Marketing and Patience

Marketing is a Patience Game
Darrin F. Coe, MA
12/08/04

“Get your positioning and your programs implemented properly, and the numbers will come. But you’ve got to have some patience.”
– Jack Trout with Steve Rivkin
“The New Positioning. The Latest on the World’s #1 Business Strategy”

One of the biggest derailers of successful marketing is the process of continually changing your marketing strategy. According to Jay Levinson, author of the Guerilla Marketing series of books, says in the book “Guerilla Advertising”, that many great advertising campaigns are abandoned much to early before they have a chance to produce great results.

Understand that because consumers are bombarded by advertising images and messages constantly, they will perceive those messages and images that are consistent. You need to slowly work your way into the brain of the consumer. Bullying your way in may produce some short term results but given the way consumers think, a bullying approach will soon be dismissed and filtered out.

The key to great marketing is simplicity, focus, and patience. Continually being in the consumer’s awareness with a simply message and a strong focus will yield better long term results than a complicated, bullying message that slaps the consumer alongside their frontal cortex.

Again, referencing Jay Levinson, you should consider your marketing and advertising as a conservative investment that you expect to yield big payoff over time. Marketing and advertising is not a speculative investment, in which you win or lose big.

As you develop your marketing plan, build in patience and consistency. Consumers like stability in a business and one way to build stability is a consistent marketing message that they are able to get used to seeing and processing. This type of campaign is comforting to the consumer who is used to in your face advertising being blasted at them over multiple media channels. You may not see the numbers change immediately but they will come with patience.

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Darrin F. Coe, MA holds a master’s degree in psychology and is the operator of “The Center For Understanding Consumer Thinking” at www.consumer-thinking.com. His most recent special report, “The Internet Consumer Exposed” is available at www.consumer-thinking.com/exposed1. Contact him for consulting at coe@ris.net or 1-719-275-5907 after 5:00 PM mountain standard time.
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