Having been a science major in college, I like to think that the world has order. It follows a set of rules that work within a set of parameters. I believe marketing also follows a set of rules. In physics, we talk about the Laws of nature (some of which you may have heard of). For example; the First Law of Thermodynamics’ which states that - An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. And the Third Law of Thermodynamics. It states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I will also look at the Law of Entropy as I believe it is relevant and is easily understood. No, this article is not a science lesson - it's an analogy that will reflect how things work in marketing – especially the laws that pertain to getting started, being consistent and creating impact. This article will explore how the Laws of Physics can be viewed as part of the Social Dynamic Laws of Marketing. We will – through an example – explore the First, Second, Third Laws and the Law of Entropy as they relate to marketing. Reading this article will show you how you can maximize your return on investment with the least amount of effort needed to reach your marketing goals.
The First Law of Marketing – My first law of marketing has to do with making things
happen . If you do no marketing little or nothing will happen. Doing nothing does not produce results! However, doing something ineffectively does produce results, but their bad results. If you are Marketing and it is producing, good results don't change it. If you are Marketing and getting a poor result - try the second law of marketing. Think of it this way; Newton’s first law says that an object at rest stays at rest. No Marketing – no sales! If you are engaged in marketing (any marketing, including word of mouth) you have sales; the sale will continue (stay in motion) at the same speed unless acted upon by some other force (competition, more advertising, bad publicity, etc.). Obviously, there are many more variables in a social situation (especially marketing), but you get the idea. When a person comes to me and say, I’m not getting enough business; I always ask them what are they doing now? Nine times out of ten their answers is networking or maybe just some hit and miss short term advertising. They feel the effects of the first law! If you do nothing, you get nothing. If you do very little, you get very little. If you do more marketing (consistently) you get more of a return consistently.
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The Second Law of Marketing - My second law of marketing has as to do with effort! If
you ’re engaged in Marketing and want better results, you have to apply time, effort, expend energy and money (money can be analogous to mass in this case). The second Law of Physics has to do with acceleration. If you want to accelerate sales, you have to expend time, money and effort to get the ball rolling uphill. Now I am not saying you do this any old way. Your time, money and effort have to be targeted and focused otherwise the energy and time you spend will not push the ball in the direction you want. It will push the ball around in many directions, producing a lot of wasted effort. If you want a great result, you need to do your due diligence first (a type of special effort). Do your research, marketing research that is. You need to understand where the money and effort must be applied. Once you know this, you can pull out all the stops to get the ball rolling in the right direction. The impact of your marketing is directly related to the quality and amount of research you have engaged in (i.e. the effort, time and money you apply to achieve your goal). The neat thing about marketing is that once you find the right method, target market, and message, the ball rolls much easier and it will continue to roll with much less effort, time or money investment.
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The Third Law of Marketing – My third law of Marketing has to do with actions and
reactions . When you do something poorly, you get poor results. When you do something right, you get great results. You also usually get more attention and competition coming at you as well. New competition is a reaction to your successful action. In turn, this reaction causes another reaction as you now have to respond to the competition. A great way to minimize your competition is to provide a very competitive compelling offer. The third law of Marketing deals with how buyers and the competition reacts to what you’re doing. This includes sales and specials, a compelling offer, competitors undercutting you and how your marketing changes and evolves to deal with these events. Remember that for every great offer (compelling offer) you provide there will be a good buyer. The number of buyers you receive is in direct proportion to the compelling value of your offer. The third law also has to do with customer sentiment. If you get a bad review in social media, this will produce a bad reaction, and you will lose sales. Conversely, if you get great reviews in social media, your sales will grow. There are many types of actions that cause reactions that in turn cause more reactions. A great example is advertising in pay per click on Adwords. It’s not uncommon for an advertiser to start out with a reasonable ad position by placing a bid of say, $3 (the action). Soon they get into a bidding war with competitors (the reaction) that quickly raises the bid into the $15 to $20 range (the reaction to the reaction). When this happens, the best thing to do is stop what you’re doing, reassess your options, and then choose the option that hasn’t entered the reactive stage of a bidding war. For example, if AdWords has gotten out of hand, create a similar campaign in Facebook, or multiple smaller campaign in several other media.
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Watch the BTR show that goes with this article.
The last law of physics I want to touch on is the Law of Entropy. Entropy is defined as a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system. In other words, if no energy is put into a process or object, it will return to its natural state, which can mean it stops working altogether.
The Law of Marketing Entropy - In marketing entropy relates to putting forth effort
consistently and what happens when a lack of consistency occurs. It’s about what happens when you provide ongoing marketing verses engaging in hit and miss, or start and stop methods of marketing. I have seen many clients spend the right amount of money (the right mass) in the right places and at the right time to push a ball uphill and get great results. Examples would include; taking a blog and growing it from zero to 3000 page views a month in six months. Another would be getting on page one of organic search after six months. At this point they normally evaluate their success to determine if the payoff was good, considering their efforts and cost. The reality in both situations is that their effort got them to the top of the hill, now they need to realize that it's time to add new efforts to maximize conversion. That fact is, most advertisers do little if any market research. Research must take place to achieve maximum conversion rate. Now that they are at the top of the hill (on page one organically or achieve a substantial audience), they need to test their messages, their compelling offers and make sure their target is dead on. Doing this when at the top of the hill will increase and maximize their return on their investment.
