"You Just Have To"

My resistance to this phrase may be a remnant from childhood.“You HAVE to eat your vegetables” comes to mind, with Broccoli leading the charge. Aside from the fact that Broccoli has the identical silhouette to a nuclear explosion, it reeks. Disguising it with melted cheese is no help; like pouring chocolate sauce on liver. What a waste.

The directives came in waves. “You have to brush your teeth; You have to make up your bed; You have to quit shaving the cat.” That last one was probably true. For months people asked if that cat had recently undergone surgery.

Yet most people – especially those of us faking adulthood - don’t like being told what they “have” to do. Seems like an optionless, foreboding request. We tend to reel back, sensing a plot in the making. The following was no exception.

I got an “automated call” on Saturday. Nothing I love more than chatting with a robot, especially one convinced I was “Myrna Stanley” and telling me “Your prescription is ready to pick up at the pharmacy.” The robot didn’t care I was detailing my boat, layingupside down, with carpet cleaning vapors in my nose.

To prevent being called Myrna by another robot, I call the unnamed pharmacy whose initials and motto could be “Customers Vaguely Satisfied” to let them know a) The real Myrna is probably wondering why your robot hasn’t called her and b) I really need to get back to snorting carpet surfactants.

When I relayed the information, the first words out of her mouth were, you guessed it… “You HAVE to call Customer Service at 1-800-…”

From there, it didn’t go all that well. Yet look at what you’re told you HAVE to do, in business, and what if any of it is really true? The HAVE TO’s of the world are usually thinking “because that’s what the crowd is doing” instead of thinking strategically toward independence.

So I offer “4 Common Marketing ‘Have To’s You DO NOT Have to Do”

1.You HAVE to be in Social Media – Correction: you have a life and business to run. If the brain drain and TIME invested in social media doesn’t pay off, why bother? (Or if you’ve yet to meet a business to MODEL who has achieved worthwhile return) no need to immerse yourself. If dollars per lead (in staff time) don’t yield a suitable ROI (around $75), change strategies or find a media that pulls better. Succeeding in Social Media isn’t as simple as “just showing up” as some would lead you to believe. Plus, there are great ways to minimize the time on Social Media by ‘auto-publishing’ the content to multiple places. (Get a report on Success in Social Media at the link)

2.You HAVE to be in the Yellow Pages – Bull Droppings. You can choose to have a presence, and it’s recommended you spend less than 15% of your Total Marketing budget in there, using a Direct Response format, and strategically linking respondents to your website, capturing email/texting contact information on every call. This is how the ‘new’ Yellow Page ads clobber the ‘old’ ones, even though they’re way smaller, less costly. Want to get your Yellow Page ad critiqued for maximum results per dollar? Click to request.

3.You HAVE to use your co-op for ‘our’ ads – I’m probably about to get yelled at (oh, like this’ll be the first time) but hear me out: Offer to test ‘your’ preferred ad vs. the factory ad on sales results. Then see if they’ll co-op ‘your’ winning ad over the one designed by people who may have never met an actual customer. If you’ll approach the manufacturer this way, you BOTH get what you want: more leads, more sales, from the same or less marketing cost. (Plus, you’ll have a unique ad instead of the ‘me too’ stuff the others are running.)

4.You HAVE to use Slick Mail pieces – Could this advice be any worse? Who made this up? We regularly trounce this silly notion, side-by-side tests, with multiple times the dollars resulting. The point is that you only HAVE to be sane about your ROI.

5.You HAVE to forward this issue of SMI to at least 3 friends. Well, yes, this one is absolute fact. If you don’t, somewhere above your now-balding head, a hole in the ozone layer will open up. Don’t risk it. (Seriously, we DO invite your friends and colleagues as subscribers. Hit your Forward buttons now!)

Contractor friends, you don’t HAVE to do anything in marketing that doesn’t:

•Have a measured outcome that you desire.
•Have a track record worthy of emulating
•Get you closer to YOUR goal (instead of sacrificing your goal to meet someone else’s!)