Your business does not need to advertise…kinda, not really…

Your business doesn’t have to have a website, it doesn’t need to advertise, in fact, you don’t even need a logo.

There are businesses out there that have enjoyed varying levels of success without any marketing material at all.  So why should my business or any business have these then? After all, you might have or will meet businesses without a logo or even business cards that that get by, you may even know and have used some of them.

Well, there are a lot of things that businesses do that they don’t really need to, all these things help make the business survive and hopefully thrive, but they aren’t absolutely necessary.  From what I can deduce, there is only one thing your business has to do to exist…and that is to get paid. 

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The reality is you don’t even have to do the work, that sounds quite strange, but there are lots of companies that charge customers for work they never did.

So now that you know you don’t HAVE TO have marketing material, why do people do it?Think of it like this, you get into running, and decide you need some shoes.

Would you buy a brand called Ryka (ree-ka)? 

Well, they are a women-only shoe brand that makes really good shoes, are hugely popular in Europe, and in fact, Princess Diane used to wear them.  However, they aren’t available in South Africa and so they don’t market to us and therefore we haven’t heard of them.  We can’t buy something we don’t know about.

Think of about 5 really big South African household companies, my list would probably include the likes of Pick n Pay, Makro, Vodacom, Clover and Standard Bank.  Can you picture those companies’ logos, see their corporate colours, know what they offer, etc…do you think it is any coincidence that some of the biggest and most successful companies in the country and world are also the ones with the most recognisable brands?

The problem is that we think of marketing as a grudge purchase that you, unfortunately, have to do or with some luck, hopefully, you will find a loophole to avoid it or maybe if you just ignore it the problem will go away, plus you are just to busy to get to it.

Rather think of it like this, you don’t HAVE to do it if you don’t want to. Instead, you get to do it.

Marketing and advertising are filled with an amazing array of tools that you can use in your business to promote your products, find leads, build a credible reputation, stabilise your turnover, build a following and ultimately make your business more successful and more profitable.  For this, there are lots of tools, but just like any tool, you got to use the right one for the job at the right time and right place.

We’ve all heard the saying, “there is no such thing a bad publicity”.  Well, a few years ago everyone had all but forgotten about Christiana Agularia, then suddenly she had a very public divorce and moments later releases her big come-back album.  This kind of trick gets used a lot in the entertainment industry. 

The drummer for ACDC was arrested for murder and then a couple of days later had all his charges suddenly dropped, only after the news and magazines were full of ACDC talk…and guess who had a new album coming out at the time? 

Now I don’t advocate anyone here trying any of these techniques for their businesses, but my point is that they use the tool of publicity to sell, they use it well by getting big press coverage and they use it at the right time. 

A lot of people believe that advertising doesn’t work, and in PMB a big complaint comes from advertising in the newspaper.  I’m personally not a big fan of newspaper advertising myself as I feel you can get a better bang for your buck elsewhere, but there are a lot of businesses that had tremendous success advertising in the paper such as Makro and Pick n Pay.  They advertise repeatedly and regularly and they do well from these ads.  So then it can’t be said that newspaper advertising doesn’t work, but rather that it is a tool that gets used incorrectly. For example, a high-powered electric drill is brilliant at drilling holes in walls, wood, steel, etc but would be rubbish at cutting down trees.  The issue with newspaper advertising is it only really works well if you have a big budget to support it.  Try running an ad every week and after 4 to 6 months you should start seeing some good results if your bank balance lasts that long.

If you had access to an exciting toolbox, brimming with potential that could allow for a multitude of beneficial changes in your business, ultimately leading to a higher profit margin, wouldn’t you be excited to get your hands on these tools? 

I don’t know about you, but when I pick up a book that promises to improve my memory, better my business, help make me more money or even teach me how to run further or jump higher I actually get butterflies in my stomach thinking of how the new me is going to change the world, I just always forget to read the damn book. 

So the key to advertising is that it is a commitment, doing something today and then maybe in December and when you get around to it again is just not going to pay off.  It doesn’t need to cost a lot, although generally, it is a risk vs reward industry.  But there are a lot of inexpensive ways of getting you off the ground. 

That being said though there is still that one pesky thing standing in your way…good advertising.  No matter how affordable it is, it still costs money.  Well unfortunately this is one of those constants in life, you have to spend money to make money.  There are plenty of ‘free’ advertising opportunities out there but these are very time-consuming so what they don’t cost you in money they cost you in your time, which could be lost income.

Basically, the only way around it is to budget, take a percentage of your profit every month and put it aside, even if it is only R100.00, it will add up.  Sometimes one of the best things to do is add your marketing expense into the cost of the product, so up your prices by 5% and save that 5% towards advertising.  This isn’t the nicest for the consumer but every big business does it, that’s where advertising budgets come from.

So basically stop thinking that you have to advertise and rather think of what you could achieve and the possibilities you could have available to you if you did and did it well.

 

Speak with me, let’s see where you are at and see where we can go to take your business higher.

 

 

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