The Best Marketing May be None at All

Marketing can be a daunting task. It’s always more difficult and expensive than anticipated. Sometimes the frustration of those factors causes us to make bad decisions like cutting corners or, worse yet, convincing ourselves that under-spending will probably work out alright.

Unfortunately, getting your marketing 90% right sometimes yields a 0% benefit. Take the marketing letter I received below as a case in point. The agent came up with a strategy to differentiate his marketing by hand-writing an introductory letter. This is a decent strategy to stand out from the dozens of similar pieces I get in the mail.

Here’s the problem – the agent had a good plan but cheaped-out on the execution. He clearly had someone else (probably a young woman judging by the handwriting style) address the envelope and write the letter. This marketing piece did a great job of communicating a message to me: that my business was not important enough to handle himself. My business, just like this letter, would be delegated to an underling.

So, what does this mean to you?

1. Don’t cheap out on marketing. It’s far better to spend 150% of budget and get results than to spend 90% and get nothing.
2. Think about the unintended consequences of your marketing.
3. If you can’t do a marketing piece/campaign right, just skip it.
4. In order to make your marketing great, you will probably have to invest your personal talent and time. No one knows your business like you do and no one can hand write your letters for you either

What’s the worst marketing snafu you have witnessed?

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