There’s a common marketing myth, which is REALLY hurting a lot of salespeople and business owners!  The myth is that there is a single, all-powerful marketing technique that they need to find; which will be the answer to their marketing woes.

Your marketing mix

However, successful marketing requires a multi-pronged approach – not a single ‘magic bullet’!  This multi-pronged approach is what we call your marketing mix.

Your marketing mix should consist of numerous different marketing activities (at least 4 or 5), which will combine to provide the leverage required to generate all the sales and leads you or your business need.  Most businesses rely on a single marketing activity or perhaps two.  Yet, when I speak with the owners of successful businesses, I always find they are using at least 8 or 10 high leverage marketing activities – often more!

By the way, when you hear the term ‘high leverage marketing activities’, it simply means activities that produce the ‘highest or best’ results for the least amount of effort and risk.

For example

Obviously, it costs you the same amount of time and money to send a mail shot or marketing email; whether or not it generates new business for you.  You leverage the mail shot or marketing email by making sure you it contains a compelling offer and that is is sent to a targeted audience, with an endorsement from one of their trusted contacts.

Compare this to the typical small business mailshot, which goes straight into the bin or is deleted; because it has a generic offer, sent to a group of people who do not know you and without any trusted endorsement!

Designing YOUR marketing mix

In the second and final part of this article, I am going to show you how to design a marketing mix for YOUR business.