Don’t drown from the effects of Riptide Marketing
Don’t drown from the effects of Riptide Marketing
Rip currents can occur at any beach that has breaking waves, including oceans, seas, and even large lakes such as the Great Lakes. Rip currents can tow an unsuspecting swimmer or wader out to sea at speeds up to one to eight feet per second.
But rip current themselves are not dangerous.
Rip currents become treacherous when the panicked victim fights to swim back to shore. In the futile attempt to fight the current, the victim becomes exhausted and drowns.
Though seemingly counterintuitive, the way to survive a rip current is to simply swim parallel to the shoreline. By doing so, you will swim perpendicular to the direction of powerful pull and ultimately free of the current – without exhausting yourself. Then you can change directions and swim towards shore.
WHAT DO RIPTIDES HAVE TO DO WITH YOUR BUSINESS?
When revenue slows down for any reason, general overhead and administrative expenses continue to flow out. Just like a rip current.
The common business reaction is to ramp up one's marketing efforts to bring in new customers and entice previous customers to return.
In the ensuing flurry of panicked activity, no marketing plan is developed or, if there is one, it is ill-planned or isn't followed. Carried to its extreme, this ultimately leads to business death by drowning in a sea of unpaid advertising and general overhead bills.
AN EXAMPLE OF RIPTIDE MARKETING
Until recently, one of my clients was paying over $20,000 in Yellow Pages ads – every month! The return on the marketing investment? Needless to say, far less than $20,000 per month.
Now, obviously, spending money like that is not a formula for business longevity. Fortunately, with my coaching, at renewal time the company slashed its Yellow Pages commitment to more manageable and reasonable levels.
THE SOLUTION TO RIPTIDE MARKETING
Strategic lifetime marketing is an approach to marketing that capitalizes on the lifetime value of your most desirable customers. In the business world, this is akin to swimming parallel to the shoreline when caught in a potentially deadly rip current. The key is to develop such a lifetime-oriented approach to marketing before a crisis occurs.
One of the first steps to developing a strategic lifetime-oriented marketing plan is to first understand your highest-value customer.
Who is your highest-value customer?
Sounds simple enough but, in my experience, this is one of the toughest questions for business owners to answer with clarity and confidence. (By the way, "everyone" is not a good answer.)
You can start by understanding the demographics and psychographics of your ideal target audience:
• Demographics are quantifiable characteristics — factors such as age, race, gender, religion, income, education, and profession.
• Psychographics are less readily quantifiable, but more critical to your success — they describe what your target audience values, how they think, what they care about, how they feel, and how they choose to live. These factors directly reflect their buying habits.
THE LIFETIME MARKETING QUICKSTART ACTION PLAN
The cure for riptide marketing consists of three simple steps:
1. As described above, first understand the demographic and their psychographic characteristics of your market.
2. Then, determine the potential of your product or service in the marketplace. Do so by uncovering your target’s biggest problems and needs to which you are the answer. Once you have this kind of information clear, you'll be prepared to craft your ultimate value offering — customized to the needs, wants, and mindset of your best customers.
3. Finally, measure the effectiveness of your promotional activities.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Without a strategic approach to effective, lifetime-oriented marketing, you are putting your greatest asset — your business — at risk.
Whether you are starting a new business, introducing a new product or service, or seeking to expand your existing business, it is vitally important to first understand the mindset and buying habits of your potential and existing consumers.
With this information, you can position and package your offering in a way that attracts the consumers who are looking for the product or service you have to offer as well as the value that you offer.
This strategy will enhance your ability to get your value-based message to your target audience with greater cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and impact. It will increase your prospect-to-buyer conversion rates, shorten the buying cycle, and increase the frequency of repeat and referral purchases.
Sounds like a plan for business longevity to me!
Dont drown from the effects of Riptide Marketing - To learn more about this author, visit George C. Huang's Website.
