recession marketing Archives - Page 2 of 2 by Mark Murnahan

Fear Affects Success in Marketing More Than Logic

I want to offer a lesson in how and why fear drives your market, and how to better address that fear. It is not only fear, but emotions … many emotions that drive your market. The biggest one to overcome is fear. I will give you examples, but first, I want you to look at your own business motivations. If you look at your own motivations, you will better understand what motivates others. Here are some easy questions to help illustrate the point and get your thoughts moving in a good direction.

Question One: When you think of your marketing, do you think of having your name everywhere so that people will buy more of what you offer, or do you think of how nice it will feel to have a more secure business? (NOTE: They may go hand in hand, but the result is what you are after … not the cause.)

Question Two: Do you think of the money you earn, or do you think about the great neighborhood you live in, or hope to live in one day? (NOTE: Money alone is not a good result … What you do with it is another story.)

Question Three: Do you think of the fancy possessions and the great fortune you will amass, or do you think of the feelings those things will give you? (NOTE: Wanting something without a reason is no better than not wanting it at all.)

Question Four: Do you think of the things you want, or do you think of why you want them and how it will give you opportunities that you do not have today? (NOTE: I suspect there is a hint of what you really want in this question.)

Question Five: Do you really think you have a good idea of why people do business with you, or do you project your own opinions onto them in hopes it will work? (NOTE: If there is some doubt, you may want to consider what happens if you are wrong.)

There will be two categories of answers here, and one creates success, while the other will leave you disappointed. One is visionary, addresses emotions, and overcomes fears. The other will keep you where you are, with what you’ve got. It may shock you to find that you often use logic to override your own good decisions because of fear. The way logic and emotion relate in your life will have a lot to do with success or failure in how you see your business and it is reflected in your marketing.

I see it all the time that scared people do not make successful decisions in their business and in their marketing. On the other side, I find that the people with balls the size of Volkswagens and who can overcome their fear are taking success to a whole new plane. This is reflected in USA, where there was a 16 percent increase in the number of millionaires in 2009 (yes, during recession) and a 17 percent growth in households with a net worth of $5 million or more. This came following a major decline in 2008, and is a high-level look at how recession separated the fearful from the courageous.

I wrote about this on December 24th 2008 in an article titled “Recession Marketing: Choosing Logic Over Emotion” which discusses overcoming fear by using logic to divert bad decisions.

Do You Want Steak or Do you Want Sizzle?

In sales and marketing, the topic of emotion vs. logic has often been referred to as selling the sizzle and not the steak. The steak is an object. The steak represents the simple logic that people must eat to stay alive. The sizzle is an exciting representation of how that steak smells, tastes, and how satisfying it will be to sink your teeth in and enjoy.

If you want steak and the logic it represents, you are seeking the wrong thing. If you find that you want sizzle, and the things that come along with that steak, you are on a lot better path to getting things right, and getting what you want.

The list of questions and analogies can go on forever. Whatever your answers, I can tell you that success in marketing is strongly based in emotion and not logic. People do not choose their careers with an emphasis on logic, and when they do, they often end up making a career change when they realize it does not make them happy. People do not make purchasing decisions based solely on logic, either. They try very hard, but if there is an awkward feeling along with the purchase, they are gone and not coming back.

Logic Fails in Motivating a Market … Yes, Your Market!

Logic can help people to be creative with overcoming their own fears of buying what you offer, but the logic alone is only a tool. Logic is a tool to help people make good decisions, but it actually ranks pretty low in decision making when compared to emotions … namely fear.

Do you remember the last time you went to buy a car? This is something that drives fear through the roof for a lot of people. Cars cost a lot of money, and something has to help you overcome the fear of loss. You replace the fear of loss with the huge gains you receive by driving that new car. You replace the fear of loss with the fear of not getting what you want.

You may try to use the logic that you “need” a new car, or that it will “save” you money by not breaking down as often. That is bologna and we all know it. You want that car, and the sooner you overcome the fear of all that money you lose, the sooner you can sport around in that nice smelling head-turning new car. Won’t it feel good to show it to all of your friends and family? It will be so nice that everything works just right and it is nice and clean. Wow … This new car will be great!

Just believe me for a moment when I say that emotion is what drives these decisions. Sure, you may like to deny it, but go look at your car while you think about this. Just don’t get too emotional or you may end up visiting a car salesman today!

