Success is a Beautiful Journey

Here's my follow up on my previous GM post...

1. COMMITMENT: You should know that a mediocre marketing program with commitment will always prove more profitable than a brilliant marketing program without commitment. Commitment makes it happen.

2. INVESTMENT: Marketing is not an expense, but an investment -- the best investment available in America today -- if you do it right. With the 16 secrets of guerrilla marketing to guide you, you'll be doing it right.

3. CONSISTENT: It takes a while for prospects to trust you and if you change your marketing, media, and identity, you're hard to trust. Restraint is a great ally of the guerrilla. Repetition is another.

4. CONFIDENT: In a nationwide test to determine why people buy, price came in fifth, selection fourth, service third, quality second, and, in first place -- people said they patronize businesses in which they are confident.

5. PATIENT: Unless the person running your marketing is patient, it will be difficult to practice commitment, view marketing as an investment, be consistent, and make prospects confident. Patience is a guerrilla virtue.

6. ASSORTMENT: Guerrillas know that individual marketing weapons rarely work on their own. But marketing combinations do work. A wide assortment of marketing tools is required to woo and win customers.

7. CONVENIENT: People now know that time is not money, but is far more valuable than money. Respect this by being easy to do business with and running your company for the convenience of your customers, not yourself.

8. SUBSEQUENT: The real profits come after you've made the sale, in the form of repeat and referral business. Non-guerrillas think marketing ends when they've made the sale. Guerrillas know that's when marketing begins.

9. AMAZEMENT: There are elements of your business that you take for granted, but prospects would be amazed if they knew the details. Be sure all of your marketing always reflects that amazement. It's always there.

10. MEASUREMENT: You can actually double your profits by measuring the results of your marketing. Some weapons hit bulls-eyes. Others miss the target. Unless you measure, you won't know which is which.

11. INVOLVEMENT: This describes the relationship between you and your customers -- and it is a relationship. You prove your involvement by following up; they prove theirs by patronizing and recommending you.

12. DEPENDENT: The guerrilla's job is not to compete but to cooperate with other businesses. Market them in return for them marketing you. Set up tie-ins with others. Become dependent to market more and invest less.

13. ARMAMENT: Armament is defined as “the equipment necessary to wage and win battles.” The armament of guerrillas is technology: computers, current software, cellphones, pagers, fax machines, wireless communications.

14. CONSENT: In an era of non-stop interruption marketing, the
key to success is to first gain consent to receive your marketing materials, then market only to those who have given you that consent. Don’t waste money on people who don’t give it to you.

15. AUGMENT: To succeed online, augment your website with offline promotion, constant maintenance of your site, participation in newsgroups and forums, email, chatroom attendance, posting articles, hosting conferences and rapid follow-up.

16. CONTENT: Marketing is information that can benefit the lives
of those to whom it is aimed, the truth made fascinating. If your marketing lives up to that definition, it has to be rich in content.

The book is truly a gem. I suggest you guys get a copy as it expounds beautifully the concepts above in theory and in practice!

Good Luck to All!

Labels: books

I just finished reading the book by Jay Conrad Levinson.

Truly remarkable and a must-read for entrepreneurs.

First, let's define Guerilla Marketing by differentiating it from traditional marketing...

1. Instead of investing money in the marketing process, you invest time, energy, and imagination.

2. Instead of using guesswork in your marketing, you use the science of psychology, actual laws of human behavior.

3. Instead of concentrating on traffic, responses, or gross sales, profits are the only yardstick by which you measure your marketing.

4. Instead of being oriented to companies with limitless bank accounts, guerrilla marketing is geared to small business.

5. Instead of ignoring customers once they've purchased, you have a
fervent devotion to customer follow-up.

6. Instead of intimidating small business owners, guerrilla marketing
removes the mystique from the entire marketing process, clarifies it.

7. Instead of competing with other businesses, guerrilla marketing preaches the gospel of cooperation, urging you to help others and let them help you.

8. Instead of trying to make sales, guerrillas are dedicated to making
relationships, for long-term relationships are paramount in the new millennium.

9. Instead of believing that single marketing weapons such as advertising or a website work, guerrillas know that only marketing combinations work.

10. Instead of encouraging you to advertise, guerrilla marketing provides you with 100 different marketing weapons; advertising is only one of them.

11. Instead of growing large and diversifying, guerrillas grow profitably and then maintain their focus, not an easy thing to do.

Inspiring isn't it? I'll be posting more on Guerilla Marketing in the coming days.

For now, here is a link to the Guerilla Marketing site -> http://www.gmarketing.com/

Labels: books

Just finished the amazing book above by Al Ries and Laura Ries.

Just excellent. Well written and very logical.

So to remind me always on the points (and also to share to everyone), here are the 22 laws:
1. The Law of Expansion - the power of the brand is inversely proportional to its scope.
2. The Law of Contraction - a brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus
3. The Law of Publicity - the birth of a brand is achieved with publicity, not advertising
4. The Law of Advertising - Once born, a brand needs advertising to stay healthy
5. The Law of the Word -a brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer
6. The Law of Credentials - the crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity
7. The Law of Quality - quality is important, but brands are not built by quality alone
8. The Law of Category - a leading brand should promote the category, not the brand
9. The Law of the Name - in the long run a brand is nothing more than a name
10. The Law of Extensions - the easiest way to destroy a brand is to put its name on everything
11. The Law of Fellowship - in order to build the category, a brand should welcome other brands
12. The Law of the Generic - one of the fastest routes to failure is giving a brand a generic name
13. The Law of the Company - brands are brands. companies are companies. there is a difference
14. The Law of Subbrands - what branding builds, subbranding can destroy
15. The Law of Siblings - there is a time and place to launch a second brand
16. The Law of Shape - a brand's logotype should be designed to fit the eyes. both eyes.
17. The Law of Color - a brand should use a color that is the opposite of its major competitors
18. The Law of Borders - there are no barriers to global branding. a brand should know no borders
19. The Law of Consistency - a brand is not built overnight. success is measured in decades, not years
20. The Law of Change - brands can be changed, but only infrequently and only very carefully
21. The Law of Mortality - no brand will live forever. Euthanasia is often the best solution
22. The Law of Singularity - the most important aspect of a brand is its single-mindedness

There you have it... the 22 immutable laws of branding. I suggest you guys get a copy in your local bookstores. It's really a great read.

Good luck to everyone!

Labels: books