Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

It's Only Common Sense: Marketing Myths

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When it comes to marketing--what it’s about, how it works, and what it’s for--you have a lot of things wrong. There are distinct disadvantages to being in an engineering-based business and one of them is that we all know way too little about marketing.

Guess what? That might just be the reason that we never have enough sales. When is the last time you heard a board shop owner say that his shop was full, or operating at full capacity? It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

This makes for a particularly frustrating dilemma when people like you and me in sales and marketing are trying to get companies to become more involved in marketing. The other day I was talking to a friend of mine, another tried and true marketer, about the challenges of getting shop owners to take the time--say, five minutes--to think about marketing and what it could do for their business.

I came away from that conversation with this list of myths that many in our industry believe about marketing:

All you need is one ad to win business. I'm not talking about one ad that will run many times--that might work. In this case, I'm talking about one ad, appearing one time, in one trade magazine. That plan will not work. Well, it might if the ad was shown during the Super Bowl, but that might not even work. Advertising is an ongoing thing--you have to work at it consistently; you must get the same message out over and over again before anyone will even notice you.

Too many people will call--we’re not ready. Don’t worry about this unless you’re giving away free Bentleys. It’s going to take quite a while before people start calling. Marketing is only the first step of a long and sophisticated process. We’re not selling iPhones to the public here; we’re selling circuit boards.

My wife doesn’t like the ad, I don’t like it, and the guy in plating doesn’t like it. So what? How many boards did they buy from your company this year? The ad is not designed for you--it’s designed to appeal to your customers and potential customers.

Advertising is too expensive. First, done right, advertising doesn't have to be expensive. Ten percent of what you spent on that LDI machine will buy you great advertising for at least two years and help you put panels on that new, underused LDI machine. Please don’t fall for the old industry adage “What do you do when you don’t have enough business? Buy a new piece of equipment!" That’s just plain dumb.

Why get involved with marketing when we’re getting the business we need right now? Have you ever heard of attrition? Even if you're the greatest performing board shop in the history of the world, you're going to lose 20 to 30% of your active business every year by virtue of attrition. Customers will go out of business, be sold, merge, decide to go to CMs, or go offshore. Stuff happens and you’d better be reaching out to new, potential customers every day. If you don’t, if you just stand still, you'll lose a big chunk of your business every year.

All an ad has to do is let people know how good we are. No, everybody says that and, of course, most of them are lying. Your advertising message has to say a lot more than "we're good and deliver good stuff on time." Prove it. Get testimonials and success stories from your customers and let them to speak for you. If you’re as good as you say you are, they’ll be happy to endorse you.

I’ll leave you with this because it is worth repeating: If you don’t focus on marketing, if you’re not out there selling your company, making sure that everyone possible knows who you are and what you do, you'll lose approximately 20 to 30% of your business each year due to attrition. Make sure you put aside a few bucks for marketing this year. It’s only common sense.