Companies of all sizes employ people with job titles like Marketing Manager, Marketing Coordinator, and Vice President of Marketing. Many times these titles are as confusing to salespeople as they are descriptive. What do “marketing” people really do?
Simply put, they are usually responsible for creating a ‘buzz’ for their companies, making sure that it maintains its share of the marketplace. Greater penetration and recognition typically translates into greater sales for their respective companies.
Whether you own or work for a promotional products company, you, too, should also be looking for a fair share of the market. That means becoming savvy about ways to market yourself, as well as having the ability to sell product. Efforts to market who you are and what you do are just another part of your job.
What is marketing?
The term “marketing” is threatening to many people. We often are intimidated by Marketing Directors, because they seem to know exactly what to do when it comes to increasing sales for their companies. Many operate with huge budgets, and their responsibilities include the placing of print ads, buying billboards, radio and TV ads, and the like. Everything they do each day is aimed at reaching the people with whom they would like to do business.
Who is your group?
There are virtually no limitations on the type of people with whom you can do business. The marketplace for specialties is vast, making it almost impossible to identify the number of prospects that you can contact. Therefore, you must make yourself appealing to almost every kind of buyer. It’s critical that you establish a unique brand in order to distinguish yourself from the thousands of distributor salespeople with whom you are competing.
Do you have a brand?
A brand is a promise. Brand equity is the value created by customer trust in that promise. Brands can either mean products, like BMW, Nike, Coca-Cola, or they can mean services, such as McDonalds, Domino’s, and Wal-Mart. You can build your brand with a logo, or with the way you conduct business. Regardless of which method you choose, you must differentiate yourself from your competitors through branding.
Here’s how one new distributor created his brand:
When I started in business, I did not have the resources to pay for a professionally designed logo. Instead of allowing my financial situation to hold me back, I decided to make commitment to my customers the foundation of my brand. On every sales call that I made, I told each prospect about my unique company policy. If I did not return that person’s telephone call on the day it was placed, their next order would be FREE. Besides becoming an excellent talking point with prospects, my free order policy somewhat of a game. Customers would sometimes call me at seven o’clock at night trying to catch me not calling them back that day. In four years time, not one customer has ever gotten that free order, even though my call back policy remains in place. As a result, I am respected for being an extremely reliable salesperson with a completely unique brand.
What I did to build my brand!
In 1982, when I started my business, my resources were as limited as those of the distributor described in the above story. In order to get things going, I decided to call on a segment of community that I knew something about--the apartment industry. I concentrated on calling on the management companies who ran the apartments. I was able to do this because right after I started my business I developed a very successful resident referral program for a very large management company in my area. I took this successful apartment referral program, which utilized specialty items, and showed it to as many other management companies in the area as possible. After three months of consistent calling, I had sold four other management companies on similar referral programs. By developing this service, I became unique among my peers, and started building a brand that has stayed with me for years.
Never stay the same!
After building my brand in the apartment industry, I moved on to the newspaper business. I began calling on local newspapers and was fortunate enough to land one of the largest papers as an account. After the Dallas Times Herald became one of my key accounts, I made a point to call on the other local papers, both large and small. My expertise in the newspaper industry became known, and I ended up doing carrier incentive programs for many of the smaller papers in the area. Not only was I now branded as an apartment referral expert, but also as a newspaper expert, too.
It’s not just about money.
Many distributors spend a great deal of money creating elaborate logos, thinking that by doing so they are differentiating themselves from the industry "newbies." Unfortunately, many times a fancy logo does not insure that the company it represents will always deliver on its promises. Building the type of brand that makes real money is accomplished by expertise and ability, not by just writing checks.
Owner/Salesperson/Marketing Manager
Regardless of the title on your business card, you are still responsible for marketing yourself and your company in the best possible way.The work you do to create a brand must be done judiciously and in such a manner that guarantees long-term success.
Marketing your brand must be the most important part of your daily routine. By making yourself unique, either by the service you render to those you call on, or the industry and/or market segment in which you may specialize, building brand recognition and loyalty will spell your success or failure in the promotional products industry. The time you devote to these efforts will surely reap rich rewards.