Simple Pictures Are Best
Simple Pictures Are Best
It was a story of a farmer and his wife who decided to buy each other a photo session with a professional photographer for their anniversary. The fun begins when the photographer comes and the couple can't decide what to wear, where to sit or what to include in the picture. The farmer ends up wearing his new shoes on his feet while showing off his old shoes on his ears with arms full of farm produce. His wife wears both of her hats and brings out all of her pets, and her kitchen and gardening utensils.
Each time the couple decides to add something to the picture, the photographer warns, "Simple pictures are best." But the couple continues to ignore him and assembles everything they can think of for the photograph. Finally, the commotion causes the bull to charge at the photographer and the only picture taken that day is of the bull.
Recently, I worked with Ryan, a client whose company provides computer graphics services to financial services businesses. Ryan was running two huge, expensive half-page ads weekly in a local paper with a broad-based, mostly business readership.
"How much business do these ads generate?" I asked him.
"I don't know," was his reply.
It turned out that he had been running these ads for years, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars over time, but had never asked his new clients how they found out about his company and had never asked existing clients whether they had even seen the ads.
"If you don't know whether there's any benefit to running these ads," I asked him, "Why do you keep running them?"
His answer took several minutes. He told me about how he started these ad campaigns along with several other very broad marketing efforts years before. He also disclosed that he was still paying for a lot of other advertising and marketing efforts without knowing whether they were working or not.
I thought of the farmer with the shoes on his ears and his feet and arms full of produce.
"Simple pictures are best," I said to Ryan.
Scientists will tell you about Occam's Razor, a theory that says, essentially, "all things being equal, the simplest of all possible solutions is the best." Used another way, it tells us that when there are several possible explanations for something, the simplest explanation is probably the right one.
The "simple pictures" rule tells us that if you have a business or practice and are looking to market it, the simplest marketing picture is probably the best:
1. Be very clear on your target
2. Choose strategies that are designed to reach that very clear target
3. Test to see whether and to what extent those strategies are working
4. Keep using the ones that work until you have the kind of business or practice you want.
Simple Pictures Are Best - To learn more about this author, visit Sandy Schussel's Website.
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When my daughters were little, I used to love to read them a book that appears now to be out of print, Simple Pictures Are Best, by Nancy Willard.
It was a story of a farmer and his wife who decided to buy each other a photo session with a professional photographer for their anniversary. The fun begins when the photographer comes and the couple can't decide what to wear, where to sit or what to include in the picture. The farmer ends up wearing his new shoes on his feet while showing off his old shoes on his ears with arms full of farm produce. His wife wears both of her hats and brings out all of her pets, and her kitchen and gardening utensils.
Each time the couple decides to add something to the picture, the photographer warns, "Simple pictures are best." But the couple continues to ignore him and assembles everything they can think of for the photograph. Finally, the commotion causes the bull to charge at the photographer and the only picture taken that day is of the bull.
Recently, I worked with Ryan, a client whose company provides computer graphics services to financial services businesses. Ryan was running two huge, expensive half-page ads weekly in a local paper with a broad-based, mostly business readership.
"How much business do these ads generate?" I asked him.
"I don't know," was his reply.
It turned out that he had been running these ads for years, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars over time, but had never asked his new clients how they found out about his company and had never asked existing clients whether they had even seen the ads.
"If you don't know whether there's any benefit to running these ads," I asked him, "Why do you keep running them?"
His answer took several minutes. He told me about how he started these ad campaigns along with several other very broad marketing efforts years before. He also disclosed that he was still paying for a lot of other advertising and marketing efforts without knowing whether they were working or not.
I thought of the farmer with the shoes on his ears and his feet and arms full of produce.
"Simple pictures are best," I said to Ryan.
Scientists will tell you about Occam's Razor, a theory that says, essentially, "all things being equal, the simplest of all possible solutions is the best." Used another way, it tells us that when there are several possible explanations for something, the simplest explanation is probably the right one.
The "simple pictures" rule tells us that if you have a business or practice and are looking to market it, the simplest marketing picture is probably the best:
1. Be very clear on your target
2. Choose strategies that are designed to reach that very clear target
3. Test to see whether and to what extent those strategies are working
4. Keep using the ones that work until you have the kind of business or practice you want.
Simple Pictures Are Best - To learn more about this author, visit Sandy Schussel's Website.
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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