A Drive Down Logic Street

As I drove down my street on the way home from visiting a friend this weekend, I saw a lot of interesting answers all around me. I was thinking, as I often do, about my work in the field of marketing. I thought of all those lovely homes, nice cars, and best-dressed people. I thought of what motivates them. I thought of what it means to them that they drive this or that, that their postal code is this or that, how they got there, and how emotion is what made it all possible. Emotion is what drove their decisions, and emotion is what drove the decisions of the people who helped them get there.

I arrived home and looked at my blog’s visitor statistics. It shows me that many people search the Internet seeking logic to make decisions. They search (and find me) for things like SEO hourly rates, rates for web developers, and a squillion other terms that reflect fears. This reminded me how many people get the questions all wrong. Let me put it to you this way: You cannot get the right answers if the questions are wrong!

These readers in my statistics logs are not really looking for success, but rather seeking something logical to magically tell them how to achieve success. It reminded me that the majority of people get this totally backward by trying to find logical ways to get over their fear. After all, the logic may tell them that less money involved will mean less risk. This is their fear speaking to them, and they miss the elephants walking by while they are looking at all the ants around them. Their fears are telling them to seek something that completely diverts them from what will actually give them the success they want. This is a common fear mechanism that kicks in and keeps them from seeking the scary truth of what will bring them success.

Seeking what seems safe should be what really scares people. Most people want safety, which means that most people are doing the same things. This leaves little room for anything spectacular … just average. Average does not make it very far in a competitive market.

The reality is that overcoming fear of loss by replacing it with another fear such as “what if I get this wrong”, is what will deliver you that sizzling steak. You can probably find instances of this in your own life, but I can provide logic to support this if it alleviates some fear for you.

Begging for Logic in Marketing

People come to me every day hoping to find the perfect logic that will help them to make good decisions. I often point out logic in my work, and I can quantify everything from A to Z. Read my blog for about an hour or so and you will have enough logic about marketing to last you a century. Marketing is a very mathematical and logic-oriented field, but that logic and math is only a tool. I am an uncanny good marketing guy with a lot of facts and figures to prove it. My clients want that logic to help them overcome their fears. The truth of the matter is that what they really want is the sizzle, but they are still hung up on the fears that hold them back.

Proof of Emotion in Marketing

In a recent article titled “Polarize Your Audience and Stop Making Everybody Happy“, I explained that a word I made up went kind of crazy online. The word had ZERO representation in a Google search on February 23rd. Today, just a few weeks later, the word “dubeshag” returns nearly 14,000 results (click it if you need some logical proof).

This did not happen because of logic. It happened because of emotion. I wrote something funny and people became attached to it in some small way. They passed it around, they told others, and they linked to the article.

Here is a little more proof of emotion in marketing. In the photo you see above, there is about a half million dollars worth of toys. I purchased every last one of these vehicles (and more) within about one year, but I never bought one with logic in mind. I wanted the sizzle! The same is true of the clients who afforded me the ability to buy them. They wanted the sizzle, too! Fortunately for them, and me, they discovered their real motivations and overcame their fears enough to pick up the phone and call me (at toll free *REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE*).

The question it begs is this: What fears will stand between you and the sizzle you want?

Push Your Marketing “Go” Button

People dream up a lot of excuses to postpone positive action in their business. In decades of serving clients with marketing services, I must have heard them all. I want to distill a bit of that for you here, and hopefully boost your courage a bit.

I often feel like a police officer listening to peoples’ excuses for speeding. I mean, I should write another book just filled with the awful excuses I have heard from businesses over the years for how and why they messed everything up. By the time it gets to the “judge”, all of those excuses only embarrass the “speeder”. Now put all excuses aside and tell me if you can relate to this. I’ll bet it will sound kind of familiar. You may get a laugh, or you may get a fright.

Let’s first get one thing straight: If your business was simple, everybody would be doing it, and you would be out of a job. Business has its challenges, but there are huge rewards for doing the things others are unwilling or afraid to do.

Money Can Stop Business in Its Tracks!

One thing that seems to stop most businesses in their tracks is money. Actually, the lack of money, or fears surrounding money is what kills them. I have found that money is one of the greatest concerns to most business people. Imagine that! This one basic requisite of business is the same thing stopping them from having more of this one basic thing. It is like a loop … without more money, they don’t have more money. With more money, they get more money. It is crazy how that works, don’t you think?

I have found that with enough money, even a pretty bad business person can at least begin to solve most business issues. Money cannot fix it all, but more money can certainly help to solve the most common business problems. Money can buy better attorneys, it can buy better accountants, and it can buy better talent in most every area of a business. Let’s not lie … at least not to yourself. Sure, lie to me if you must, but really, just think about how much more you can do with a business if you have more money. I know this and you know this, so let’s not beat around that bush.

