Marketing…the Ouija Board of Business

When times get tough and more revenue is urgently needed, business owners and managers reach for marketing. They open up the closet door, grab the Ouija Board of business, marketing, and seek answers. Similar to laying their hands on the Ouija Board cursor and asking a question, they call in the marketing department or contact a marketing expert and ask, “What marketing can we do to get more sales immediately?” This initial question is followed closely by two more, “How much should we spend?” and “When can we expect results?”

These same executives would never dream of delaying their accounting until a tough time when they desperately had to know how much money was available to them. They would not ignore making a deposit of revenue until they might need it. No, they give accounting and recording of revenues daily attention.

Which begs the question, “Why not give marketing daily attention?” After all, it is the sole function of business which generates revenue.

Why do business owners and managers often avoid marketing until pushed by circumstances?

Mostly, they don’t understand marketing and its revenue-generating function. Even though the SBA cites “a lack of effective marketing” right along with a undercapitalization as the major reason for business failure, most business people would give undercapitalization attention long before they would give marketing attention. That’s because they feel comfortable discussing capitalization. In reality, they might not be any more well-versed in capitalization than in marketing. However, capitalization seems concrete while marketing seems elusive. Discussing numbers is easy; figuring out how to achieve those numbers is difficult. They’ve thrown money at marketing and haven’t seen any results, or, at least, not the results they wanted, whatever those were.

Their frustration with marketing has lead them to put marketing in a category with other concepts whose understanding evades them, such as insurance. They rely on the insurance salesperson to get them the insurance that they need, and, likewise, they rely on the advertising salesperson to get them the marketing that they need. Unfortunately for them, marketing and insurance are not even remotely similar concepts and, therefore, are not wise to treat in the same manner. Insurance is a protection against loss while marketing generates revenue. Insurance may be purchased and reviewed annually. Marketing requires your direction and involvement on a daily basis. To pigeonhole both as something others can do for your business is a major mistake.

This is a mistake which is made every day by many business people. Executives find marketing easy to ignore, preferring to attend to those tasks which they find comfortable. This inattention to marketing on a daily basis loses businesses revenue every day, but, unfortunately, executives do not see what they are missing. Only when times get tough do they feel the necessity for marketing and acknowledge marketing‘s revenue-generating function. When revenues are down, executives turn to marketing to fix the problem and do so quickly.

That’s too late.

Marketing is not a Ouija Board or a magic wand that can be sought suddenly to fix sagging revenues. Marketing is a process. To run a business profitably, marketing must be given attention daily. Just like accounting, marketing must be set up and worked as a system. We are about to start a new year. With a challenging economy, there is no time like the present to fix your marketing now, whatever your revenues, and give daily attention to your business’s marketing.

Start with a written marketing plan.