If you are a parent you know that from time to time, try as you may, you are going to tune out even your most wonderful, perfect, and special children. This is especially handy when they want something from you like, say, money. There are numerous other occasions when the ability to tune out a child is a parent’s best friend, for example: your child may want to borrow the car, or wish to discuss their trigonometry homework, or may be pushing for you to pay for a vacation to the Caribbean, well, you get the picture.
Now as children age from about three years of age to when they (mercifully) leave home and stand on their own two feet, they know the best way to get your attention. It’s simple and devastatingly effective. It’s something they are born with that is hard-wired into their brains. Children clearly understand the value of repetition to get attention. In fact you could say in being repetitive they are marketing geniuses.
Many manufacturing executives lose sight of the fact that marketing is a process and is not an event. To be more precise, marketing is an ongoing process that reinforces a simple and memorable message and drives this message into the heads of a highly-desired and clearly delineated target audience. Seldom, if ever, does a single message make any impression on any target market. Ask anyone who has put out a couple print ads and wondered why they never had a uptick in sales!
Some manufacturing CEOs and industrial marketing executives seem to think that any marketing activity need only be used once. It would be hard to overstate the number of times I’ve heard even the most senior executives say, “We tried direct mail once. It didn’t work.”
From the youngest age your children understand that repetition is necessary in order for parents (or other adults) to get the message. This is equally true in any form of industrial marketing. After all, we all are bombarded with communication so why would your prospects be any different?
Once you correctly identify the needs of your prospects you need to reach out to them, several times. You may have to mail them 5 times before they even know you exist. You may have to email them 10 times before they get an inking you are trying to reach them. You may have to mail, email, and phone numerous times to get any response whatsoever.
What I can tell you is if you contact your prospects once they will tune you out faster than little Johnny when he asked asking his parents for his allowance the first time.
