Let’s talk about marketing blunders and how they leave your competitor vulnerable and how you’re going to use it to your advantage.
We’ll start with the first one on our list of ten.
Telling people how to get in touch with you instead of why to get in touch with you.
You’ll learn to love it when your competitor does this. The business owner doesn’t see the customer until he or she walks into the business. When the customer walks in the door the business owner believes this is the beginning of the transaction.
It’s not, of course, but he thinks it is because this is where he comes in.
If there’s nobody calling, nobody emailing, nobody walking through the door he thinks the problem is that they don’t know how to contact him. He invests a significant portion of his ad budget telling people how to do business with him and it looks like this.
“…Residue all over your pants so visit Mick’s Discount Dynamite located at 447 Elm Street just North of Rocket Road just across from the Pizza Express. Open weekdays till 9:00. Call 416-456-78910, that’s 416-456-78910 and tell them Carl sent you.”
If this is a 30-second commercial he’s just spent 14 seconds telling me how to do business with him which leaves only 16 seconds to tell me why to do business with him.
Here’s the truth. If someone really wants to buy something from Mick’s Discount Dynamite, he’s going to find a way to do that.
Now is the greatest time in advertising because, now, you can say something like “visit micksdiscountdynamite.com.” Takes about three to four seconds and it provides a lot of information.
It tells people where you are, when you’re open, what you sell, what you don’t sell, what you look like, what your phone number is and literally anything else you want consumers to know.
While your competitor’s living in the past and wasting half his advertising dollars telling the customer how to get in touch with him, you’re going to concentrate 90% of your budget on telling people why to get in touch with you. Then you’re going to give out your website and that’s it.
Once they have that they automatically have everything else.
There’s mistake number one and how we’re going to gain the most from it.
– This article transcribed from an excerpt of an American Small Business Institute video by Mick Torbay and edited by Zac Smith.
