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| Subject: All Work & No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy | |
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Author: Dennis S. Vogel |
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Date Posted: 17:34:59 01/30/11 Sun In reply to: Dennis S. Vogel 's message, "Why Isn't Back-to-School a Subscription?" on 16:59:01 09/29/10 Wed I planned for this part of this message thread to be about advertising frequency. The effectiveness of frequent advertising depends on the subject of the 1st part of this message - - really! I promise! For optimal marketing, each message should offer something. In effect, each time somebody receives your messages, you make your promises again. Even if your products are out of stock or if your appointment book is full, your messages make promises you should fulfill. So, if you promise something more often than you can fulfill, people will be disappointed or worse. Your advertising should be consistent without making your promises too often. You need to have the right balance. Before I develop an offer for clients, I want to be sure they can accommodate/fulfill more transactions than they currently do. They may want more sales & especially more money; but frustrating people would only decrease sales & profits. They can earn more money without hurting their reputations which would mean losing future sales. Too Much Of A Good Thing Loses Its Effectiveness After testing (experimenting) & tracking your results over time, you can estimate what your results will be. Example: In the past, when your offer was ABC for $123, you sold 200 on average; you could estimate your sales for the same or similar offer will be about 200. When your results taper off (eventually they will), you can decide whether to use the offer again or discard it. If you test methods regularly, you can replace the old offer with what you find is currently effective. Some business owners say NOBODY will experiment on/with THEIR businesses. HELLO! They need somebody experimenting to find more effective alternatives. In marketing, many things eventually become less effective or even ineffective. What works well is overused by many marketers & consumers stop responding to it - - positively. When something has been used too much, people may start responding negatively. Using worn out methods costs (wastes) money without bringing any benefits. So, why would anybody still use what used to work & now is inefficient & probably ineffective? Even the most experienced marketer is experimenting the 1st time s/he uses a marketing method. A successful method for a different business in a different situation (i.e. is a proven method & probably overused/worn out) is still an experiment when another business uses it in another situation. How many times does something have to be used before somebody declares it to be a proven method? How many times can something be used before it becomes so common (familiar) people rarely notice it anymore? Too Much Of A Good Thing Wastes Opportunities & Resources It would hurt clients if I brought them more customers than they could serve in a short time span. People would leave dissatisfied & may avoid those clients in the future. Clients & their employees would be stressed by trying to serve too many people who just leave in disgust According to an old adage, we should make hay while the sun shines. I agree as long as a harvester has enough storage capacity available. Farmers prefer not to leave crops to rot in their fields, but harvesting more than can be stored or processed wastes a crop, PLUS everything used to harvest it. If you have a choice between losing customers because 1) they got a competitive offer instead of yours or 2) you frustrated them; which would you choose? Your chances of attracting those who didn't get your other offer are higher than attracting frustrated people again. Everything in Moderation - - Including the Amount of Moderation I do NOT want to dissuade you from starting, buying or expanding a business. I want to dissuade you from hurting yourself by taking on too much. Too much work can do more than make you a dull person. Without enough mental & physical recovery time, your health WILL DECLINE. I hope you realize what your limits are. You should also consider stress in your personal life. Your total stress load can quickly undermine your energy & health, this is especially true if somebody is undermining you in business &/or your personal life. I speak - - write - - from experience. Be careful what you wish for because you may get it & find it different from what you expected. Avoid committing to more than you handle, no matter how profitable your business may become - - if you succeed. Investors, employees & customers may share your dream, but they won't accept your dream as payment for what you owe them. Common advice for anybody considering the publishing of a magazine, ezine or newsletter is to start slowly. Example: Instead of committing to publish something every week, it may be better to publish it every month. Promising an issue each week & failing to stay on that schedule is worse than increasing the rate in the future. Even if you determine you can increase the frequency, you can publish regular issues on the same schedule & add others as bonuses or supplements. If you do it this way, it adds value without overpromising & under delivering. People will respect you more if you admit your limits. People will disrespect you if you let them down too often. Can you satisfy