Marketing requires much more than just wishful thinking. While that statement might sound like the obvious, upon reflection, it's a more ubiquitous concept than we might think. Not only is wishful thinking marketing prevalent, it's also dangerous to the profitability, and even the viability of a company. Wishing for sales might work in fairy tales, but in the real world, marketing is required.
I'm sure you've all been told "If the right person comes along, they will give you a good price for that widget." On the face of it, the statement is true in the literal sense. Let's think about the matter a bit more realistically. How is that mythical right person going to know anything about the availability of your fine line of widgets, or youur highly skilled services? The fact is they won't; unless you tell them.
It's amazing how many business people believe that because they have built a better proverbial mousetrap, that the world will beat a path to their door. They never stop to think that it's rather difficult to beat that path if there is no idea the mousetrap is on the other end. It's almost as if they believe that magical sales waves will fly through air and draw customers and clients to their business. They consider their product and service to be so unique and life changing that people will somehow be drawn to it in some sort of trance. This same illogical phenomenon occurs online with website owners, and with offline with bricks and mortar companies.
If you want the right person to come along, as the saying goes, you simply have to get the word out to the target audience. This is the point where many otherwise astute business people often freeze. Afraid that marketing is identical with paid advertising, they fall back on budget constraints. While paid advertising and pay per click ads on the search engines are helpful players on the marketing team, they are not the only way to play.
Marketing can be done at little or no cost, with the resulting sales being only a starting point. Guerilla marketing, networking, business blogging and commenting, article submissions, forum posts, and volunteer work with non-profit organizations are only a few ways that buzz can be created about your product and service. If the quality is as presented, then satisfied customers will tell others as well. The client conversation and evangelism activities create the much sought after positive word of mouth.
Word of mouth is great, but keep in mind that it's only valuable if there is something about which to talk. The word of mouth and viral marketing campaigns have to be kick started with some positive action. Once underway, however, they can add powerful boosts to your marketing efforts.
The right person can come along, but they have to be given a reason to come along first. That is why marketing is so fundamental to a new or existing company's success. That is definitely not wishful thinking.
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