REMEMBER THIS: In business, the bottom line starts with a dollar sign.

When it comes down to it, money is the biggest reason people make bad decisions in their business, or worse yet, make no decisions at all. It paralyzes people and it clouds their judgment. So the big concern is how to bring a business beyond that hurdle of money.

How do you get your hands on more money? Do you beg a bank for more money? Do you rob a bank, a train, or a liquor store? How about this for an idea? Do more of the things that your business does to generate revenue. In many businesses, this means finding more people to buy a product or service, but in nearly every case it means finding more people … or them finding you!

A Look at Your Marketing Funnel

Let us look at your marketing funnel. I will use the basic idea of a marketing funnel to explain my point. At the top, where the funnel is the widest, you have the people who are aware of your offering. As the funnel narrows, you have people who are thinking about you and may become a customer someday. Closer to the bottom where the money gushes out, you have those hot prospects urgently grabbing their credit cards or check books to do business with you. This is just a basic introduction to the marketing funnel, but you get the point, right? Now let’s look at a couple ways people hurt their business waiting on the marketing funnel.

Waiting for Slower Times

Something I see very troubling in many businesses is that they hold off on their marketing until that biggest bulk of their current sales funnel comes through before they think it is time to get busy marketing. Instead of keeping the funnel full and adding more to it, they wait and see how things come through the funnel before they take action and push the “go” button.

This happens for a couple reasons. One excuse I sometimes hear is that the business is so busy they don’t have time to look forward to the next big rush of customers coming through the funnel. When they are not too busy, they cannot afford to market the business properly. So they go through these violent changes in business … up one day, down the next. The business is like a roller coaster ride.

Being “too busy” is as bad as the lie a teenage boy tells his girlfriend in the back seat of the car … at night … at a scenic overlook. Yeah, lie to a girlfriend, but don’t lie to me. I already heard this one.

Everybody has the same 24 hours in a day, and successful business people make time to be sure their business will still survive after the funnel slows down again. When I hear people say they are too busy to care for their future, I often find that they are simply not marketing in a way that is sustainable. They are the same kind who run a big special when they need more business, and they will have to do it again in a few months or weeks. They often waste a ton of money by marketing in this way, and die early from all of the stress it causes.

A better answer is to create a steady flow of business and make the peaks and valleys smoother. Scheduling is easier, accounting is easier, and production is easier. Everything becomes much more profitable and enjoyable with a sustained marketing plan instead of acting from urgency.

NOTE: This kind of business person commonly lies about their business health. They say they are busy, but it is often because they are busy trying to pay back all of the debt they created the last time the funnel went dry. This is sadly a very common approach taken by small business owners.

Waiting for Better Times

I am often reminded of something my mother told me many years ago. She said “Mark, if you wait until you are ready to have kids, you will never be a father.” I am glad I heard her advice, because today I have three children that bring huge amounts of joy to my life, and the lives of many others.

I think of this as the person who is just waiting for a big windfall to come. They have it all mixed up by believing they will be ready to market their business after they gain enough business to afford a marketing plan. They have placed the money cart in front of the marketing horse. It is a very hopeful person who really believes in their business, but just not quite enough to take the necessary risks to make it successful.

I usually find these people to be very energetic and hopeful. They are refreshing, because they come with the positivity of a child. They also often come with the budget of a child, but if you talk to them in six months or a year, all of that will be miraculously sorted out and they will be ready to push the go button then.

The harshest reality for this person is how much time and money they wasted by doing what they thought would minimize their risk. The worst risk for them of all was inaction. Not doing what they should have done has cost them dearly, both in actual loss and in opportunity loss.

I will hear from this person again, in their next venture. They will be ready to get their marketing plan started in another six months or a year.

Assumptions and Fears About Marketing

I watch a lot of people make assumptions about marketing, and they bolster those assumptions with fear. Call it fear, apprehension, diligence, or whatever you like. Waiting around and thinking about it until it paralyzes your business is not the answer. Taking action and being brave in your decisions is in order.

I have heard a lot of stories, and one I have heard a lot is “Oh, but you must be so expensive.” Here is something to think about: The expensive thing about marketing is trying to make more money without it. Thomas Jefferson said it well with this statement: “The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time.” The reality is that marketing is what keeps your funnel full and makes businesses more money … not less.

