Don't Blame The Medium

As a veteran marketing copywriter and consultant, I’ve heard it again and again “I’ve tried direct mail (or newspaper advertising, or television, or press releases, etc….), it just doesn’t work for my business." While the sheer numbers of times I’ve heard that phrase uttered makes me want to bounce off the nearest wall, instead, I remind myself that I, too, was once uniformed in this area of marketing. So, I switch to my role of educator and friend, in order to plant the new thoughts that I know will forever change my clients’ lives for the better.

As my good friend, Bob Burg, often says, “Begin with a faulty premise and you’re going to end up with a faulty conclusion.” He is so right!

Unfortunately, the premise that the marketing tactic (or medium) that is chosen is THE ONE determining factor in the success or failure of a promotion is about as widespread, and as faulty, as they come.

This faulty premise has largely taken hold over the last 2-3 decades, during a time when huge companies have opted for mass advertising to increase the name recognition of their “brands,” rather than compel audiences to action in order to directly increase sales. This would be like a farmer who scatters a ton of seed haphazardly over their uncultivated fields. Then, having their field workers harvest their crops. They may be pleased with the result, but because there is no accountability for results from specific fields, they have no idea which seed was wasted or which seed could have produced an even larger crop had greater care been given to the process. In other words, when you do the right thing the wrong way, you're still going to come up short.

The corrected premise that can transform your business is simply this - Advertising that produces results is, in my experience, based on 5 key criteria. These criteria are:

1) Audience
Who, specifically, are you aiming your message at?
2) Market Conditions
Are there any market conditions, positive or negative, that could influence results?
3) Message
Have you sufficiently compelled the reader to peruse your message AND given them a compelling enough reason to see you as better than others in your marketplace?
4) Media
Are you advertising in the publications that the audience reads?
5) Offer
Do you have a two-step offer that compels your audience to find out more, or form a light relationship with you, without asking for too much commitment before your audience “knows you, likes you and trusts you?”

It’s much like deep sea fishing. You have to know what you’re fishing for. Then, you can fish in the right place, at the right time, with the right bait. If you get any one of those key ingredient wrong, you’ll be spending a very long, boring day out on the water without much to show for it.

However, if you really know what you’re doing, you’ll “chum” for your fish ahead of time. By doing so, you, in essence, create your own little "stocked pond" in the middle of the ocean. So, when you cast your line with the real bait, you’ll create a feeding frenzy of “fish” just waiting to take your line and be reeled in.