By Clay Deal, Integrated Marketing Specialist at Xapsis Integrated Marketing
How many of you like the comedian Lewis Black? He is like
many comedians or celebrities for that matter; people love him or hate him it
seems. There is not a real middle ground
with Mr. Black. For those of you who are
unfamiliar with his body of work, Lewis Black seems as if he is on a perpetual
caffeine bender while angry at the world. I personally find him to be pretty
entertaining, and he has a four-minute bit that is one of the most hilarious
things I’ve heard. Here is the link to
the four-minute video: http://comedians.jokes.com/lewis-black/videos/lewis-black---college-horse
For those of you who were lazy and did not watch Mr. Black’s
video and, trust me, he knows who you are and he will find you; he goes on to
say he discovered the true cause of brain aneurysms. Brain aneurysms occur when someone utters an off-the-wall
phrase that you accidently hear, and you never get the context to the story. Say you’re taking a walk in the park and you
pass a couple sitting on the bench talking, you hear one say to the other “If
it hadn’t been for that three legged dog, I never would have gotten
divorced.” By the time it dawns on you
what you’ve just heard, you’re too far away to turn around and say
“WHAT?!”. Plus, they are complete
strangers. So, you are now stuck with
that thought bouncing around in your own head all day. No background, no explanation. Pretty soon, because of that thought…POW!!
Brain aneurysm.
I have heard multiple, not one or two, but multiple people
say the following phrase, “I don’t market my services/products.” That is the phrase that would cause my head
to explode if it were not for this written outlet. This issue is, you may not be directly
marketing your services or goods, but unless your business operates in vacuum,
you are involved in marketing.
Your company may be firing on all cylinders and you may be
making money hand over fist, but that does not mean no one is looking at that
logo you had your sister’s best-friend’s cousin slap together for you in ten
minutes. Just because you are running at
full capacity now does not mean no one is browsing around on that website that
your best friend’s ex-son-in-law made up for $300 bucks and a steak.
Marketing is facilitating the exchange of goods and or
services. Whether we like it or not, we
all are involved in marketing. Do not
ignore pieces of your firms marketing mix that need attention simply because
things are going well. You will never
know when that dream client, whose business could let you retire early on a
beach, just stumbled onto that old website you’ve never paid any attention to,
because you “don’t market your services”.
Now that dream client is on your competitor’s website because your
competitor and that client did believe in effective marketing.
