Why Marketing Frustrates

Everyone has something in their life that other people look at it and say, "I could never do that." For me, it's commuting into Boston. Even on a good day, it's a 45-minute drive each way. Typically, however, you can count on spending an hour and a half inching along. I couldn’t handle that.

Too much waiting.

Heavy traffic in my small town near Cape Cod is defined as three or more cars at a stop sign. We have one traffic light and I will go to great lengths to avoid even that one.

Marketing includes a huge dollop of waiting. Last November, my marketing director warned me about the patience it would take for our “all-in” approach to LinkedIn to bear fruit. She said, “Twelve to eighteen months.” Despite the fact that it was not welcome news, having that expectation has helped me prepare for the long haul.

So, you create a marketing plan based on the best information you have at the time. You stay consistent and…

…then you wait.

You wait to see if you have the right message. You wait to see if you have the right target. You wait and you wait.

If Marketing was a Marvel character, it would be big and clunky, slow and boring. It would move at a glacier’s pace and be as nimble as an iceberg. Its Marvel name would be “Frustrato” and its superpowers would include stocking the pond, getting the phone to ring, and delivering credibility ahead of a sales call.

Yawn.

The best way to know if your marketing is working occurs when you speak to someone for the first time and they have a positive view of your company. They can’t tell where they found out about you but they liked what they heard.

So, get started. To steal from my favorite Japanese proverb, “The best time to create a marketing plan was 18 months ago. The second-best time is today.”

“Marketing is the new Sales.” Ideas for creating an effective marketing campaign are part of the sales best practices found inside The Sales Vault at SalesVault.pro. Bill Farquharson can be reached at 781-934-7036.