many of us are guilty of doing things half-way. Effective
marketing is all about consistency and repeat impressions. You don’t
want to do just one thing--try several avenues and see what works best.
If you do one promotion and get a few new clients, that does not mean
you should stop. It’s important to build momentum and keep at it.
Janice
Hughes and her partner Dennis Hughes publish The Share Guide, a
holistic health magazine & resource directory for Northern
California, and shareguide.com
a resource on holistic health for the online community.
Dennis
and Janice are experts on marketing--after having published the
magazine for 18 years, they have the tools to help you get the word out
about your holistic health business.
To
learn more about advertising in The Share Guide: click here
©
2007 by Janice Hughes, all rights reserved
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