Puncturing Myths about Marketing and More
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
There’s more information about marketing readily available than ever before.
Perhaps inevitably, that’s led to more misconceptions about marketing than ever.
Just about everyone has to engage in some form of marketing.
You could be a business owner or someone who just wants somebody to give you a few extra bucks for stuff you found in your basement or anyone in between.
“Marketing” is no longer something that only a few people do.
There are a few small but important misconceptions that we’d like to clear up.
The Purpose of Marketing Isn’t (Just) to Sell
“Why am I doing all of this marketing? Why, to make money, of course!”
Even if a business owner doesn’t say it in so many words, that’s why many of us think that you engage in marketing.
The idea is you put time and money into marketing. Potential customers see your marketing, engage with it, become actual customers, and you get money back.
That may be part of it. But, it can’t be all of it.
A great line that we recently read in (of all places “Acupuncture Today”) – “it is crucial to understand that marketing is a conversation between you and your patients (or potential patients.) And much like any conversation, it is an ongoing process and an investment of time and money.”
“Marketing” isn’t just “selling” exactly. It can be that, but it also has to be information, education, and more.
If we continue the analogy of it being a conversation, someone who’s always “selling,” who’s always talking up themselves, isn’t someone that you’re going to want to listen to for very long.
However, someone who has something interesting to say, who can teach you something, who has shown (through social media and more) that they’re listening to you – that’s someone you’ll engage with.
This is particularly true for the clients/patients of acupuncturists, of course, as well as many of our clients. At Website Depot, we have so many wonderful clients, many of which are some form of medical professional.
So, they didn’t get into their profession to “sell,” but rather, to “help.”
If their online marketing is just “selling,” then it’s not building the kind of trust that someone in need may feel comfortable reaching out to.
That’s just one of the reasons we make marketing that connects.
“It All Starts With Marketing”
When you’re starting a business, you want to “hit the ground running,” so to speak.
You’ve put time and money into your business, so you want some return on that.
However, to return to that article in Acupuncture Today, “marketing is also a pointless exercise if you cannot back up your claims. Focusing on your superior patient care and positive outcomes is what will build your practice.”
Obviously, you don’t have to be a great acupuncturist for this to apply to you and your business.
What this article is (correctly) saying is that the best marketing in the world won’t help you if your business is subpar.
Sure, it might keep you afloat for a while. But, in the long run (or even in the medium run) the marketing won’t be able to save ineptitude.
So, marketing can’t save a mediocre business.
But, it can boost one that’s very good at what it does.
Here at Website Depot, we’ve helped clients who are great at what they do to have more opportunities to do it.
Again, to mention our rehab clients, they’re providing a great service that people need. They were doing that long before they ever reached out to us.
By working with us, they’re able to help more people.
“Marketing” then just becomes showing people “this is what they’re doing.”
That’s the best kind of marketing: that which shows your company doing its best.
For help with that or anything else, you can reach us at (888) 477-9540.