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In the United States, riptides account for approximately 100 deaths every year. Despite its name, a riptide isn't related to the ocean tide at all. It is actually a strong flow of water returning towards the sea from the shore. More accurately, this flow of water is called a rip current.
Rip currents can occur at any beach that has breaking waves, including oceans, seas, and even large lakes such as the Great Lakes. Rip currents can tow an unsuspecting swimmer or wader out to sea at speeds up to one to eight feet per second.
But rip current themselves are not dangerous.
Rip currents become treacherous when the panicked victim fights to swim back to shore. In the futile attempt to fight the current, the victim becomes exhausted and drowns.
Though seemingly counterintuitive, the way to survive a rip current is to simply swim parallel to the shoreline. By doing so, you will swim perpendicular to the direction of powerful pull and ultimately free of the current – without exhausting yourself. Then you can change directions and swim towards shore.
WHAT DO RIPTIDES HAVE TO DO WITH YOUR BUSINESS?
When revenue slows down for any reason, general overhead and administrative expenses continue to flow out. Just like a rip current.
The common business reaction is to ramp up one's marketing efforts to bring in new customers and entice previous customers to return.
In the ensuing flurry of panicked activity, no marketing plan is developed or, if there is one, it is ill-planned or isn't followed. Carried to its extreme, this ultimately leads to business death by drowning in a sea of unpaid advertising and general overhead bills.
AN EXAMPLE OF RIPTIDE MARKETING
Until recently, one of my clients was paying over $20,000 in Yellow Pages ads – every month! The return on the marketing investment? Needless to say, far less than $20,000 per month.
Now, obviously, spending money like that is not a formula for business longevity. Fortunately, with my coaching, at renewal time the company slashed its Yellow Pages commitment to more manageable and reasonable levels.
THE SOLUTION TO RIPTIDE MARKETING
Strategic lifetime marketing is an approach to marketing that capitalizes on the lifetime value of your most desirable customers. In the business world, this is akin to swimming parallel to the shoreline when caught in a potentially deadly rip current. The key is to develop such a lifetime-oriented approach to marketing before a crisis occurs.
One of the first steps to developing a strategic lifetime-oriented marketing plan is to first understand your highest-value customer.
Who is your highest-value customer?
Sounds simple enough but, in my experience, this is one of the toughest questions for business owners to answer with clarity and confidence. (By the way, "everyone" is not a good answer.)
You can start by understanding the demographics and psychographics of your ideal target audience:
• Demographics are quantifiable characteristics — factors such as age, race, gender, religion, income, education, and profession.
• Psychographics are less readily quantifiable, but more critical to your success — they describe what your target audience values, how they think, what they care about, how they feel, and how they choose to live. These factors directly reflect their buying habits.
THE LIFETIME MARKETING QUICKSTART ACTION PLAN
The cure for riptide marketing consists of three simple steps:
1. As described above, first understand the demographic and their psychographic characteristics of your market.
2. Then, determine the potential of your product or service in the marketplace. Do so by uncovering your target’s biggest problems and needs to which you are the answer. Once you have this kind of information clear, you'll be prepared to craft your ultimate value offering — customized to the needs, wants, and mindset of your best customers.
3. Finally, measure the effectiveness of your promotional activities.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Without a strategic approach to effective, lifetime-oriented marketing, you are putting your greatest asset — your business — at risk.
Whether you are starting a new business, introducing a new product or service, or seeking to expand your existing business, it is vitally important to first understand the mindset and buying habits of your potential and existing consumers.
With this information, you can position and package your offering in a way that attracts the consumers who are looking for the product or service you have to offer as well as the value that you offer.
This strategy will enhance your ability to get your value-based message to your target audience with greater cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and impact. It will increase your prospect-to-buyer conversion rates, shorten the buying cycle, and increase the frequency of repeat and referral purchases.
Sounds like a plan for business longevity to me!
Dont drown from the effects of Riptide Marketing - To learn more about this author, visit George C. Huang's Website.
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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