Polishing Over Perfection

Far too many people are searching for that silver bullet when it comes to marketing. What is that one magic ingredient that will make their marketing a huge success? If you’re looking for that, then I hate to break it to you, but it doesn’t exist. The people who find true success in marketing know something different. The secret to making your marketing soar? Trial and error.

If every person acted in the same way, and we all thought identically, and we all had the same preferences, and every business sold something similar, had matching cultures and operated in the same manner as every other business, then of course there would be a proven way to market. We’d all follow an ABC guide and we’d all be millionaires.

But with every business doing something different, and operating in a unique way, with their own objectives and own set budgets, and with every target audience completely different to another target audience, how can there possibly be one magical way to market? It doesn’t make any sense.

This is my guide to good marketing:

1. Do your research and get to know your market, your customers and your business
2. Set yourself some clear objectives and create a strategy that will help you get there based on the knowledge you’ve acquired
3. Try it for 3 to 6 months and measure everything
4. Hone your activity to optimise results
5. Repeat step 3
6. Repeat step 4
7. Repeat step 3
8. Repeat step 4

Golden Egg

I was at the Technology for Marketing show a couple of months ago, and I attended one of the keynote seminars. This amazing man told us: “Don’t look for a golden egg. Get lots of eggs and polish them over time.” And I couldn’t agree more.

There is no such thing as a golden egg, and looking for it usually means you have just one egg in your basket. Instead try to play with lots of eggs – or marketing tactics if you’re now confused. Try lots of things out, as long as you can justify why you think they might possibly work based on the research you’ve done. Then when you start to see things work, take the time to polish that activity until it becomes golden for you.

Facts about marketing that have been proven time and time again:

1. You need 2 or 3 objectives to work towards
2. The more channels you use, the better results you’ll get
3. There are no guarantees in marketing, so you need to give something a try using an educated guess and then monitor it every step of the way to see how it works for you
4. It can take months of something being out in the market before you can honestly expect to see positive results, so don’t change anything in less than 3 months

It can be terrifying when you start a new campaign and within a few weeks nothing has happened. You haven’t had one lead, so of course it can’t be working.

But when was the last time you heard of something brand new and you immediately bought it? Unless it’s in the FMCG market and you’re munching on a new chocolate bar or trying out a new brand of soap that costs very little, you’re unlikely to make any instant decisions.

Logic alone says that you have to keep repeating your message to your customers, building that trust and giving them time to look into what you’re offering as an alternative to what they’re already doing.

If ever you’re worried, stop, take a step back and walk in your customers’ shoes for a while. If you were them, would you drop everything to immediately look into your brand, even though this is the first time you’ve heard of it? Of course you wouldn’t.

So for 2024, here are my golden rules:

1. Do your research
2. Try out a few different things that make sense based on that research
3. Measure them all over 3 to 6 months
4. Drop the ones that don’t work, and hone the ones that do
5. Repeat

The people that do this are the ones who see success. This is literally how it’s done. And the more time you spend not doing this, looking for that magical solution to all of your marketing problems, the more time you’re putting off the inevitable. If you want to grow, you’ll have to do this eventually. So why not start today. If you’d like to get some support with the research part, Lindsay Woodward Marketing is offering a free Marketing Audit to any business that will help you to see where things need improving. Find out more.