Relying on just one or two main forms of marketing

2 - Relying on just one or two main forms of marketing

If you are similar to most businesses, there are probably one or two main forms of marketing that you are currently using to grow your business. It many be advertising, or referrals, or direct mail, your website, emails, PR, telemarketing, strategic alliances etc.

If you want to grow your business exponentially, your goal should be to turn your business into a multi – level marketing machine, where you are combining several of these marketing approaches simultaneously.

What do you think happens to a business that over the space of a year goes from using one or two main marketing methods to ten? This is how you grow a business by 100-300%.

Now if it’s that simple, why aren’t more businesses doing it? There are two reasons. The first is they just don’t know how. They haven’t realised that you will never fulfil your business potential if you don’t make marketing a top priority.

The second reason is fear. If someone were to suggest that you go out next week and implement ten new marketing strategies, you would be justifiably concerned that you could lose money if the strategies went wrong – and that even if they were a success, the business might not be able to cope with such rapid growth.

That’s why the principle of ‘testing and measuring’ is possibly the most important marketing concept there is.

The principle of testing and measuring is simple. Every month you should test one or two or more new marketing methods on a small scale. This could be a new ad, a new direct mail campaign, some telemarketing etc. By testing small and measuring the results you quickly identify what works and what doesn’t. When you find something that works, you roll it out on a larger scale.

It sounds ridiculously simple doesn’t it? Guess how many businesses apply such a process systematically. Less than 1 in 50. Shocking but true. So make testing a fundamental part of your approach and you’ll already be way ahead of the competition.

By the way, before you do any of this, you need to be testing and measuring the marketing that you are already doing. This is where most businesses are losing a fortune. For example, you wouldn’t believe the number of businesses who advertise but have never measured the results, so they never really know if their advertising is working.

If you do what I suggest – and each month discover just one new marketing approach that works for you, through good testing, then this time next year you’ll have twelve new marketing strategies producing results for you. What difference will that make to the strength, stability and profitability of your business?

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