– Tim Berry, Planning Startups Stories – “One of the most expensive myths in marketing is that lower price produces higher volume. That might be true for coal or gasoline, but not for most businesses. Lower price means, well, ask yourself: do you always eat at the lowest price restaurant? Purchase the lowest príce clothes? Do you drive the lowest priced car? Pricing is your best statement of value.”
– Drew McClellan, Drew’s Marketing Minute – “Do Less. One of the most tempting aspects of marketing is the veritable smorgasbord of different marketing tactics that you can toss into a marketing plan. It’s almost overwhelming.
Many marketing professionals make the very understandable mistake of believing that more is better. But they’re wrong.
You will be vastly more successful if you do less, but do it better. Pick 3-4 marketing tactics that you think are really going to be valued by your audience and drive the behavior/action you’re looking for. Then, figure out how you can do them in an extraordinary way.
100% consistency. 100% relevancy. Do less. But do them better.”
– Siamak Taghaddos, Grasshopper.com – “People don’t like to be sold. If they did, they would spend all their free time in car dealerships. Instead, people want to be informed, they want to be educated. You’ll find your best customers are those you educate about your product or service and who then decide to purchase it because it is a good fit for them.
Prospects who buy your product/service but are not educated about your offering will be disappointed. They will not be return customers. Worse, they will tell others how they got ‘sold’ by you. In the Internet age, this can quickly be very destructive to your business.”
– John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing – “Become a journalist – no, I’m not really suggesting that you join the staff of some publication, but the acceptance of new media tools like blogs and podcasts has turned the marketing tables – so take advantage of the allure of a reporter and start a blog and podcast and request interviews with industry leaders, community leaders, authors and maybe even your biggest prospects. Instead of asking for a meeting to demonstrate your product, ask to feature your prospect in your next blog or podcast episode. You will automatically change your status in their eyes, enhance your role as an expert and create great content for your marketing materials.”
– Scott Shane, Author of Illusions of Entrepreneurship – “The data shows that most entrepreneurs compete on price, but doing this leads companies to perform worse. New companies are better off competing on service, quality or some other dimension.” (Source of above tips: SmallBizTrends.com)
– Adam Urbanski, TheMarketingMentors.com – “Most people like to overcomplicate things and then they become overwhelmed by too much information and the complexity of what they are trying to create. My advice to all my clients and to everybody reading this is this: map out a simple action plan and work diligently to implement it.
My favorite saying to all my students is this: If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly to start with! It’s implementation over perfection!”
– Michel Fortin, MichelFortin.com – “Time and time again, I’ve told many aspiring copywriters and marketers that a USP is what distinguishes you from the pack. It increases perceived value, expertise, and credibility – without needing to state it outright.
Just by being 10% different, unique, original, or special is enough to make you stand out like a sore thumb in an overcrowded, hypercompetitive marketplace.”
– Robert Fitzpatrick, FalseProfits.com – “This research has shown that the ΜLM business model, as it is practiced by most companies, is a marketplace hoax. In those cases, the business is primarily a scheme to continuously enroll distributors and little product is ever retailed to consumers who are not also enrolled as distributors.
Financially, the odds for an individual to achieve financial success under those circumstances rival the odds of winning at the tables in Las Vegas.”
– Jim Connolly, JimsMarketingBlog.com – “You cannot promise the marketplace a high quality service and yet charge a bargain-basement fee! If you do, you will send people a mixed-message, and it will lose you business every time.
Everybody knows that quality doesn’t ever comes cheap – that if something looks too good to be true, it is too good to be true! Make your services as valuable to the marketplace as possible and then charge accordingly.”
– Jill Koenig, GoalGuru.com – “If you want to create massive changes in your life, you must arrange and design your life so that your Goals and Dreams are at the Forefront of your day, instead of them being an afterthought.”
– Tinu Abayomi-Paul, FreeTrafficTip.com – “Search engine traffic is fantastic when you can get it. But don’t rely on search engines alone for traffic to your site. If you added just one more traffic tactic that gets you as much traffic as you get from search engines, you’ve doubled your traffic. And if sales go up at the same rate, you’ve doubled your incóme too.”
– Chris Knight, Ezine Articles Blog – “Set your goals higher than you think you can achieve and then don’t worry about the ‘how you’ll achieve it’… Whatever you think most about expands. If you’re committed, you’ll find a way to pull off the results you’re seeking.”
– Matt Shobe, MattShobe.com – “Find and surround yourself with smart people you like and who complement your strengths, and good things will follow. I think this holds true whether you’re just starting out in an internship or summer job, an entrepreneur with a few partners, or a senior executive of a major corporation.”
– Michael Fleischner, MarketingScoop.com – “Marketing is everything and everything is marketing! The key to a successful marketing campaign, business, or even career, is knowing that you are always communicating. This is not to say that you have to be overly cautious, but rather think about the implication of your messaging.”
David Jackson (c) 2011
