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Overview and Philosophy

The name Black & White Marketing^SM reflects my stand that all marketing efforts and expenses should be tied to specific results.  This requires thoughtful planning, repeatable processes, prudent implementation and results tracking.

Can your organization benefit from my 22 years of marketing experience, including the following?

• Founded four companies and helped start many others

• Held the senior marketing and/or business development position in five companies for a total of 17 years. 

• Recently helped lead one company to become the region's fastest growing company over the last three years.

Planning Is Not Optional

No surgeon would perform an operation without first getting an accurate diagnosis.  Marketing actions taken without the right analysis can cause enormous cash and opportunity costs.  Examples include products that aren't properly geared for their target market, expensive brochures created without a sufficient understanding of the target audience and how they will be distributed, and branding that, in an attempt to not exclude some markets, winds up not providing enough specificity to rise above competing products and services that do.  Perhaps you are better off spending $1000 on an inexpensive brochure with $9000 worth of thought into it than $9000 on an expensive brochure with $1000 of thought.  The latter will be beautiful; the former will be successful.

Spend your time and money in rigorous upfront thinking, and then focus funds on the actions that will make the biggest difference.

Repeatable Metric Marketing
Once you have a formula that is successful, you should be able to repeat that formula, assuming your target is sufficiently large.  To the extent possible, marketing actions should be based on metrics.  For example, suppose you need to earn 20 percent margins and the average customer is worth $1000 in net revenue, including everything but marketing expenses.  Further, suppose we know that we can close 50 percent of our "A" leads (however you define "A" leads).  Then it is worth spending up to $400 to acquire an "A" lead.  Once you have a formula to do this (it might be that you spend $4,000 to get 20 prospects, of which you will typically net 10 A leads), you know that every marketing dollar you spend on that type of campaign is well spent.  Marketing budgets should be based on this type of information, not on how much money is available or on a percentage of revenue.

Marketing Implementation

Frankly, I'm disgusted by the majority of marketing efforts.  Often these are implemented by non-professionals who don't understand how to tie all efforts to a greater strategy and plan for results.  Here are some examples:

• Not having a clear marketing message, begging the questions of what you are selling, how is this relevant to your audience, and why your products and/or services are superior to the competition.

• Slick Flash web site animations that take a long time to download (people often won't wait and will go elsewhere), and don't really make the key points about a company or its products and services.

• Web sites that bury the contact information so deeply that often people cannot find them, and have a navigation system that does not lead the viewer through the path on which you want to take them.

• Producing web sites and other marketing collateral without being clear on the purpose, intended results, audience and distribution.

Bottom Line

Make sure you have a qualified professional guiding the process.  Have a plan you believe in.  Focus on results, not flash.  It's not how much you spend, it's how you spend it.

©2003 William S. Weil.  All rights reserved.