Do You Have Insider Knowledge?It has been said a few times ‘knowledge is power’ but is this the case with marketing?
Ask yourself a question:
If you are a medical company, would you be better off working with a marketing company that has experience in the medical sector, or one that has knowledge of the hospitality sector?
Of course, working with an experienced marketing company is always better.
Why?
Simple, the marketing company will have a knowledge and understanding of your industry and market place.
Not just that, but they will know about your competitors, how they are marketing and how they are positioning themselves in the industry.
They will have a good grasp on the way the industry is going (is it in recession, is it growing, where is it moving, who is spending money etc.) and be able to structure your marketing around these factors.
If you work with an inexperienced agency – then you are risking their naivety and blind approach will be lucky.
Many would say that fresh eyes do add flavour, which is true, however it is risky if you are investing so much money and effort in a gamble.
Many companies have jumped in with a zany approach – which is quite different to inexperience. Zany marketing campaigns do work, but this is normally founded on research, planning and good creative marketing.
All industries in the UK are different and here are just a few:
If you are a retail brand like Morrisons, would you work with a marketing agency that has clients in the agricultural sector? Do you think they would understand your brand and your marketing objectives?
Probably not, sector experience does matter when it comes to marketing.
Consider telemarketing for a minute. Data is your knowledge, and knowledge is power. Imagine if you had all your marketing data to hand. How effective would your telemarketing campaign be?
Telemarketing companies would say their skills can translate to any industry. Of course they would say this, they want your business. Even for a few months, it may result in a failed campaign, but they have made a few thousand from it.
Search engines are an amazing source of information, however if they are not used in the right way, a lot of time can be wasted.
If you are looking for a song, and you google it, finding the exact song you are looking for based on the lyrics is nearly impossible.
You could end up on a website that is in the USA about an event in Florida.
The internet can be a great source of power, but if you are not very specific, then you can be chasing your tail.
Knowledge is power, but how do you use it? Power in the wrong hands can easily be wasted. Knowledge in the wrong hands can be dangerous.
With marketing, your message has to be targeted in the right way.
This can be seen with TV advertising.
Adverts about cremation, writing a will, over 50’s life insurance are targeted at the elderly, or people that are home during the day. The adverts are run during the day rather than in the evenings or weekends.
TV adverts over Christmas are either charities such as the Salvation Army or Oxfam, or adverts aimed at children by toy companies.
Consider the wide range of marketing services:
All marketing is expensive and as knowledge is power, you cannot take the risk of using a marketing company that does not truly know your market place.
Very few marketing companies will turn business away, whether they are a digital marketing company or a website designer, money is money, whether it is from a happy customer or just another customer.
Choosing a marketing company needs to be done with care.
Very often, more often than not, marketing campaigns do not work.
You get a website designed, it costs you £8,000 and no-one visits it. Or worse still, you are getting visitors but no enquiries.
You get a telemarketing company to call up 1,000 companies and they come back with no leads for you.
You pay an SEO company to optimise your website and generate new links over the course of a year. This costs you £800 a month and at the end of the 12 months, your enquiry numbers have remained the same.
This has happened so many times. Very often we have been told that a business has tried marketing in the past and nothing has resulted from it.
The marketing company is happy, they have had their invoices paid and are getting new enquires from other companies to replace you.
How can you protect yourself, how can you limit the risk of you spending out but not seeing a return on investment?
The answer is not an easy one, as with marketing there are no guarantees.
Marketing is a risk.
If you pay for an advert on TV, people may not respond.
If you pay for PPC advertising on Google, you may get people clicking on your adverts but not placing an enquiry.
If you pay for a PR company to submit press releases that are timely and relevant, there may be no responses or enquiries.
The only way you can limit your risk is to do your research on marketing companies. How well established are they? Do they understand your industry? Can you do a trial to test the water.
Marketing is expensive and is a risk, most of the time marketing does not work, but sometimes it does.
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