When you are up to your arse in alligators…

… it’s hard to drain the swamp

Direct Marketing Guru Drayton Bird has probably helped more companies in the UK become successful through his marketing ideas than anybody else.  Many, many people have learned a great deal from him (including myself) and this article come from his website www.draytonbird.com

 If you find what I’m about to suggest pathetically obvious, I’m sorry. Many of the things I’ll put to you are.

And the reason is simple. Although we may know things, far too often we don’t do them.

So here’s something one of my clients does. They send out the same (not very brilliant) e-mail week after week after week.

Let me guess what you’re thinking. Is it something like this?

“Isn’t that far too often? And anyhow, if they sent out a variety of imaginative ones they’d do better.”

Well, they do it for two reasons.

1. Because it works. And it works because you never know when prospects will buy, so you have to keep plugging away.

2. Because it’s better than nothing. And they’re so busy fighting alligators that they’d probably send out nothing if they weren’t careful

I constantly see clients who spend weeks, even months, squandering priceless days and weeks over small details that will make little or no difference – when they should just get on with it.

As the French writer Voltaire, put it over 250 years ago, “The best is the enemy of the good”.

A tale of two firms

Three years ago my partner and I went to see two firms in the same city on the same day.

One spent six months having meetings about the copy we suggested – in fact I have no idea if it ever went out.

The other got the mailing we proposed out within a week, and were our biggest client within three months. Today they are the leading firm in their field.

This has little to do with us. But it has everything to do with two things.

1. They communicate more than their competitors. Once they have a prospect they keep everlastingly at that prospect. I once asked their marketing director how long they keep mailing and e-mailing people. “Until they give in,” he replied.

2. They don’t sit around wasting hot air on whether something will work or not. They get on with it.

The American expert Richard V. Benson said, “There are two answers to every problem. Answer #1: Test everything. Answer #2: Refer to answer #1.”

People test to find out whether one message will work better than another. But there is another, even simpler reason. It is to eliminate useless discussion. Why waste time? Let the customers decide for you!

I’ll wager that if you communicate more often than your competitors, you will outdo them. Keep at it till it doesn’t pay … then give it a rest and try again.

There is a direct relationship between profit and communication. The more you tell the more you sell.

If you spend 5 minutes a day thinking of reasons to talk to your prospects and customers – things that might benefit or interest them (not you) – you will find it the best ROI you ever had.

The Ideal Marketing Company supports Leicestershire and Northamptonshire companies as well as companies from across the UK with marketing, PR and direct mail. The Ideal Marketing Company helps support companies with marketing consultancy in order to generate new business wins as well as making the most of existing customers.

Tweet