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The 7 Commandments of Marketing
Michele Schermerhorn 
Marketing is everything you do to promote yourself and your business.
Without an aggressive marketing effort, your website is just one of EIGHT
BILLION listed on Google. Without an aggressive marketing effort, your store
better have a location next to Walmart and hope for their overflow. How do
you stand out from the crowd?
There are seven (let's call them) commandments for your marketing
efforts. Keep these in mind and you are well on your way to creating an
effective marketing machine. Remember, there is only one way to score the
effectiveness of your marketing efforts SALES!
Commandment #1. Use a Rifle NOT a Shotgun
Rifles leave a neat, clean hole where you point them. Shotguns scatter
shot in the general direction you point them. Most failed marketing efforts
are born in a scattered marketing message aimed at the world.
Let s say you were trying to sell a snowboard. To effectively sell a
snowboard to a fifteen year old requires an entirely different conversation
than selling the same item to his mother. Therefore, commandment #1 directs
us to segment our possible customers into different groups who share common
concerns. If your product could be sold to a fifteen year old or a 40 year
old, you d better decide who you are going to focus your marketing efforts
upon for the greatest success.
Commandment #2. KNOW Thy Customer Like Thyself
Following commandment #1, we selected a targeted group of people for our
marketing message. Now, we MUST understand that targeted market as well as
we know ourselves. We must crawl within their mindset. We must understand
what they think about our product, what they want from our product, and the
alternatives they have to our product.
Customers buy for their reasons, not yours. If you want to sell them your
product, you MUST sell to their concerns, not your own. Every piece of
marketing copy must FOCUS upon them. If you don t speak their language, you
don t get their money.
Commandment #3. Be PASSIONATE About Your Company & Your Product
Attitude is infectious. If we are around upset people, we begin to take
on that attitude ourselves. If we are with positive people, the same
phenomenon occurs. Most people like to associate with enthusiastic people.
And, most of us like passionate people. If you aren't passionate about your
company and your product, why should anyone else be? Commandment #3 means to
show passion for your product by speaking and writing about it with
enthusiasm. Talk about what your product can help people accomplish in their
lives. If you can t work up enthusiasm for your own product or business,
find another business or product.
Commandment #4. Accept the fact that NO won't kill you
In the process of running a business and selling a product, you will hear
no more frequently than you hear yes (if you re doing it right). What? By
doing it right , we mean you are TRYING things. Some work. Some don t.
Whenever you think of a new marketing approach, remember, the worst that
can happen is they say no . So, try it! This is not a matter of life or
death. This is a great experiment!
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most
intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. - Charles Darwin
Commandment #5. Wear a CLOWN SUIT! It's hard to ignore!
The cheapest and easiest marketing in the world is free advertising. How
do you get free advertising? Wear a clown suit! Do something OUTRAGEOUS!
Become news worthy. How?
When Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream first tried to expand to a nation-wide
operation, it had trouble finding distributors. They determined the problem
was that Pillsbury put out the word to all distributors not to work with Ben
& Jerry's. Pillsbury's edict effectively blocked Ben & Jerry s from the
services of the national distributors. What to do? Put on a clown suit!
Ben & Jerry's set up a one-man picket line outside Pillsbury
headquarters. The picket sign read Who's the Doughboy afraid of? The result?
National-wide FREE publicity on television and newspapers. Publicity they couldn't afford to buy.
In order to differentiate yourself from the crowd of competitors, you
MUST be DIFFERENT! Design your own clown suit and wear it proudly!
Commandment #6. NEVER Give Up!
Albert Einstein said, Many of life's failures are people who did not
realize how close they were to success when they gave up .
In marketing, everything you do moves you forward. If one campaign fails,
you are that much closer to the one destined to succeed. Watch others. Learn
from others. Learn from your own mistakes. BUT KEEP GOING!
Commandment #7. Always Be Closing
Always be closing is often referred to as the ABCs of sales . However, it
also applies to marketing. The objective of marketing is to increase sales.
Not to inform, educate, or entertain. I repeat: The objective of
marketing is to increase sales.
Therefore, this last commandment directs us to write all marketing copy
with the sale in mind. Only information that moves a potential customer
toward a sale is allowed in our marketing copy. How do we know what should
stay and what should go in our marketing materials? Read through it asking
yourself one question So what?
Another way of stating so what? is asking why should the customer care?
You've been in business since 1972. So what? Your product folds flat. So
what? You're a family owned business. So what? The alternative?
We have been in business since 1972 so you'll always know where to find
us. Since we are a family-owned business, you're always talking to an owner
who can answer your questions and solve your problems. Our product folds
flat to save you valuable office space when not in use. See the difference?
Now you re talking about the customer s issues, not yours.
There you have my seven commandments of marketing based upon 33 years of
business experience. Commandment is defined as A formal pronouncement or
rule . Keep in mind and put into practice these seven commandments of
marketing. When you do, your marketing efforts will result in the only true
value of marketing increased sales!
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Michele Schermerhorn has over 30 years experience in the business world
and over 12 years running her own successful online businesses. She is
President of Online Business Institute Inc. and
regularly conducts free online seminars. Online Business Institute Inc.
exists to Create Successful Online Business Owners One Person At A Time . http://www.obinstitute.com
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