Thin Air Marketing

There was a company that approached their marketing endeavours in an ad hoc fashion. They spent tens of thousands of dollars every year getting their message out, with one of their strategies being radio advertising. I am not picking on this form of advertising here but merely pointing out some issues...

• Two of the ads promoted an area of their business that they were long known for in their town but...they disliked doing that type of work and it made the least amount of profit
• The other two ads were probably 50% near the mark of their core business
• The radio company had never bothered to get a true understanding of their business and what they really wanted to promote
• The radio company wrote ads more from a historical perspective of the company than its current direction
• Because they weren't analysing the response rate, weeks had gone by without a single call from the advertisements

The disconnect here, between the core business and its profit drivers, and the corresponding advertising is strikingly apparent. When a company doesn't have that deep understanding of who they are and where they make their money, and then promote their services in a shotgun, ad hoc approach, the chances of success are very limited. Combine this with no analysis of marketing strategies and corresponding enquiries and you've got good money going down the drain (or into thin air in this case).