In a business where little things make a big difference and small operational mistakes create large problems, RIMvendors work hard to ensure that they don’t happen. Ongoing training based on standard operating procedures coupled with checks and balances give confidence that mistakes will be minimal. But often forgotten is that the future success of a business is dependent more on marketing strength than operational strength. Below are seven marketing mistakes that many RIMvendors make which keep them from the opportunity to grow their business exponentially.
Mistake 1: An Inappropriate Self Concept
When you ask what the average owner, operator or executive in this industry to tell you what they do, a typical response is, “I am a shredder” or “I provide records management services” or “I run a media vault company” or “I offer comprehensive records and information management services to the greater metropolitan area.”
None of these self descriptors present an accurate view of the preferred role that will lead your company to exponential growth. Your primary business is not the delivery of your service… it is the marketing of the service you deliver. Did you get that? The only way to grow your business effectively is to quit seeing yourself as the doer of the business and start seeing yourself as the marketer of the business.
By changing your mindset about your role and complementing it with action you discover that marketing will become a day in — day out, ongoing, never-ending, unremitting kind of activity that produces significant return on your investment. Your primary function and role is to market your business. Everything else is secondary.
Mistake #2: Thinking That People Care.
This might hurt a little but it needs to be said. Listen carefully. Your prospects do not care about you, your logo, your marketing message, the look of your buildings or trucks, your service offerings, your pitch, what you are trying to sell them or what you have to say. They just don’t care! And yet so many make the mistake of thinking that prospects care about these things. As a result, the focus of attention in your marketing efforts and material is on the things that don’t matter to them. And then each and every time you have an encounter with a prospect you tend to be talking about yourself, your ability, your capacity and your size, your strength, your company age, your throughput in tons, or the number of slots in your vault. Frankly, you bore your prospects to tears. Quit making this mistake.
Your prospects primary concern is finding solutions to the problems they experience. So the best and most productive approach to connecting with prospects is to engage them about the problem they seek a solution to. If your prospect doesn’t know or admit that they have a problem and aren’t prepared to see that someone might be able to help them with their problem, presenting the features of your solution is both irrelevant and completely meaningless to them. They dont care! All of your marketing material, communication and collateral must pass through the prospects personal “who cares” filter. Then and only then do they start even considering the stuff you seem to care about.
Mistake #3: Content to Be the Same:
As the industry becomes more and more competitive the mistake that many make is to be nothing more than another record center, shredder or vault. In a world where everyone becomes the same, the only thing your prospects can use to differentiate you from your competitors is price. And the more critical price becomes in the context, the more likely you are to loose a competitive advantage. One of the biggest complaints about the industry is the commoditization of it and the price wars that come as a result. The only way to break out of the pack is to be different. Unique. Special.
That being said, you cannot use “quality service” “fast response times” “we care” “we are better” as your distinguishing factor. That does not make you different. It’s the same old tired rhetoric that prospects are sick of hearing. You have to dig deep and hard and create or discover something that truly sets you apart. Two simple ways to uncover your uniqueness are to ask yourself two questions, “Why do people do business with me instead of any one else?” and “why should those who aren’t doing business with me choose me over any other provider?” Then bring the answers to those questions into everything you do.
Mistake 4: Failure to Engage a Marketing Plan
Studies have shown that small businesses which consistently use marketing plans experience an average of 30% higher sales than their competitors. It’s amazing that so few companies in the industry actually have and use one. A simple correction on this one mistake could almost instantly begin to grow your business by a significant margin.
A marketing plan is a written document containing both description and guidelines for your marketing strategies, tactics and programs for offering your services over a defined planning period, often one year. It answers the question, “How are we going to attract new customers, restore lost customers and retain current customers this year?” But it also goes further than just a planning meeting and a document. A marketing plan demands implementation, defines responsibility, schedules activity and becomes the standard by which accomplishment is measured.
