Picture a board room where everything is nice, neat, and orderly. The meeting starts and each department steps up at their appointed time, gives their report, allows a moment for feedback, then sits down. Everything is on the agenda, charts and statistics show what needs to be tweaked, there are no surprises, and everyone leaves satisfied and confident in next steps.

Now, contrast that scene with reality…

If you can get everyone into the room at the same time at all, you hear some version of the phrase, “I think we ought to try…” come out of left field multiple times. Or maybe there is no meeting at all, and all strategy decisions come from one busy owner who, amidst the other 1,000 things that are begging for their attention, makes an off-the-cuff decision on what to try next. Welcome to semi-organized chaos, and welcome to spaghetti against the wall marketing.

No one really knows the origin of the phrase, “throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks,” but it has become a popular description of business strategy. A bad one, that is, actually meaning there’s no real strategy at all. “Let’s just try a bunch of stuff randomly to see what works, and in the meantime waste a bunch of money and time while adding in massive amounts of frustration.” Sounds like a winner.

But the truth is, many small businesses are stuck in this cycle and don’t even realize it, especially when it comes to their marketing efforts. They treat marketing like they’re walking around a trade show, and every new company and “solution” they see looks shinier than the next. So, hoping it will change the world and be the quick-fix solution they’re after, they give PPC, a new website, increased social media presence, or whatever a moment or two of their time before scrapping it and moving on to the next option. When in reality, there is no magic bullet out there.

I’ll be honest, marketing companies often add to your frustration here. Every company tends to promote themselves as “the solution.” But the truth is, it doesn’t matter what media, system, or company you choose; if you don’t give it sufficient time to work or are quick to give it the axe, it’s doomed to fail. Good strategy means long-term, repeatable results for your company versus a flash-in-the-pan, but how do you know what’s worth giving extra time and what deserves to never be tried in the first place?

First, have a clear idea of what success looks like for you. Don’t be sold on some new idea or shiny marketing thing just because you feel like you “should be doing that.” Every company is different, they have different personalities, needs, goals, and competition levels. Some companies don’t need an immediate influx of new first-time home leads, they want to strengthen relationships with existing customers, and yes, there’s a specific strategy for that. Others need to expand the base, but there are ways to target the best, and most profitable prospects.

You wouldn’t use a crescent wrench to bang the devil out of a nail, you’d use a hammer. Marketing is much the same way. Take some time to decide what you are trying to achieve and use the right marketing tool to accomplish the job.

Next, set a time-table, and be realistic. To further labor the weird spaghetti metaphor, only cooked spaghetti has any chance of sticking… and far too many contractors are throwing dry, raw noodles against the wall and wondering why nothing is working. Good marketing takes time to implement and take root in any market, so when the plug is pulled within a few weeks, you really have no idea what could have happened. Marketing is not a light switch that you can simply turn on and off. PPC takes weeks of tweaking to find the right mix of search terms and get you the most value vs. spend, a new website will take a while to climb up the Google rankings, and the second mailing will normally pull much higher response rates than the first due to familiarity.

Talk with a coach and have a very candid conversation with a marketing expert to find out just what to expect, and agree on a drop date if you aren’t seeing the results you both hope for by the deadline.

But here lies a caution as well, don’t wait too long into a slower season to start getting marketing plans in order, or you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Plan ahead, get a trusted system in place, and let it do its work. And speaking of systems…

All your marketing should be working together. No marketing tool produces its best results in a vacuum. This is the reason the “manic marketing” practice, switching from one idea to the next quickly, is so unsuccessful. Each piece of your marketing needs help and won’t reach its full potential on its own.

Just as I said above about each contractor being different with different personalities and needs, so are all of your thousands of potential customers. Some read emails, others don’t. Some would rather book online, others will call from a postcard. Some listen to the radio, others are scrolling Facebook. And any of these places you aren’t, you’re missing customers.

That may sound overwhelming, but the truth is, most of these customers can be influenced through multiple of these options, and the goal is to meet them where they are and get in front of them as many times as possible. A standalone postcard might get tossed, but they remember the postcard when they see the same ad later scrolling through Facebook. An email sells much better when it’s short and provides a link to your well-written and designed website copy.

Send just a postcard, just an email, just post on Facebook, or have a website sitting out there in cyberspace and you’ll probably be disappointed with the results. But have these pieces complement each other and funnel to the next, and you’ll see a massive difference in response.

(If developing a system from scratch seems like too large an undertaking, Hudson,Ink has cut out 99% of that work for you. Check this out.)

At the end of the day, developing good strategy and making these very important calls on what’s worth spending your time and money on and what isn’t can be frustrating. At Hudson,Ink we are always ready to help get a tailor-made plan in place for your success.

If you’re short on time and need some help with measurement and advice, we’re in your corner. It’s time to quit just hoping the next thing works and start seeing success.

Reach out to us and get connected with your own personal marketing coach now.