The family and I drove up to Savannah Georgia this weekend for a a little R&R.  Out of sheer boredom alone, I started to glance at billboards as I navigated the highway: one billboard stuck out like a sore thumb…. I can’t tell you what that billboard was selling, I can’t tell you who was selling it, and I can’t tell you the web site address where you could go and buy the product if you had the slightest inkling. What I can tell you is that they completely failed at capturing me as a client or prospect.

This particular billboard had three web site addresses you needed to visit as well as an email address at a web domain that didn’t even match the 3 web site addresses given. If you managed to remember ANY of the addresses which I obviously have not, you may be fortunate enough to stumble upon their product and purchase it then.  If you happened to have only been going about 32 miles on I-95 and had a pencil and paper handy, you probably could have jotted down ALL of the web addresses and the email to pursue this company even further. The point: WAY TOO MUCH INFORMATION in way too short of a time span.

The more information you throw at people, the less they remember.  The more you confuse people with where to go and how to get there, the more people you alienate. The more information you cram into a piece of real estate that people fly by at 80 miles an hour, the higher the likelihood of a marketing failure.

Keep your message clean and clear whether it’s on your web site, your Google Adwords, your brochures, your billboards and God forbid your yellow page ads. With so much competition in the marketplace, it’s time to simplify your message, keep it clean, keep it simple, keep it memorable.

Need help simplifying your web presence? Call me, let’s discuss your vision, let’s devise a plan.  Call 407-830-4550 today.

Many moons ago, I worked for a t-shirt clothing / apparel company. As a company, we had brilliant marketing initiatives. We would send out amazing lumpy mail, we would perform crazy antics to get our prospects attention, we would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to show our audience that we were unique. We were at every major trade show and convention in our arena and had no problem EASILY gathering hundreds of prospects who actually filled and inquired about EXACTLY what they were shopping for….The fully self qualified leads were a sales person’s dream.  We would get leads for 8,000 shirts orders, leads for custom embroidery, leads for huge organizations.  We would get all pumped up, would high five and celebrate… The marketing team would gather the leads, assign them a grade (based on their potential value) and hand them off to the hungry sales team who were ready to jump right in.  Days would go by, weeks would go by, months would go by and the same stack of leads sat there collecting dust and post it notes. No calls, No emails, no snail mail, no carrier pigeons, ZERO communication efforts.

The end result: Marketing = FAIL : a colossal waste of time, money and energy on the company’s end AND an implied perception that the company just didn’t give a crap about those prospects OR their t-shirt needs.

To a business owner, leads are golden. To an average employee, they are simply a hindrance, or more work being piled on top of their desk thus interrupting their game of farkle or mafia wars. The average employee will never share your enthusiasm about new prospects or new leads and will therefore, never take the initiative to jump on those pile of leads or prospects.

Solution? What if you, the business owner called those leads yourself and personally thanked them for visiting your web site or trade show booth? What if you the business owner be-friended those prospects on facebook or started following and engaging them on Twitter? Will it take a huge chunk out of your day? Absolutely.  Will it require creating relationships with those prospects on the phone and through social media and email? Absolutely. Will it impact your bottom line and provide a sound ROI? Absolutely.

Bottom Line: THINK before you market. How will you handle these leads? How will you create a social media platform where your team can easily start engaging these prospects? How can you make your web site easier to get people into the sales funnel? A little bit of planning before any marketing campaign can yield a bountiful harvest. A lack of planning or a lack of a system in place prior to receiving leads is a recipe for disaster and can waste your marketing dollars quicker than poop through a goose. In fact, prospects will quickly get turned off if they don’t receive the attention from your company that they expect.  This can end up reversing any efforts your marketing team had done and giving your company a negative reputation.

Need help with your marketing plan? That’s what I’m here for.  I’ve been there, failed at it and won at it.  My company is here to help, sure, we focus on Internet Marketing, Web Design & Social Media, but I’m a business owner who’s been there, done that and worn the t-shirt.  Give me a call today: 407-830-4550 and lets talk.