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Anyone can get lucky every once in a while. Some of us may receive the grace of God, but all of us can benefit from following good marketing principles. Here are some other Marketing principles that all marketers should consider following if they want to be consistently successful.
- Social Media marketing is all about the Audience - Make sure everything you post is about helping or providing something useful to the audience. It either has to needed, useful, connecting, or entertaining.
- There is no substitute for getting started. - Many companies are paralyzed by the
Courtesy of need to be perfect the first time. The truth is you are never perfect. In fact, your marketing evolves as your sophistication and understanding evolve. You have to start somewhere. You’ll have to crawl before you run. Just get started, and a good place to start is by doing your due diligence. - Do your research and due diligence - Good upfront research is a cornerstone of the Working the Web to Win Marketing Method. Unless you are lucky or have Grace, your marketing is not effective without fully understanding your target market, your unique selling propositions and what compelling messages work with that target market. A/B testing is much easier to do today on Adwords, or Facebook and landing pages are inexpensive to build. Good research pays for itself and maximizes the return on your investment.
- There is no substitute for Quality - A good first impression is important and has a lasting effect on how quickly you can build a trusting relationship. Make sure your marketing material is clean, focused, easy to understand and free of grammar and spelling errors.
- Make it easy for people to contact you - Easy to find and user-friendly access to your websites, landing pages, blog and social media sites is a must. Include your address and phone number and links to your other social sites on everything.
- Make it as easy as possible for them to buy - Don’t make your customer click on more than two links to buy on the internet. Consumers want to get to a secure purchase site quickly and check out securely and quickly. Make sure that the, “BUY Me Now” buttons are easy to see and
access . Make sure the checkout process is not lengthy either. - Provide a compelling offer that they want - If you want people to cough up the valuable contact information, give them a compelling reason to do so. Provide a high preceded value item like an eBook, White Paper, useful list or other items that
has meaningful value to the user of your industry. - Take the risk out of the transaction - If you take the risk out of the transaction, more people will buy your product. Can you provide a solid guarantee? Can they get their money back during the first 30 days? Is there a try before you buy without providing a credit card at check out? Give
then a BOGO or 20% off their first purchase. - Make your company accessible - What are your hours of operation? Do they fit your target market or your needs? - Does your website provide live chat? - Can a person connect with you quickly via social media? Are you providing live social
media videos ? Do you provide resource links, a web page or blog to help potential clients in your industry? These can make you more accessible to your prospects and clients. - Publish a weekly blog with useful information - One of the best ways to prove your expertise and credibility is to publish a weekly blog in your industry. Publishing useful content on a regular basis will build and audience, your credibility and improve your organic ranking at the same time.
- Publish daily on your social nets - Publishing useful content daily is a form of touch marketing. This is a great way to build a strong relationship with prospects and potential clients. It’s also a great way to build an audience (following) which in turn allow you do social media marketing either via pay per click, boosting post or social
contest . - Take care of your customers - If you get a customer complaint, address it. It's
Courtesy of more cost effective to make a disgruntled customer happy than it is to dig your heels in and fight them because you think you're right. Bad news has always traveled fast. Today bad news travels at the speed of the internet and bad social media reviews can kill your business. - Give them a reason to say nice things - If bad social media reviews can kill your company, great social media reviews can help you make more sales. Give great customers reason to write great reviews. Make sure you ask them to provide positive reviews. Find a way to reward them for providing these reviews. Testimonials and positive rating are a social media gold mine.
- Add fun to your marketing with contest - People love contest! More importantly, they love winning FREE stuff. Find a way to create contests on social media that makes it cost effective for them to win and that shares those wins with their social media following. This is a very viral form of marketing that is fun for clients and a great way for you to grow and prosper from your social media marketing.
If you’re in business, you are in business to be prosperous and grow. Sound marketing will help you do that. Making sure your marketing efforts follow sound marketing principles will make it easier to grow and enjoy your business. It will allow you to achieve your goals, build loyal customer and retire with a big chunk of money. Take your marketing seriously, and it will pay big dividend both in the short and long run. If you don’t have time to do your marketing the right way, hire someone or outsource it to an agency that will.
That's my opinion; I look forward to reading yours.
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Hector Cisneros is COO and Director of Social Media Marketing at Working the Web to Win, an award-winning Internet marketing company based in Jacksonville, Florida. He is also co-host of the weekly Internet radio show, "Working the Web to Win" on BlogTalkRadio.com, which airs every Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern. Hector is a syndicated writer and published author of “60 Seconds to Success.”
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