If You're Not Coca Cola or Nike, Stop Marketing Like Them
Large company marketing vs Small-Medium organization marketing: What are the differences?
I often hear business owners refer to their “branding” and mass-marketing. Here is the reality: unless you have millions of dollars to spend on ads, branding and mass-marketing won’t do much for your business. Nike, Coca Cola, and Apple can afford “branding” and mass marketing for brand recognition. Most small businesses cannot, so their “branding” ads end up like a drop in the ocean, wasting precious ad-spend and yielding little results.
What actually works for small- to medium- sized organizations:
The best bet for Small-Medium businesses is direct response marketing. You can track, measure, and easily pivot if something is not yielding the results you want. But what does that mean? What is direct response marketing?
The word to keep in mind is SPECIFIC.
Specific offer: Make your offer focus on the prospect rather than on the advertiser. Focus on the prospect’s interests, desires, fears, and frustrations. You might not be making a direct sales ask; you’re better off (and will have a better response) if you just ask for a “hand raise” of who is interested. Examples of this might include: Request a free report, request a free audit, request a free estimate, etc. Don’t focus on the advertiser. This tactic only works for larger businesses.
Specific audience: If you market to everyone, you market to no one. Unless you’re Apple and have a huge ad-spend. For small businesses, know your niche and target audience. Know their emotions, their struggles, their interests, and use this knowledge to market to them. Pretend when you are writing your ad or marketing materials that you are speaking to one person in your target audience.
Specific headlines and copy: Keep your copywriting to a 7th grade level, and don’t use anything too cute or clever. Keep your writing clear and focused on the customer, and use attention-grabbing headlines. You can use Sharethrough, a headline analyzer, to check the level of interest your headline should grab.
Specific response: Don’t make the aim of your ad as “brand recognition” or you’re wasting money. Include a call to action and tell people how they can do business with you. You have already explained how your offer helps them solve their problem; now show them next steps. Give them easy ways to respond, like calling to schedule an appointment, book a free call, fill out the interest form, grab your free guide, sign up for your free coupon, etc. Collect their email and phone number if possible, and then you have a great way to follow up with them in non-salesly ways.
Need help with any of these steps? Check out:
You deserve to build your community with words that inspire action. Need help? Grab a FREE 30 minute strategy call to talk through your goals and how you can effectively use direct response marketing for your organization.
Cheers to your marketing!