Don’t make it more complex than it needs to be. A simple figuring pad, some key stakeholders and a commitment to craft something that outlines even some of the components is better than nothing. Then create a calendar that schedules the implementation of your strategies, tactics and programs. Just remember… 30% more.
Mistake 5: Relying On a Marketing Platform with only One or Two Tactics
It is so easy to find one or two marketing tactics that seem to work and then stick with it. Telemarketing is one such tactic. Whether you do it yourselves or you hire one of the industry vendors, this marketing tactic has a valuable and proven track record. But you limit your effectiveness in marketing if all you do is telemarket. The mistake you make is to attempt to get lots of prospects with just this one tactic. If the target you are trying to reach with telemarketing does not respond to telephone solicitation, you will never, ever reach that customer. You must have more than one way to reach them. A more effective approach is to use 30 different ways to reach that one potential customer.
Immediately the protest is heard. “I can barely afford the telemarketing I do right now. How can I pay for 30 more ways?” You don’t always have to pay to engage more tactics. There are a number of tactics you can add to your arsenal without spending any more than you do now. Have you added referral systems, public relations, and speaking to your mix. These don’t cost a cent except some of your time but each tactic could significantly boost your marketing results. The goal is to increase your exposure in multiple ways to that one propspect. The more tactics you have in your arsenal to do this, the better success you will have. Start building a matrix of different tactics you can use to attract new customers.
Mistake 6: Not following up with your prospects
Everyday you have the opportunity to make contacts with new prospects. You pitch your service offering and you wait for a response. If it seems like they are moving in the direction of a “yes” you do your best to keep connected. You call them every few weeks waiting and hoping for their positive response. But as soon as you sense that they are no longer a prospect, you give up on them and never make contact again. Therein lies one of the biggest mistakes you make in your marketing… the failure to follow-up on a recurring basis with those prospects who you assume don’t want to do business with you.
Statistics from a number of surveys indicate that in a business to business environment the average sale for a larger ticket item or service offering does not occur until there have been at least five to seven preliminary contacts or interactions with the prospect before the hardcore sales process begins. Take a moment to stop and consider the last few prospects you let drop off your radar screen. Count the number of contacts you have had with that prospect. If it was only 3-4 times then get out some letterhead or pick up the phone and make contact. Never ever let it be said of you that you gave up on them too soon.
Mistake 7: Failure to test, track and measure all marketing efforts
Few, if any, in this industry aren’t intimate with operational metrics. You obsess about them. And those numbers point to what you are doing right and what needs to be changed. If you are losing a box a week in your record center you know you have a problem that needs to be addressed. The final mistake is the failure to be as vigilant about your marketing numbers as you are about your operational numbers.
Every single effort at marketing should be tracked to determine if there is a response. Failure to do so leads you into the trap that so many have expressed as “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; trouble is I don’t know which half.” In fact many of the advertising mechanisms don’t even provide ability to measure. But measure you must. If you can’t measure a tactic you employ, reconfigure it or don’t use it. You cannot afford in a multi-tactic marketing matrix to make the mistake of not managing your metrics.
Some of the marketing metrics you need to begin tracking are the following; cost per contact, cost per lead, and cost per sale. What is your average response rate to a marketing tactic? What is the conversion rate of contacts to meetings and meetings to contracts? What is the best tactic at the lowest cost which converts to a customer? Where are prospects abandoning your process? These and other metrics begin to expose the flaws in your marketing plan such that you can fix or change them effectively.
Conclusion
Are you making any of these mistakes in your RIM business? It’s quite likely you’re making at least one or more of them. But failure is never final and mistakes are just a reminder that you have more to learn. So your challenge is to choose just one or two of the mistakes you are committing and correct them. With a few simple changes and some time to implement them you will begin to see better results in your marketing outcomes. Correction in all areas will start to create exponential outcomes.
Happy Marketing.
This article was just released in the latest PRISM Infocus Quarterly Magazine.