I guess I could consider it kind of flattering when somebody looks at my experience and my marketing talent and makes the assumption that I must be extremely expensive. Wow, if I can make myself seem that valuable, don’t you wonder what happens to the value of your products or services when you push the go button?

I Gave You a Go Button!

I could go on a long time about the mistakes businesses make in their marketing considerations. The worst and most costly of all is to do nothing and wait on that marketing funnel to start pouring out the results without action on your part.

You have my permission to be successful in your business. In fact, you have my encouragement. There really is no better time, and things will not just better on their own. Go ahead and push the go button … Do it NOW!

Marketing Online: There Are Just Two Questions!

This is perhaps my simplest blog post ever! It came to me that there only two really important questions about marketing your business, online or otherwise. Sure, there are other questions to ask, but these are the two that matter above all others.

1.) Do you want more targeted leads for your business?

This is a really simple one for most people in business. If the answer is no, you clearly have no business here on this blog. If the answer is yes, we should be talking!

2.) Is it too late because you neglected it too long?

This is the single most punishing question to answer, but it is the most true and realistic reason people make bad decisions in their business. If you say that you cannot afford to market your business, you should really think again. The truth is that you cannot afford to neglect the things that pay you. Marketing should never be a cost to you, because it is what pays you. Without it, you are dead in the water. The better question should really be whether you can afford to not expand your marketing. Here is a simple reminder:

“The man who stops advertising to save money is like the
man who stops the clock to save time.” –Thomas Jefferson

Simple Enough?

I tried to make this my simplest blog post ever. If you think too far beyond these two questions, you may be missing the big picture. Once you have answered these two simple questions, there should be no reason to put it off for another moment.

I would like your input, so please give your comments here on the blog and also feel free to reach me by telephone (direct line *REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE*) or on Skype (username murnahan).

Recession Marketing: Choosing Logic Over Emotion

Asserting marketing assets properly in an economic recession can be the making or breaking of a company. When everything on the news and everything you hear around the office sounds gloomy about the economy, you must question whether you are using more logic or emotion in your marketing decisions.

Regardless of the industry, we are all in the people business. When people are involved, it is easy to let emotion cloud logic, and this is very commonly seen in marketing during an economic recession.

Growing Market Share in Recession

Economic recession often provides the clearest path to expanding your market share. When the economy is strong, competitors are strong, too. Being persistent in your marketing is key to making it through a recession and growing your market share while competition is weakened. It is important to remember that you are not alone. You hear all of the miserable failures around you, but do not forget that all of the gloom and doom also includes your competition. Think of it like a staring contest. It is a test of will, and if they blink first, you win.

When people lose their wits to the point of cutting their marketing efforts, it serves only to worsen their market position. Looking back to the Great Depression, there are many lessons to be learned from companies who achieved success by continuing and even expanding their marketing efforts. As an example, Amana Appliances saw huge success coming out of the recession, because they appealed to the American housewife, and gave her something to feel good about even during the worst of times. There is always success in a recession, if you seek it, and if you continue to invite prospective customers to do business with you.

A recession offers much opportunity if you are persistent. You can cut costs in many ways, but if you eliminate your marketing, you eliminate your market. Remember what pays you, and remember why you spend money on marketing in the first place.

Redistribute Your Marketing Efforts

Evaluate your marketing, and redistribute it if needed. Tough times call for smarter marketing. Successful companies are moving their marketing away from television, radio, and print and focusing their efforts on the Internet. Cost per exposure and available customer reach of Internet marketing is far superior to any other marketing. According to widely accepted statistical reports by Nielsen NetRatings, Zenith Optimedia, and others, the Internet accounts for nearly half of the media intake of the average consumer. This quickly growing trend can be seen in many ways, and not the least of which is the 15.2% increase in Internet ad spend in the first half of 2008 while television, radio, and print marketing each took double-digit losses industry-wide.

Cutting Your Marketing Budget

Cutting the marketing budget is a common knee jerk response to economic recession. This reaction to the economy defies logic. After all, if you did not need the marketing, why were you buying it in the first place? Were you spending money on marketing because you had so much business that you just needed an extra tax deduction? Of course not. You invest in marketing because you want more business. For most companies, marketing is the single most important investment they will ever make. Only when the desire for more business subsides should you cut your marketing.

Author Mark Murnahan is the Chairman and CEO of YourNew.com, Inc. and provides SEO consulting services to companies and non-profit organizations. Mark Murnahan may be reached toll free at 866-A-Web-Guy (*REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE*) for consultation.