While it’s important to constantly add to your arsenal of strategies you SHOULD use to drive new prospects through your door, sometimes it’s just as important to understand what you should NOT do when it comes to marketing. Here are two things that fit into the latter category.
1. Don’t print your own business cards
Have you ever been to a networking event and someone gives you a business card with perforated edges? Do you honestly feel that you could do business with someone who doesn’t care enough to invest in their image? If they don’t care about the image of their business, they certainly don’t care about yours.
I completely understand the need to operate on a shoestring budget when times are tough. But business cards are incredibly inexpensive; even the really nice ones with custom design, full gloss, double-sided formatting are within anyone’s budget.
Even if it seems like a lot for your current budget, how many memberships will it take to recoup the investment in appropriate business cards? One at the most? Let’s assume 1,000 business cards will cost you $300, and your average membership is worth $500. How many business cards need to lead to a sale in order to get a positive ROI? One out of every 1,000 distributed, or one-tenth of 1 percent.
Chances are pretty good that you’ll have far more than that come back to you (granted you put the appropriate message on them). Thus turning your business cards into a powerful positive ROI marketing tool.
On the other hand, chances are good that you’ll lose many of those sales attributed to business cards if you use a cheap homemade business card. Don’t do it.
2. Don’t share a direct mail piece with another business
Even if the idea of shared cost is attractive, having your health club advertisement on one side of a postcard and an ad for a local window washing company on the other side is not effective.
You always have to be aware of mixed messages. As funny as it sounds, consumers are like cattle. You have to lead them to where you want them to go. If one side of the postcard is telling them one thing, and the other side of the postcard is telling them something completely different, they aren’t going to know what to do.
This has been shown time and time again in marketing research. It is much better for you to pay extra to have one primary message and call to action on a postcard. Sharing space with another business leads to exponentially less response.
It’s difficult enough these days to generate a decent response from print advertising. Don’t make it worse by confusing your prospects with two offers on the same mailer.
Always remember that your goal in marketing is to get people to notice you. With all the advertising noise in the world, when the moment does arise to get someone to pay attention to you, you don’t want to hurt your opportunity by presenting a poor first impression with a cheap business card or a confusing first impression with a mixed message postcard. These are both simple rules that will lead to more sales.
Curtis Mock is the host of www.FitnessBusinessTelevision.com the TV show for fitness entrepreneurs. He is also the executive director of gymsuccess.com. Curtis can be reached at curtis@clubsolutionsmagazine.com.
