Udemy.com, the leader in online courses, proudly displays 8,204 results of courses related to ‘marketing’.
That is a lot of bloody courses on marketing!
And guess what? ANYONE can make one! No qualifications are needed, no vetting. You can make a course, and YOU can make a course!
All of this knowledge available to anyone with an internet connection and a few bucks. Is there any catch? Oh you betcha, but first a story.
A while back, I was working at an agency and I had to put together an online store that sells pergolas and pavilions. This isn’t the usual thing one sells online but hey, it’s the internet age, people even buy mattresses online now and 20 years ago we all KNEW for sure that no one in their right mind would buy a mattress online, well, we were proven wrong!
I built this chap a very nice e-commerce website, featuring his very quality pergolas and pavilions, they were going for around $5,000-$20,000 depending on the options.
He was running his own marketing, and I found out several months went by and he did not get a single sale from the website. I triple checked to make sure his store was functioning and processed orders, and yes of course it was, the problem wasn’t the store.
This enterprising gentlemen had incomplete data in regards to marketing and selling things online.
He had spent over 100K in ads over the course of a year. Ads basically saying ‘buy now’ and linking to his home page.
He had incomplete data. Business stagnated and didn’t survive corona.
What was his incomplete data, you might ask?
It was simple: you can’t depend a web page to make a $10,000 sale. You have to have a live sales rep on the phone.
Or how about this classic example:
We have a small business owner who takes a professional course on copy-writing. $9997. It’s going to show him how to write copy to make the best ads in the world. He does the course and he understands it, writes some amazing ads and they don’t work?
Why not? He only had ONE of the three key ingredients.
He did not know he had incomplete data
You must have the correct message, audience, and offer for a piece of marketing to be successful, he had the correct message, but his product and audience were not correct.
This is classic. You do some training on ‘how to write a killer ad that converts’, you’re pumped up and ready to apply it to your business, or get your employees. They do the training, apply it, and then no results.
Why?
Because there are a dozen other elements that have to be properly done in order for the ad to even work. The Ad copy is a key point, but it alone will NOT make up for the rest, and carry the weight.
The problem is incomplete data
Marketing gurus are severely guilty for neglecting to inform you of this when they sell you their materials; they don’t tell you that their material only covers point X, and that there are several other points that you ALSO must have in place for things to work.
If internet marketing has not got you your return on investment then there is a GOOD chance you had: Incomplete data!!!
Action item: Before you accept or start a new strategy or tactic, get the full picture to see where it fits in an overall marketing plan, to make sure no other steps are missing.
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