Promotion

This is the last in a series of four articles about the "Four Ps of Marketing". Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. This is the article on Promotion; what most people think about when they consider marketing.

Promotion is the factor that most people try to work on when trying to grow their business. It is much easier to assume that your sales are low because people don't know about your product, than it is to face the fact that it might actually be caused by the fact that people DO know about your product.

Too uncomfortable to think about.

Better to just assume that it is the marketing that needs work, not the actual product or service.

Still, for many, it is true.

My daughter loves to eat at Cici's Pizza. I find the food there tolerable, but my wife calls the place "Feces Pizza".

So we were pleasantly surprised when we went to a birthday party at a pizza place that is CLOSER to our house and the quality is FAR superior than Cici's. The ingredients are PILED on and the crust is really nice. They also have a much wider variety of pizzas to choose from. They serve beer there, which I like, and the price for the buffet was only 50¢ more than Cici's Pizza.

So on our way out I asked the manager how long they had been opened.

"Three years."

WHAT!? How could this place have been here for THREE YEARS without me ever even noticing it before? How could I have driven past here on my way to a less desireable restaurant HUNDREDS of times and never known what I was missing?

Why didn't I know that their pizza was better?
Why didn't I know they serve beer?
Why didn't I know they offered a better buffet at only pennies more per person?

The answer is: Poor Promotion

Just because you are better, or faster, or cheaper, or closer, or easier to work with, doesn't mean you will get more work. You have to be able to tell the story in a way that people will listen to and remember.

You also have to make an offer that is so compelling that you prompt people to take action. Next week I'll post about my new favorite restaurant (even better than the pizza place) that I have known about for years but just recently decided to try and have been back several times since and told many, many people about it and continue to do so.

Why didn't I visit the place sooner? I had no compelling reason to.

You have to give your prospects a very compelling reason to take action.

This is all part of Promotion.