• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Margie ClaymanMargie Clayman

Marietta, OH

  • About Me
  • Marketing
  • Librarianship
  • Random Musings
  • Contact Me

If research seems like a burden, you’re in the wrong business

September 17, 2010 by Margie Clayman 1 Comment

One of the posts I highlighted in my #30Thursday post yesterday was by @RickBakas. If you haven’t gone over to read his post comparing Social Media experts with Santa Claus, I would highly recommend you do so. In the meantime, I’ll tell you what struck me right away about the post. Rick talks about how various marketing folk try to pitch his business (winery). They come up to Rick with big promises, but it becomes clear right away that these “experts” don’t know a thing about the industry at large.Even more stunning, they don’t know a thing about the business they are about to pitch. What are these guys thinking? If you approach prospecting that way, what are YOU thinking?

It’s not like research is an endangered species

Have you seen commercials for eHarmony? (this is where everyone says, “oh uh, no, yes, whatever will be the least awkward”)? The whole site is based on the premise of meat market research, right? Take 2-3 hours to fill out a form that helps you psychoanalyze yourself. Find other people who have undertaken a similar task (already common ground). Look at peoples’ faces. See which of your personality characteristics match up. Start chatting. Start texting. Then get married. Right?

Think about the time people invest in research about cars, homes, fashion, health living, healthy eating, exercise. I mean, we are research fiends! And yet, in marketing, there is a hesitation these days to engage in research. Why? Here are some potential excuses.

“The world is just moving to fast. I need to jump on opportunities.”

“I’m such an expert that a business will willingly educate me about it when we start working together.”

“I just recommend Social Media and help people get 5,000 followers in 2 minutes. No research required.”

Now, let’s take each of those reasons and explain why they are dead wrong for today’s marketers.

“The world is just moving to fast. I need to jump on opportunities.”

The world is moving fast, and the uncertain economic times are creating a very competitive environment. For every huge firm that cuts jobs, there are that many more people trying to make it as an independent consultant. There are only so many companies in your particular niche. So how do you beat other people to the punch?

The thing is, in these kinds of situations, making yourself memorable just might be worth more than being quick. What do you think networking and engagement in Social Media is all about? I mean, yes it’s fun, but it’s also research. You talk to people you want to do business with. You say, “What’s going on with your business right now? What happened with that distributor that was mad because they thought you were underselling them? Did you ever get that fixed up?” You find out what is going on in the industry. You read things and discuss ideas with people. When someone in your network needs the type of service or product you offer, guess what? They’ve already been talking to you. You might be buddies, even. They know you know their business. You might not have been the hare, but you still won the race (Aesop must be weirded out that his fables are being utilized by marketers).

“I’m such an expert that a business will willingly educate me about it when we start working together.”

There are probably some people out there who could think this and maybe even be right. It’s probably not you. Unless it is. Hi!

Even if this is a truth or a semi-truth, you will put your “expert” status in jeopardy if you begin talking to a company without a clue about what they do. For example, I one day was talking to contact from a publication. They contacted me thinking that I was one of our clients, and they thought our client was the agency for another client of ours. I have no idea how the first client they referenced even got into their system, but it became apparent that they had not taken even a millisecond to check into things. At that point, there was nothing that person could have said that would have made me feel confident about their level of expertise.

It’s always best to go into a situation with a clear value add. If you call yourself an expert and then demonstrate that you took the time to customize your expertise, that will really blow people away. Worth the time? I would think so.

“I just recommend Social Media and help people get 5,000 followers in 2 minutes. No research required.”

I could tell you how to make tons of money in five seconds. None of those ways would be particularly reputable. The same holds true for fans, followers, leads, clicks, or other marketing metrics. Without research, there is no guarantee that those 5,000 followers will translate to business. It just means that you have a number, a lot of which would probably be spam bots.

There’s really not much more to say about this particular issue  – I feel that if you are in this latter category, there’s a lot of other stuff you’re missing too.

But Research is Hard!

Yes, research can be hard. It can be time consuming. It can be hard to prove for sure that it was worthwhile, especially if your well-researched pitch results in a “thanks anyway.” However, it is the most sensible thing you can do. You wouldn’t jump into a marriage without research. You wouldn’t likely buy a car without research. When you pitch a company, you are asking, in essence, to build a partnership with them. Would you jump into that kind of relationship without research? Take the time. It’s the right thing to do.

1st Image by C O. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Hob_

2nd

Filed Under: Marketing Talk

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Paul Konrardy says

    September 17, 2010 at 10:13 am

    My personal fav – “I just recommend Social Media and help people get 5,000 followers in 2 minutes. No research required.” It’s almost like the pitch is “After all, why wouldn’t someone want 5000 followers? Isn’t social media all about being popular?” It’s pretty sad but at some point they have to wake up and think “OMG we’re not in junior high anymore!”

    You hit it that research is key to making not only a successful pitch but a successful strategy. It’s that pesky relevant reach thing again. There’s tons of metrics out there – the difficult thing can also be finding the appropriate thing to measure, how often and by whom.

    Great post and the kitties are pretty cute, Margorie.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Post: « A budding success or a budding failure?
Next Post: 20 Twitter questions »

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • Seeing Double: African American Literature
  • Book Review: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
  • Book Review: Land of Lincoln, by Andrew Ferguson
  • The portrayal of the infertile woman in entertainment
  • Chapter 3: A Weird Thing Happened Today

Recent Comments

  • Delores Baskerville on Are you locking out blog subscribers?
  • frank c tripoli on Book Review: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
  • Lyv on #30Thursday number 10 (we’re in the double digits?!?)
  • Fitoru on New Recipes, 2013
  • Anna Wyatt on Help me petition to deactivate driver-side airbags for Little People

Archives

  • February 2021
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • April 2017
  • October 2016
  • July 2016
  • April 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • December 2014
  • October 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • February 2014
  • December 2013
  • October 2013
  • August 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2007
  • April 2007

Categories

  • Book Reviews
  • Crafts and Charity
  • Gardening for Renters
  • Marketing Talk
  • Molly Maggie McGuire
  • Musings
  • PassionPlayers
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Footer

marjorie.clayman@gmail.com

   

Margie Clayman © 2021