enough people with what you can realistically guarantee? Before cell phones were popular & affordable, 2-way radios were used more. Prospective buyers (business owners) wanted to be able to communicate with employees even if they were 50 miles apart. A basic installation would be guaranteed to reach 35 miles. Communications sales reps would ask how often those prospects need a 50-mile range. After prospects answered, sales reps helped them determine if they needed that much of a range often enough to warrant paying for more powerful radios & a taller repeater tower. Most customers were happy enough with the basic installation. A basic installation could sometimes accommodate a longer range, though we never promised more than 35 miles. If customers discovered they could get more range, they were glad, because they got more than they were promised. What Can Murphy Do, If You Violate His Law? There are many unforeseen obstacles that could prove Murphy's Law. Health problems, personal & business financial troubles, personnel challenges, family hardships, economic difficulties, new legislation, etc. can force changes. Problems can cause stress. Stress can undermine health. Compromised health can interfere with your ability to honor your commitments, which can cause you to lose your clientele. This is similar to promising to provide a regular supply of products &/or regularly performing services. Things can go wrong & at the WORST possible times. I know from experience how optimistic efforts can end with disillusionment. I want to help you avoid those situations. You may have a lot of energy & talented employees. If you lose an employee, you could burn up a lot energy doing his/her job, plus your other responsibilities & trying to find & train a replacement. People who owe you money may figure your business is over & decide not to pay you. You may be too distracted & tired to try to collect money while you struggle to pay suppliers. Debts may be too small to sell to collection agencies or to hire somebody to collect what people owe you. Your total accounts receivable may be high, but each account could be too low be worth pursuing in court. A Marketing Promotion Is a Promise When people respond to your offers, they expect to get what you promoted, OK? When you have a successful offer, you can run out of stock or not have enough time to perform your service. If you sold the last of your products or filled your service appointment schedule yesterday, you may frustrate people. Anybody who gets your offer today may expect you to fulfill your offer today or tomorrow. Depending on laws where you are, it may be wise to make your offers flexible. In general, if your offer expired before your products are all sold, you can still fulfill your offer past the expiration. But, if you fail to fulfill offers before the expiration, you may violate a law. If possible, a TV/radio broadcaster or newspaper publisher may let you change your advertising as your supplies are diminished or your schedule fills up. Check the legality of stating your supplies are limited. You may want to specify how many you have to increase urgency & protect your reputation. If a product could be defective, be ready to replace it without reducing the supply you advertised. Example: If you have 80 widgets, you can consider advertising your supply as 75 (unless that would be illegal where you are). Would anybody complain if you promised 75, but sold 80? Maybe somebody would; but do your best to explain why you only promised 75. Would anybody complain if you promised 80, but you could only sell 75? Yes! It's usually better to under promise & over deliver, than to disappoint people. How Could That Make Us Stronger? I strongly disagree with this saying: What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Realistically, what doesn't kill somebody doesn't ever make anybody any stronger. After a concussion, a person can survive, but that concussion makes a person more susceptible to another concussion. As far as I know AIDS or diabetes never killed anybody, nor ever made anybody stronger. AIDS & diabetes make people weaker, then something else gets those who are weaker. Excessive stress weakens people to the point they succumb to other problems. I know that people who are alive & not in a coma will have some stress. The degree & amount of stress, plus how we respond determines if we thrive or barely survive. (Note: I know the physics involved in what I described in the next paragraph is more complicated, but this is a marketing lesson, not a physics lesson.) Stress is like friction. Without friction a car goes nowhere. Friction between tires & pavement creates traction. Excess friction tears rubber off & eventually a car with flat, worn out tires is unable to generate enough friction to gain traction. Just another point to drive this home: If what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, anybody who hurts you would do you a favor, right? WRONG! So, please avoid hurting yourself! You should expand your personal horizons. You can do it safely. Analogy: If your goal is to lift a 500 pound barbell over your head, do NOT start your development by trying to lift 500 pounds. Dennis S. Vogel thrivingbusiness@email.com Please use the free information in this blog/discussion forum & my web site, to learn to find the right consumers & offer them the best value you can. http://www.lakefield.net/~thrivingbusiness/ http://www.voy.com/31049/ [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
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