In spite of those who claim that “marketing costs too much,” John Graham provides four major reasons why just the opposite holds true.
“We had to stop the mailings to our hospitality database,” says Tom Helbach, president of Mosinee Insurance Agency in Wisconsin. “We were getting so many calls that we couldn’t process the work efficiently until we made some internal changes.”
Marketing gives Mosinee Insurance a statewide reach and allows it to compete successfully against an association-endorsed insurance program. The next step is to begin marketing in neighboring states. But this isn’t all. This marketing strategy demolishes the myth that companies only want to do business locally.
It’s true that this marketing initiative as well as others costs money. But business is coming to Mosinee Insurance without face-to-face calls. It costs money, but it’s also efficient and effective. What Mosinee Insurance is doing offers a perfect example of the benefits provided by a marketing-driven strategy vs. one that’s sales driven.
In spite of those who claim that “marketing costs too much,” here are four major reasons why just the opposite holds true:
1. Marketing bulletproofs your business against competitive attack. Most companies don’t give marketing serious attention until something goes wrong. It might be the activity of an aggressive competitor, falling sales, or some internal crisis. Then everyone expects marketing to kick in instantly and solve the problem.
Companies all companies are vulnerable to competitive attack when they fail to create a legacy of marketplace credibility. This means projecting and protecting the company image and constantly caring for the way the brand is perceived and appreciated. This takes time, effort, and money. But when a problem arises (and it always does) there’s a reservoir of goodwill, knowledge, and value that offers protection against the attack.
The hundreds of millions of dollars that tobacco companies are committing to smoking education aren’t at cross-purposes with selling cigarettes. Those sales are far less important than having the public view these corporations as responsive and responsible, thus helping mitigate possible legal, legislative, and regulatory action.
2. Marketing creates your company’s future. When someone calls and says, “I’ve known about you for years,” you know that marketing has been at work doing its most important job. Here’s what effective marketing contributes to a company’s success: Before customers make the decision to buy, they must make the decision to go to you. The objective of marketing is to help customers form a picture in their minds that you’re the right company with which to do business. Behind all this stands a carefully designed and thoughtfully implemented marketing program with one aim: At the moment of need, the customer either seeks you out or welcomes your call.
Today, we’re seeing many companies that have been in business for a long time, but are now in decline. Why? In some cases, their customers have closed their doors, merged, or been acquired; or new competitors have entered the market and grabbed their accounts. And quite possibly, the “inside” customers who knew them so well buyers, purchasing agents, and managers have gone elsewhere or retired.
Unless your company is actively prospecting two to 10 years in advance, you’ll always find yourself pushing for sales!
3. Marketing makes selling easier.If customers have a predisposition toward doing business with your company, product, or service, making the sale becomes far easier. This empowers salespeople to become consultants (and not just to call themselves one). Such common selling problems as overcoming objections and closing techniques become irrelevant. In fact, relying on “selling skills” to get the order is an indication that a company has no marketing.
Everyone in business receives calls that start out something like this: “A couple of weeks ago, I sent you information about our company ” This is a call that goes nowhere today. Of course, salespeople (very good ones, too) run from such antiquated and stifling working conditions.
Trying to make the sale when prospects lack a clear understanding of why it’s in their best interest to talk to you wastes your company’s time, personnel, and money. Jacking up commissions or lowering the price only drives up the cost even higher.
The role of marketing is to create the right environment for selling to be successful. Without marketing, the cost of doing business becomes too high.
4. Marketing extends your reach. Whether it’s drilling down into existing companies to find new opportunities, further penetrating a market or market area, or opening the door to new markets and new territories, marketing is the engine that drives the effort.
To grow your business today, the task is one of going from “nobody knows us” to “everybody knows us.” Few companies are willing to acknowledge the height of the wall that this creates for anyone in sales. Firms enter a new market where they’re not known and then wonder why sales lag. More often than not, it’s the sales force that gets the blame for the debacle, even though the fault was a lack of marketing.
Onstar offers a perfect example of a company that literally drove customers to GM dealers by creating demand for their product. Motion pictures are pitched the same way: “Coming in October.”
CONCLUSION
Here’s the message: It’s failing to market that’s too costly. The bottom-line value of marketing becomes clear when you take into account these three factors: Sales that are going to a better-known (but not necessarily more competent) competitor, sales opportunities that are missed because you’re unaware that they even exist, and thin-margin sales that are being made to save accounts or “get in the door.”
That money is going out the door now. The goal of marketing is to keep it where it belongs on your books.