We had a series of unusual phone calls recently. The first caller wanted a logo in four hours. The second wanted a branded landing page featuring a functioning map and links to other websites by the end of the day. And the last caller wanted to know exactly how soon he would make his first sale if he hired us to do marketing. Each of the three callers was clearly baffled when told we were not interested in the project they were offering. Somehow, they had assumed we offered “Drive Through Marketing.”

Logo in Four Hours

Can Jenna come up with something attractive in four hours? Absolutely. She is an extremely talented logo designer. Her design will be cool, sleek and attractive.

Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely it will communicate at a glance all that your business represents, reflect your brand personality and work in every application you have in mind. Selecting a logo for your business is a big decision. You will live with the design and the colors for a long time. Think of it like a marriage, not a one night stand. We think you should invest time thinking about and selecting the right “mate” for your business.

Landing Pages in a Day

With tools like Formstack, Premise or Constant Contact we can easily build a landing page in an hour or two. But should we?

As a strategy firm, we want to be sure what we build will actually accomplish the client’s goals. Would you go to the doctor and tell him what drugs you want him to prescribe? Of course not. You want him to run some tests and make a recommendation based on his medical school education and years of experience.

Good marketing is like medicine. Perhaps there is a better way to accomplish your goal than to create a landing page. Maybe it isn’t the best cure for what ails your business. We want to take the time to explore options to find the best solution. There is no way to do that under these time constraints.

First Sale

The role of marketing is to drive prospects to your door, website or phone. Email, social media, radio, television, direct mail, white papers, Google Adwords and inbound campaigns all work to prime the pump. Marketing works, but it takes time. In all but a few industries, you need to invest in informing, persuading and reminding prospects about your services or products.

Impatient business owners may be disappointed to hear it may take 3-6 months to see results, but the ones who commit to a well thought out plan eventually see their marketing work like a machine, pumping out leads on a regular basis.

Marketing will create leads, not sales. When this business owner asked how long it would take to make his first sale, I had to explain it would depend on a number of things. How good was the product? Was it priced appropriately? Was there a market? Did people really want to buy what he was offering? Did he have an existing customer base or mailing list or were we starting cold?

At the end of the day, these are business issues which must be addressed in order for marketing to work. Could I have tossed an answer out there to close the sale, sure, but it isn’t the type of work we want to do.

Strategy First

After the third phone call I went outside, just to make sure we didn’t have a sign out front which said “Drive Through Marketing.” In each case, I am sure we could have done something for the client, but it wouldn’t have been work we would have been proud of. If you are looking for drive through marketing, just drive by, good marketing strategy takes time.

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