08 Aug Marketing Still Works!
I have been in the media/marketing business my entire adult life. I have worked for small local radio stations and run national radio and TV networks. I have lived through good and bad economies. I have seen industries that did not exist go from start-up to leading Fortune 500 companies. I have also seen several small businesses have a great idea but fail to bring in enough cash to keep the business open.
The absence of marketing is the absence of your business existence.
What is the common detonator? Marketing. The businesses who spent time and energy on marketing almost all survived the bad economies. They understood that marketing is about investing in the future of the company. The absence of marketing is the absence of your business existence. How will new customers or clients know what products or services you offer if you never reach out and market to them?
Think about the major brands that still spend marketing dollars. I don’t need to see a commercial to know that Apple is a company that sells phones and computers. Yet I still see Apple TV spots. Why? They know the absence of marketing is the absence of existence. Maybe not today, but future generations will find another product they are loyal to because of marketing.
Bill Gates even said if he had only one dollar left to spend, he would spend it on public relations. Another form of marketing.
I remember when Amazon was a brand-new start-up, only offering books for sale. They spent millions on marketing, and look at Amazon today. I was in college, working at a local radio station, and one of my jobs was to dub in the national radio spots into the computer automation system for playout. We ran a lot of Amazon commercials.
I am not pretending marketing is a magic pill. If your product is bad, customer service is not good, or you don’t know how to run a business, marketing is not going to solve your problems. But if you have been killing it in online reviews, your customers love your product and you know how to manage your business, maybe you need to look at your marketing strategy.
Scott Miller is the CEO of Centerpost Media, host of the Create. Build. Manage. show (seen on BizTV, heard on BizTalkRadio, and available wherever you listen to podcasts,) and a member of the Forbes Agency Council, Entrepreneur Leadership Network, and Dallas Business Journal Leadership Trust. You can find Scott on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter via “@scottmillerceo” or on LinkedIn via “@scottmillermedia.” Centerpost Media is a content marketing agency with a vision to help every business they encounter with their media needs by providing outstanding quality, service and value. Centerpost Media is the parent company to BizTV, BizTalkRadio, BizTalkPodcasts and Bizvod.