This is post #17 of my goal to add 99 posts in 99 days to Mancini Digital. It has not come without it’s problems and challenges.
First of all, it’s day 21 and post 17, so I’m still a few behind, but there’s plenty of time to make that up.
Second, I just had shoulder surgery 6 days ago, and while that did slow me down for a couple of days, it has not been nearly as much as I would have expected. So that’s a welcome surprise.
However, when I’m marketing my own business, I find it more frustrating than when I market for ANY of my clients. The reason? I’m in a more competitive market than ANY of them. The results are slower and the huge successes are farther between than any of my clients.
Therefore, I find it extremely frustrating.
I literally just had a meeting with a client two days ago where he told me about 3 more jobs he got this month out of $125/month pay per click advertising budget. And this is a company where a job runs $500 – $3000 with a 75% profit margin. Yep, it’s a niche business.
That is extremely frustrating as my return on investment is much lower than that because I’m not in a niche business. I’m in a business where terms like SEO and marketing companies with a $125 advertising budget will last me about 5 minutes.
I know… I’m complaining. But it IS my blog and I will cry if I want to. But I’m also writing this to make a point.
Not All Marketing Campaigns Will Work… at First
That’s right. You heard me say it. Not all marketing campaigns will work. We have had some massive failures. Granted those massive failures were very early on and they were marketing lessons that I learned marketing MY company. I’ve never had a massive failure like that with a client because of one reason.
But just because it doesn’t work at first doesn’t mean that it is a failure. It IS a failure if the same company just holds on and doesn’t make any changes (assuming the sample size is adequate). Changes can also be made.
Learn and Love to Test
Website Testing Can Overcome Marketing Frustrations
A big frustration with marketing is waiting. You need to have an adequate sample size before you know if a campaign is working or not. Therefore, I have some smaller clients who come to me wanting to spend said $125/month. The problem with that is, depending on how much per click they are paying (or the industry they are in), it may take quite awhile to get an adequate sample size to make positive changes.
Once we have that sample size we love to test. Split test after split test will show you what’s working and can take all of the guesswork out of trying something new. Testing is something that every marketing company should be doing and if they aren’t, maybe it’s time to find another company.
Also, time is another big issue that a lot of people don’t think about.
Times Change
We have had campaigns in the past that were working great. Then over time (about 6 months), they started to use up their useful life. As time went on, we could not use the exact same marketing message for that particular company.
So we switched it up… and then about 18 months later decided to try the original marketing message again. IT WORKED! The same campaign that we thought was done for, started to work again.
But it just goes to show you that as time changes, so do people’s taste, what they are interested in, what marketing messages work, and so on.
So that also does tie into the previous point as well, get used to testing.
Marketing Problems Lead To Finding Better Ways
But I wanted to point out, that just because we’re a marketing organization doesn’t mean that everything works for us. We have marketing problems of our own. We get hired because we don’t make big mistakes, we show a return on investment, and we truly do pride ourselves on customer service.
If you know of anyone looking for a marketing company that understands marketing problems, please let us know.
Until next time….