THE INGENUE MARKETER'S GUIDE TO CERTAIN FAILURE... OR, IT WOULD BE A LOT FASTER AND EASIER SIMPLY TO THROW YOUR MONEY OUT THE WINDOW

Now, despite the fact that the program was working, producing at least one new client daily (in an industry where a client can easily be worth several thousand dollars), the executive director came to our meeting to ask if I thought we should adopt her employee's idea. God help me, but I was dumb struck.

Here's a program that works, that produces thousands of dollars of extra income at minimum cost (no new employees were hired and the marketing expenses only went up by a small amount)... yet the executive director really thought the question valid. Hence, this article.

As a long-time marketing consultant, I constantly see people -- both profit and not-for-profit -- sabotaging their efforts, virtually embracing failure, instead of doing what it takes to make their marketing profitable. Here then, with typical modesty, is a short list of what you can do -- indeed may already be doing -- to ensure the failure of your marketing.

Ingenue Mistake #1: You Don't See How To Make What's Successful More Successful

Consider the illustration above. I suspect that my executive director asked me the question about whether we could wind down the telemarketing because she didn't really want to do it at all. Despite the fact the program was working, she was hoping I'd say that the program could be cut by 75% -- and still achieve the same results.

However, instead of trying to discover how quickly she could get out of a good thing, it would have been better if she'd been considering ways of improving the response rate, and so adding the frosting onto the cake of success.

Note: by the way, it didn't take too long to determine what this "frosting" might be. It turned out that as a result of the telemarketing campaign several hospital discharge planners and physicians office managers made first-time referrals. Despite the fact that there was initial resistance to the idea, it was finally decided that the executive director could send a warm note and, just maybe, a fruit basket to these people as a "welcome aboard" present. In short, that something could be done to build a relationship with extremely valuable possibilities... instead of doing everything possible to ignore them... while reducing the marketing program as a whole!

Unfortunately, the truth is, most non-profit personnel don't have a clue which of their marketing programs are working... and which are dogs. This is because most organizations don't bother to set up the necessary apparatus for tallying their responses... and the dollars (or other results) which their marketing produces. This is, of course, madness.

Your marketing can never be considered a success without a clear indication of what happened. Only in this way can you know what to repeat... and develop... and what to jettison.

Do you do this? Consider your last marketing gambit, brochure, ad, community-wide mailing. Did you set up the means for tallying your responses? Did you tell relevant personnel what they needed to do to get the information you needed? Did you record this information? Did you consider both prospect responses as well as hard results generated? Did you analyze what happened... and did you use these data to determine the direction for future marketing? If not... what did you expect anyway?

Ingenue Mistake #2: You Rely Too Much On Written Marketing Communications

I'm about to start working with a fund-raising client, I'll say, "Which alternative would you rather use for fund-raising:

1. face-to-face solicitations;
2. getting your board members to request money from their friends and associates, and
3. using mail to request donations?" So far, almost 100% of the people asked have selected the third alternative... that is the alternative that is furthest away from direct, personal, one-to-one solicitation. I bet you'd select the same choice, too...

What you must keep in mind, however, is that written communications are only a part of marketing. Rather, in priority order of most effective to least effective, this is how you should be arranging your marketing:

## face-to-face meetings;

## telephone meetings;

## direct response options.

In other words, say you wanted to get a grant from a foundation (decidedly a marketing possibility). Whenever possible, you'd be advised to do everything you could to get a personal meeting... to have the chance to make an interesting, well-reasoned, intense and focused presentation about how you and the funding source could work together to bring about the desired result. A telephone meeting would be a less strong way of presenting your information and building the relationship... while merely sending in a letter and proposal would necessarily be weaker still.

I'm really saying two things here:

## When you're in marketing, you're in the rejection business. You know you're doing well when the number of your successes rises consistently... because you're getting more and still more rejections.

## You should not place an over reliance on the written word, on written marketing communications but, instead, should do everything possible to make them a component, but only a component, of your overall marketing program.

Thus, say you wanted to raise an additional $20,000 for one of your programs. If you're like most people you'd want to raise the bulk of this, perhaps all this from direct mail, eschewing anything that brings you closer to people, that necessarily raises the possibility of rejection. For most organizations this would be the wrong way of arranging things.

Instead, you should ask yourself:

## Is there a person, or a group of people, we could personally ask to provide this money? Who's the best person to make the request? When's the best time to make it?

