[thelist] Online Marketing Resource

[Matt Warden]

On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 2:16 PM, Fred Jones <fredthejonester at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Your friend has stated that he believes that the KEY (your words) to
>> taking his business to the next level is marketing. Really? Because
>> this contraction arrangement sounds like he isn't too confident. Why
>> is he hedging like crazy against something he believes is the KEY to
>> growing his business? Very odd.
>
> Well I think the problem here is that hiring a marketer is akin to
> hiring an SEO person. It's hard to tell if what they did was effective
> and how effective. Even if we did have a good way to determine the
> efficacy, that's only after the fact. So now we're talking about
> "$2-3k/month" for 2 or 3 months (there is a ramp up time obviously) on
> a company or individual which is, in a sense, all a gamble, because
> the determinations of success will only be possible after he invested
> the money. In my business, for example, if you are a nervous client, I
> can show you at least *something* that I built in PHP after a few
> days. :)

This is precisely what I am talking about. Is marketing the key to the
next growth phase of his business, or is it a gamble that he isn't
convinced will have any effect? I know you are implying that the
important variable here is the skill of the marketeer, but I don't buy
it. It isn't hard to find a reputable marketeer. That sounds to me
like an excuse. To me this comes down to whether your friend truly
believes that marketing is the key to his business's growth. I go back
to what I said before. Either he is wrong and marketing isn't the key
(and deep down he knows it), or he is right and marketing is the key
-- in which case HE is what is holding his own business back.

It's not a gamble. It's a calculated risk. If marketing is the key to
business growth, then he should be doing everything he can to direct
revenue into marketing efforts. If marketing isn't the key, he needs
to make that decision now and not waste his money. What he is doing
now is called fence-sitting and it's guaranteed to be ineffective.


-- 
Matt Warden
Austin, TX, USA
http://mattwarden.com


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