Adrienne Zoble's Marketing Myth #56:    

None of our marketing works.   

Guess I'll have to go back to making cold calls.

Hello, : 

1. Companies don't stay with a strategy for at least three months.  Instead they do one-shots ("let's run an ad/send out a postcard and see what happens").  Continuity builds momentum.  What I have termed "the delay factor" (the time between when someone learns about and actually contacts you) is steadily increasing.  People are taking longer to make purchasing decisions.  If they learn about you only once or twice, and you're not practicing TOMA (Top-of-Mind Awareness), you're off their radar when they're finally ready to buy. 
    
2. Companies take on too many marketing strategies at one time.  Then, when they see what the costs are, they pare back each strategy, sabotaging its chance for success.  Or, once the strategy begins to show signs of life, they kill it to save marketing dollars and ride off the existing leads, instead of continuing to ride the developing momentum. 
    
3. Too many firms don't source their business, which means they don't even know where their leads are coming from.  Since they don't track what's working, they assume (you know what "assume" does) their marketing is unsuccessful. 
    
4. Companies try to do too much of their marketing in-house.  The receptionist who's good at producing a flyer on a computer is suddenly the "marketing director" and doesn't know squat about marketing.  Worse, he or she is at the mercy of what the boss says to do; and the boss might not be a marketing maven, either. 
    
5. In-house marketing copy invariably involves too much sell, sell, sell.  While we don't necessarily drop everything to respond to an ad, a mailer or a mention from someone whose credibility we trust, we expect everybody else to respond immediately . . . when it's our money on the line!   If you're immune to all the hard-sell messages out there, don't inflict yours on the marketplace!  Practice the Golden Rule ("Do unto others . . .").
    
6. Messages carry too many features (boring facts) and not enough benefits (WII-FMs - what's in it for me?).  It's very difficult to write about one's own company, so don't even try.  Talented marketing professionals known as "copywriters" (many work on a free-lance basis) can take what you explain to them and make the concepts sing. 
    
7. To quote the late Rodney Dangerfield, "Marketing gets no respect."  People don't really understand what marketing is, so they avoid or eliminate it at the drop of a hat.  

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