## Are there people we could call to request the money?

## What's the best, the most realistic role for direct response marketing in raising the money we need? Have we constructively considered just what it can do and just how it should be used... or are we just afraid of implementing other, more sensible alternatives?

Ingenue Mistake #3: Your Perfectionism Is Dampening Your Marketing

Marketing is a very human endeavor. And like some of the most important activities in our life it doesn't need to be perfect to work. Think for instance of the love letters you got in high school, the ones with erasures, misspellings and fractured syntax. They could -- and so often did -- achieve their objectives despite any number of such mistakes. Remember this illustration well, because love letters are MARKETING letters... that is they are directed to a highly specific target market and have a specific objective which the marketer wishes to obtain in the shortest period of time.

Marketing letters work to the extent that:

## you know who you're talking to;

## you know what you want him/her to do... and have made it easy for him/her to do it;

## you understand the benefits of what you're offering, and pile them on, one after another, always leading with the single benefit that is most important to the individual you're speaking to;

## you incorporate a motivational offer, that is a reason for the targeted individual to act NOW;

## you use every emphasizing device at your command to accentuate your message, that is arrows, bold, underling, ellipses, italic, etc., etc., etc.

Your prospects care about what you can do for them... about the many benefits you have available. They want to know how you can transform their lives... and what they have to do to get the process rolling. They aren't nearly as concerned -- in fact most aren't concerned at all -- with:

## the color of your paper (think of how long you wasted on this picayune problem);

## the kind of paper;

## the precise shading of your logo, and

## the kind of type you agonized over for your address.

No, your prospects and clients don't care about these things. But you do. Because they involve your self-image and your place in the world.

It is, however, the height of folly to think these things get customers, that these tiny matters of minuscule importance motivate people to come to you and enjoy your benefits. Yet these things, despite their insignificance, get many times the attention the crucial benefits do. RIDICULOUS!

Ingenue Mistake #4: Once Is Never Enough

When you sat down to draft your marketing plan for achieving this objective (you did have a plan, didn't you, and a specific objective), did you pencil in one "hit" of the target market... or a sustained campaign? I bet I know... All too often, partly because you've got lots of fires to put out around the office, partly because your time and money are limited, and partly because you just don't think things through, you start a marketing sequence... but don't finish it.

This is a mistake.

In the paper the other day there was a cartoon of a child being yelled at by his mother to come in for dinner. Through the first three blocks, the mother yells increasingly loudly. Only in the fourth block, when the yell is in massive type crowding everything else out, does the child finally look up and say, "Now, she's getting serious. I'll have to go in a few more minutes!"

Every child knows that asking once isn't enough. Every adult learns how to determine the level of importance and urgency in a child's insistently reiterated request. WHY DO YOU ACT ANY DIFFERENT?

These days, when everybody and his brother is "marketing," we're besieged by marketing communications of every kind. It's estimated that in urban areas we get hit by as many as 7,000 marketing communications a week... most of which we ignore.

Yet, when you come to organize your marketing you forget what you knew as a child, how you operate as a parent, and how you live as a consumer... and so do just one anemic marketing communication.

Marketing, you must remember, is a game of relentless client-centered focus. You:

## target the designated market;

## craft motivating benefits, and

## HIT HOME WITH THESE BENEFITS AGAIN... AND AGAIN... AND AGAIN!!! ... until, at last the prospect says, "Now she's getting serious. I'll have to take action."

Ingenue Mistake #5: You Force Prospects To Read Every Word You've Written To Get To The Meat

This may be suitable for an essay. But it is most assuredly not suitable in marketing. In marketing, you lead with your strongest point, your most motivating benefit, the thing that's going to get your targeted prospect to take fastest action. You don't build to a conclusion; you take the benefit and clobber the prospect with it, shouting, HEY, BUB, LOOK WHAT'S HERE FOR YOU!

Is this what you're doing? I doubt it. Review your brochure... your last marketing letter... your annual report or a fund raising proposal. I'm willing to bet a dollar (a very serious thing for a parsimonious Scotsman like me) you build towards a conclusion. You put things in logical order.

You provide a lot of history... and more background information. But dear reader, what the prospect wants is BENEFITS. And he wants them NOW.

Whatever the delights of Victorian reading parties, where well-bred young ladies and gentlemen sat on the rocks of Cornwall reading en grup works of serious intent through languid afternoons, THEY HAVE NO PLACE IN MODERN MARKETING. Know your market. Prioritize your benefits. Then drive them home! Remember, marketing is like an ice cream cone: the important stuff is always on the top!

Conclusion