The choice of media you use may vary from industry to industry, but whatever business you’re in, try to get your name in front of as many potential clients as possible, in as many different environments as you can, and whatever you do – stick at it!
To give an example, a few years ago I was assisting a European business to develop in the UK market. They had appointed a UK agent who did everything himself, and as the market began to show some promise, they decided to expand the team by adding further Marketing and Sales personnel. In the previous year, UK turnover was around £70,000, so the new team set a target of £200,000 to reflect the increase in numbers from one to three.
A well-targeted direct marketing campaign, in this case using direct mail and telephone follow-up, commenced. We generated interest and had some enquiries, but after the first six months we had to inform their head office that turnover in the UK was, in fact, zero.
I convinced them to stick with the marketing campaign, as many of the projects they could be involved with were relatively long-term. Then, in the second six months of the campaign we generated a UK turnover of £220,000!
This experience shows that, in marketing, Persistence Pays!