Keep New Marketing Initiatives From Backsliding to the Old Ways

Alan J. Zell

Alan, Marketing, in my

Alan, Marketing, in my estimation is limited to “identifying to whom(s), how(s), and how often to reach one’s different market niches or segments. That is different from advertising. Advertising is a form of a different step, it is a form of presentation and each whom(s) call for different how(s) and how often one has to present their information.

As to the four questions you posed. As you know, there are many theories about how, where and how often to send out one’s message – for print and broadcast, is it in a series or in flights and does one have to be there all the time? If one has to be there all the time, either one has to have a lot of money to spend or one has to do something smaller but more often. The key, of course, it to be there when a particular market segment is interested in what one has to offer. ‘Tis a guess, for sure, when that will be.

But, all this said, my question would be how often, in your case, current students, faculty, administration, other staff are kept informed of the advertising and other marketing efforts being done? Is there an article in the student paper listing where the school has been advertising and is it in with the paychecks of the faculty, administration, staff and, even, the alumni’s mailings? For such little extra cost, but with extra effort, marketing efforts may be a lot more effective.

This last question is something we, in my past life as a retailer of fine jewelry. In the days when stores had a switchboard operator, cords and all, it was she who got phone calls for what was in our advertisements and had to “plug” the caller into the right department. One day she asked if she could have copies of the “tear sheets” (proofs) of our advertisements before they went in the paper or a script of what was on the radio. Funny, well really, not so funny, we, the members of the family, got the tear sheets, looked them over, threw them away. It was, if it looked OK by me, so what else to do with them but put them in the “circular file.” Her question caused us to give her copies plus post them in the lunch room, give copies to all of them to the department managers to show to the sales staff. It also caused us to look at bridal magazines and show our staff what articles or vendor advertisements related to what they were selling.

So, my suggestion is, try it . . . you’ll like it.

Alan
Alan J. Zell, Ambassador of Selling, Attitudes for Selling offer consulting, workshops, speaking on all business topics that affect sales. He can be reached at azell@aol.com For more information, please visit his website, www.sellingselling.com Mr. Zell is the recipient of the the Murray Award for Marketing Excellence, He is a member of PNW Sales & Marketing Group,
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