Have you noticed a slump in your drtv sales? Are you having trouble establishing your new business in the drtv marketplace? Or maybe you’re established, but you just can’t seem to get the word out about your new product? If these situations sound familiar, then your media buying may be to blame.
Mistake #1: Not Clearly Defining the Product Benefits
The highly competitive drtv marketplace is constantly changing and offering consumers more and more choices. For example, if you need laundry detergent, you have a whole aisle of different brands to choose from. So how do you base your decision? Something has to get your attention to make you choose one brand over another. And you need to create this differentiation in your product as well.
Defining the unique selling proposition for your drtv product will help your target audience differentiate it from your competitors. Then work this uniqueness into your marketing plan and strategy to reach the specific audience who will buy your product.
Mistake #2: Not Diversifying Your Media Buying Mix
At one time, you could advertise on the three big television networks and reach eighty percent of the population. But now viewers have hundreds of different networks and channels to choose from just on television. Plus consumers can choose from satellite or cable television, print, radio, satellite radio, and the internet. Media buying today is very fragmented, so you need to reach your audience through more than one outlet.
Mistake #3: Not Understanding the Lifetime Value of a Customer
If you can earn a customer and keep him or her for life, then the value of that customer multiplies. For example, imagine you sell cars. If you have a customer who spends $10,000 a year to drive one of your cars, then over the lifetime of the relationship that customer will have given you $200,000. So what is it worth to earn that customer’s business? If you spend ten percent, or $20,000, to get the customer’s business, you’ll earn a ten to one return on your investment.
Avoiding Marketing Mistakes in the Future
Media buying is critical to the success of every business. Unfortunately, many businesses discount the effect it can have, and they forego their marketing efforts for other activities. Or they make one or more of these mistakes, and their marketing efforts become ineffective. Perhaps this is why nine out of ten businesses end in failure.
But your business doesn’t have to be one of the nine that doesn’t succeed. When you avoid the ten biggest mistakes, you can market your business successfully and increase your bottom line as a result with the right media buyer.
Peter Koeppel is Founder and President of Koeppel Direct