Marketing Success: commitment, consistency and confidence

Most products and services in the marketplace aren’t groundbreaking and innovative. They are a commodity and “me too” concepts with very little differentiation between them. That is not to say that they can’t be successful. It will just take a bit more work to get there.

Marketing and advertising works. I think we can agree on that. Advertising companies all across the world would suggest that it the most important piece of a business because without marketing, customers wouldn’t know who you are or what you’re selling. The big question is: to what degree does it work? In the world of Encite, that all depends on our small business owner clientele and their dedication to three basic concepts: commitment, consistency and confidence.

Commitment: If any marketing company could give increased sales, brand awareness or market share to all their clients instantly, they would be in very high demand. Instant gratification is something we all want, even us here at Encite!

Unfortunately, that isn’t how the marketing and advertising field works. The challenge most of our clients have is a commitment to a marketing program. To attain incremental and sustainable revenue generation, a marketing initiative must have a full commitment from executives. As any advertising company can tell you, this is a very difficult notion for a client. It comes down to the trust and credibility they have in us! Typically, an Encite client has attempted other marketing programs before with mixed to unsuccessful results. This leads them to be skeptical of any campaign and being doubtful of its success. No wonder we have to do so much convincing!

Consistency: Once a client is fully committed to a marketing initiative, the consistency primarily falls to the advertising agency in charge of the campaign. However, this is something we have found the client can resist from time to time. Once we take over the program, creative opinions can differ and a tendency to return to old habits takes over. This becomes very common when a client is under the gun to promote a discount, publicize an event or stick to a schedule.

We have to explain to the client that we have to stay on the strategy we agreed upon ensuring the creative bit of the advertising campaign is consistent. Changing creative mid-campaign can cause confusion to the target market leading them to miss the intended marketing message.

In addition, marketing messages need to consistently be in front of your intended audience. With so much marketing clutter out there, your brand, its products and image needs to be top of mind with your clients when the time comes for them to make a buying decision.

Confidence: The last and most important concept to any marketing campaign is confidence in the program. Without a positive mindset, any help a client is looking to receive from a marketing agency is destined to fail. Encite always encourages our clients to be convinced the initiative is going to be successful even if we do need to tweak it as we go.

I am sure every marketing firm has experienced clients that perpetuate a pessimistic attitude that can affect their customers, staff and most importantly, themselves! Without confidence in what we are doing, it will certainly fail. So stay positive and what we are trying to accomplish we will achieve!

Marketing agencies such as mine have many challenges throughout the course of doing business with small businesses. The three C’s discussed here are just a small fraction of the methods needed to be successful, but are an important part of achieving that success.

Adam OLeary, President
Encite Marketing

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