Why Marketing Is Imperative For Your Business Success

Your company makes the best product of its kind in the world. You know this and are sure of it. Considering that fact, you see no real reason to put a lot of money into marketing. You are convinced the product will speak for itself.

Do not fool yourself. You could, in fact, have the best, most affordable, highest performing product of its type on the entire planet and still not make a single sale. If you do not take the time to talk up your product and market it to people, they simply will not buy. People have to be sold on an item to actually make the purchase. It is that simple.

Marketing is an imperative expense for any successful business. While there are many types of marketing that can pay off, some efforts will show bigger results than others. Even if your product does speak for itself to an extent and you gain word of mouth and referral advertising from customers as a result, it is still vital to back this up with constant reminders.

Stop for a moment to think about companies that have become known and trusted on an international level with their products and services. People instantly recognize their logos, their products and even their packaging schemes without the need for further marketing. Still, these companies continue to run television and radio commercials, they buy newspaper and magazine advertisements and they might even sponsor very public events. They know they have to remain in the public eye to stay on top of their game. Even if they have reached the level of being the best of the best in regard to sales, they will not ease up on marketing.

The biggest companies in the country or even across the planet may not even offer the highest quality products for the price, but they get the business nonetheless thanks to the advertising efforts they employ.

Why is this so?

It often boils down to the fact that the world’s biggest companies have learned a few marketing secrets that you may not know about. While standard marketing efforts will produce good results, they generally will not propel a product to the pinnacle of its industry. Extremely successful companies run marketing campaigns that go well beyond the standard and they use techniques you and your marketers might not be aware of.

What is it that successful companies and their marketers know that you might not?

It all comes down to how marketing efforts reach out to consumers. Great campaigns not only sell products, they also sell emotions, speak to people on a subconscious level and even compel them to buy using the techniques of influence. While the television commercials and magazine advertisements used by the business elite might look reasonably similar to the ones you have considered, their efforts tend to reach people on a different level and they continue to do so through reinforcing campaigns.

It is possible to make sales without employing marketing campaigns. If you want to see your business really succeed, however, advertising will be a must. To enjoy even greater success, it pays to delve into the secrets that the big boys know and you might have overlooked.

Signs And Symbols Can Sell When Other Efforts Fall Flat

Marketing is a very tricky game that most people tend to prefer to play safe. While tried and tested efforts can gain results, they generally will not turn companies into household names on a national or international level. When something more is desired, companies can learn a thing or two from the ancient and not-so-ancient past.

Consider some of the most successful companies in the marketplace today. No matter the type or types of products these companies offer, they all tend to have something beyond their powerhouse status in common.

So, what is that thing? It happens to be the use of signs and symbols in their marketing campaigns. Think of any company that is at the top of its field and chances are strong that it will be readily identifiable by its symbols alone.

Companies that enjoy success on a major level do not necessarily have to have their names stated in commercials and other marketing efforts, their signs and symbols speak for themselves. Anyone who doubts this need only consider the companies that are recognizable to toddlers. Toy companies, cereal brands and even sandwich and French fry joints will all make youngsters who cannot even read jump up and down for joy when their symbols are seen. The products might not even be a child’s favorites, but a response will be elicited nonetheless.

Why is this?

Long before there was written language, there were symbols. Humans have moved in a world where certain symbols stand for specific things. In many cases, symbols are also tied to strong emotions or subconscious responses. When companies capitalize on the use of the right symbols in their own marketing people tend to take notice without even noticing they are doing so.

Consider the many symbols out there that elicit positive responses in people. A checkmark, for example, is a sign for a job well done or completed. It makes people happy and gives them a sense of accomplishment. Olive branches and doves are signs of peace. An image of a lion stands for strength and loyalty. The examples go on and on.

When companies take familiar symbols that have positive meanings in the eyes of clients, alter them and make them their own, they can reach out to consumers on an emotional level. Some companies have also managed to create their own unique symbols and give positive meaning to them through tactical marketing campaigns. Regardless, the symbols, just like a checkmark on a homework assignment, have come to represent certain emotions and elicit specific reactions from consumers.

While not all highly successful companies have learned to tap into the power of symbols and their ability to say more without actual words, many have. When logos, product packaging designs and advertising efforts use the right symbols and manage to attach the right meanings to those symbols, household name status can follow.

Standard marketing efforts can go a long way in helping companies enjoy modest success. When going beyond is the goal, marketing needs to take on a different strategy. Reaching out to customers through symbols and speaking to them on the subconscious level can provide the impetus needed to turn a good company into a great one.

Motivating Forces Make Sales

It takes more than a simple explanation to really sell a product. While advertising campaigns that are purely informational can show decent results, they generally will not produce record-breaking numbers. This is often due to the fact that campaigns of this nature fail to actually motivate people to take action.

