We have talked this week about the great marketer Dan Kennedy.

Dan is a really smart and successful guy. Dan knows what he is talking about. He also doesn’t mince words when it comes to pointing out what most people are doing wrong in their marketing.

One of the things Dan has talked about is math. Math in your marketing. As in, it’s really important to remember the numbers. And most people forget.

What do I mean? Some examples:

• Solidify your base. It takes time and costs money to acquire a new customer. It costs the same kind of time and money to replace a customer. Remember how important service is? Try not serving your customer and see what happens when you are constantly in “Replace Mode” instead of “Serving Mode” – not a great or profitable place to be.

• Mix and match. There is no one great new way of marketing. For that matter, there is no one “old-school” way either. There are enormous opportunities available to you when you find smart ways to combine new technologies with more traditional means of marketing. Find the match that works best for your business. Know your numbers. And you’ll know it when you get it.

• Give advice. Dan says, “Everybody should be giving advice, even if they are selling widgets.” Advice is money. Be someone worth listening to and learning from. Teach. Give. Inform. Don’t look at selling as just pushing and promoting.

• Respond! When someone asks you a question, gives you a call or, better yet, downloads or requests information from you, they are basically soliciting you. They want to give you their business. This is the lifeblood of your business! Know what they want and need and don’t screw it up!

• Realize that your competition is generally pretty stupid. You can out-do your competition pretty easily. As Dan says, most of the people you compete with are still in the dark ages! They don’t “get” marketing at all. They know less about the numbers than you do. In fact, your goal is to create a totally non-competitive environment. Why get caught up in that nonsense – you should be making the rules!

So…..where are you falling short when it comes to the numbers? What is your business math challenge?

This entry was posted on Friday, April 10th, 2009 at 6:48 am and is filed under Marketing During Recession, Marketing Philiosopy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.