Beware of Advertising & Marketing Ignorance

When I began in the Advertising side of the Radio Business 20 years ago, I went above and beyond the usual training and became a life long student of the entire marketing process and what actually motivates people to give you their money to buy your stuff.

Time and time again, I have been told by clients, that I handled things differently than what they expected.

Sometimes I have clients that are pretty smart when it comes to advertising and marketing and they don't need an education, or insight into the process.

However 80% of the time, the person that a business puts in charge of making the advertising and marketing decisions, is ignorant.

And it is not that persons fault, they simply were not trained in all the dynamics, or perhaps it is not one of their talents, or maybe it was dumped on them.

I recall a few years ago talking to the new marketing director of a local bank that had no idea who they were targeting, who their current clients were and what their plans were for the future. But she had a degree and she aced the interview which landed her the job.

On the other side of the coin, you have media and advertising salespeople that do not understand the dynamics of their business, all they care about is their own sales goals and budgets. Last year they sold office supplies, next year they could be selling pre-planned funerals. They are professional sales people, and the product they are selling really doesn't matter, as long as they can earn a living.

Now when you combine these two, you can either get lucky and it will work, or waste your time and precious money and grumble about how such and such media, doesn't work.

Nearly any media can work, IF you do it right. Unfortunately, that's not the way most advertising is handled.

Please, do not blindly buy something just on price. Buy from the person that you trust will work his or her rear end off to get it right.

And if you are a professional salesperson that just happens to be in the advertising business right now, either start educating yourself so you can be a true advertising and marketing resource, or get another job selling something else.

If you want help, you can contact me directly by writing to Scott@ScLoHo.net.

You can also go to my other site, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom which is updated 6 times daily/ 7 days a week. The first article each day is a sales training piece.

Finally, read more. On the Collective Wisdom site on the right side of the page are some free e-books you can download, along with a Collective Wisdom Recommended Book Store that features 5 books that I highly recommend. You can click and buy, you will be buying from Amazon.com.

Your comments are always welcome.