Humans are motivated by a number of forces. Basic needs, of course, are huge motivators, but there are many others. It is the other motivators that can really drive people forward to make purchases, adopt particular products as their brands of choice or even make impulse buys they have no need of but cannot seem to walk away from regardless.

In the marketing world, highly successful professionals tap into a number of motivating forces to help them sell companies and their products. There are, in fact, 22 motivating forces that are continuously at work in people’s lives. These forces can drive people forward to look for solutions to meet their needs and motivate them to buy when they believe they have found the answer to those needs.

Truly successful marketing efforts tap into these motivating forces and use them to guide people to take action. The best of the best know how to manipulate the unseen to get people to move forward and fulfill their desires.

Motivating forces can be powerful marketing tools for a number of reasons. They include:

1. Their ability to call people to action – When marketing taps into motivating forces, people will receive and respond to a call for action. Selling people on the idea that a product or service would make a good purchase is not enough. People have to be motivated to actually take action and make the purchase.
    
2. Their ability to appeal to desires – People are highly motivated by fulfilling their own desires beyond rudimentary needs. When they are motivated to believe products or services will meet their desires, they will respond accordingly. Tapping into different desires with marketing campaigns takes understanding a few well-kept secrets, but once they are employed the sky can be the limit on sales.
    
3. Their ability to touch people on an emotional level – Humans are nothing if not emotional. Some of the most successful marketing campaigns in history have tapped into the emotional side of human beings to get them to take a particular action or purchase a specific product.
    
4. Their ability to influence – People have to be influenced to make the purchase of a particular product over another. When motivating forces are used in marketing, consumers will often feel compelled to give a particular purchase a try or they might be influenced to keep buying the “tried and tested” even if something else has appeared on the aisle that looks just as good, but does not cost as much.
    

When marketing efforts tap into motivating forces to drive people to action, sales tend to result. If these efforts are especially effective, the resulting sales can go well beyond expectations and the repeat business will not fail to please.

MLM and Network Marketing Schemes

I thought I’d cover this early in our discussion – I have been involved with a number of Network Marketing Companies in the past. I have built a downline of several thousand people. I have earned thousands of dollars per month through Nework Marketing – years ago…

I have several really nice suits and cotton white shirts in my closet.

I’ve taken and written off many vacations.

I even purchased for cash a timeshare in Florida just outside of the Disney properties.

I never worked so hard in all of my life!

Some companies have really wonderful products and I still order Nuskin through my distributor account. Other companies have fizzled and all but gone away. Yet others keep going because they make so much money that they can stay alive.

I was a presenter – I had my laptop connected to a video projector and I stood up there talking to the groups that my downline ‘Invited’ to our presentations.

I did in-home demonstrations – I just can’t tell a woman that she has lines and wrinkles in her face that our product would help!

I told people that it was easy to make the money that I made – that I would show them exactly what to do.

Have you been here?

Pay attention to what I’m going to say for the rest of this post…

If a company has a product that is sold through a distribution channel that requires multiple people to earn a commission – no matter how good it is, it is going to be over priced. Remember that the company makes the biggest profit – then all of the ‘Distributors’ down the line to where the product actually gets to the customer. Whew… hard to imagine the whole $$ thing. You have a  $1.00 product that ends up costing the buyer $49.00 because of everyone in between that needs to get a cut.

No matter how good it is it takes a lot of ‘selling’ to convince the buyer that it’s worth it.

Don’t forget the ‘autoship’ product that you have to maintain – $100 of product produces commissions for all of that upline – doesn’t matter that YOU are buying it now does it!

Here is what I really didn’t like about Network Marketing…

My (BIG) income had nothing to do with my ability to sell or market the product(s) – it was directly dependent on how well I recruited, motivated and babied those in my downline.

I stopped counting how many times I heard – "I can’t find anyone to buy this stuff" or "I don’t have any friends who I can recruit"

But this is why I won’t do this ever again – no matter what the product or how close to the top I’m placed. Just never going to happen.

The difference with doing my own thing…

When I have my own company, products, services, etc – I can decide what I’m going to sell today. If wigs that make a woman look like beyonce are hot (look up ‘beyonce wigs’) then I will promote it… if it’s the beginning of the NFL season I want to be able to promote ‘NFL wear’ or Fantasy Football League web sites.

I want to choose what I’m going to sell… something that I know is hot and real people are really buying them!

I don’t want some company to tell me that their product is hot – because that’s what they produce and market – regardless of how cold the market is for their product. Just because they say that their products are needed – it’s the wanted products that I will be promoting!

IMPORTANT NOTE!

Please don’t comment about how the MLM or Network Company that you are with is different. I’ll delete your comment and ban you from this site.

We are not here to promote MLM / Network Marketing as the way to really make money.

To your continued success,

Michael Hobach