In continuation of the previous blog post (if you missed it, click here), I will discuss the answer to the questions posed. That is, what kind of marketing strategy would best fit each of the mentioned businesses?

The first example was as follows:

A law firm is opening a new service which relies upon unique customers calling in. Their marginal cost is low but fixed operational costs are high. It is therefore important that any proposed strategies create a bang. It simply isn’t cost effective to keep lawyers in the office, sitting around waiting for phone calls.

The first thing to note is that the business relies upon unique customers. Next, the call to action is a phone call. These points alone suggest the need to an active advertising strategy. This alone will not promise a successful marketing campaign, but the recognition of these facts is an important start.

Next, the example discusses the business costs. Often marketing consultants take little heed of the advice I am going to give, but the world would be a better place if we could all promise to change our dirty ways. If you are interested in marketing your own business, then this should already be clear. The advice is this: understand the business cost structure. Otherwise, if I didn’t know how the company makes money and how they pay it out, as a marketing consultant, I would just be a salesman shoving another cost down your throat. If I understand your business just enough to see what kind of money comes in, how, and where it goes, I can tailor the marketing strategy just so.

Apparently, in this example, the fixed costs are high, but the marginal costs are a fair bit less of a worry. This is not uncommon for a brick and mortar business. Often rent, equipment leasing, and even the most basic employee payouts are the most substantial of costs. Therefore producing sixteen pieces versus fifteen pieces has a far smaller impact on the overall money flow than anything else. This situation (high fixed costs and low marginal costs) are indicative of the need for a BANG! type of marketing strategy. That is, there is no time to sit around waiting for customers to stroll around and find the business. Costs are too high, so even if it is pricy, it is very worthwhile to make sure that any campaign will let the product (or business) hit the ground running.

Now let that percolate for a few. Done? Okay, read my proposed strategy below.

I would suggest an extremely content heavy website campaign about six to nine months ahead of launch. This would give the hardworking internet marketing team plenty of time to hone in on important keywords, put significant content up, and get the social media marketing juices going. Over time, this will help the company’s web presence gain some seriously important rankings. But what will get people to the website?

I would then suggest the most proactive advertising media that the budget will allow. I utilize what I call a “tiered budget diagnosis.” Don’t look it up—it’s my term, but I am thinking that it will stick one day soon. What I mean by that is that if you can only afford a small viral Youtube-esque, blog-commenting, direct mailing style campaign, go for it. If the budget allows for radio, do that, but (here’s where my term comes into play) do NOT cut out the lower tiers. They are a give-in, they are successful if done right, and they should not be neglected. Further, if the budget allows for television ads or billboards, etc, etc, great! Then get those going, but don’t, no matter what, forget about the lower tiers.

The idea is this: Any of the (coincidentally) more expensive strategies will inherently advertise for the competitors as well. That is, if a law firm advertises for a call-in service on the radio during morning commute, any law firm boasting such a service will reap benefits of increased consumer interest. Inevitably, though, the potential customer will forget the name of the company, probably the location, the number, the website, and basically any bit of information that would make that campaign give a decent return on the investment. What will stick, however, in the minds of the important listeners (the paying customers) is the idea to check the service out online. The interested potential customer may get on Google and try out a few search strings, say “los angeles law firm phone” or “radio ad law firm klos.” Whatever the search strings may be, if the first step (the web marketing one) was deliberate in nature and successfully planned, these string should turn up the company in question. If not—if another company dominates the strings—well then the company who bought the radio ad just wasted a lot of money.

And it all comes full circle.

Stay tuned for discussions of marketing strategies for the other examples.

This is the first post on my new blog. My name is Casey Troy, and I am a marketing consultant in Los Angeles, California. I will use this blog to catalog my notes and advice in the realms of SEO, web design, business development, and guerrilla and classical marketing. Stay tuned.