The Principle of Multiple Touches
- By Nick Ideabank
- Published 11/30/2009
- Business
- Unrated
Nick Ideabank
Red Tape Busters is based in Queensland Australia and provides services in government and council lobbying http://redtapebusters.com/liaison.aspx
View all articles by Nick Ideabank
John has a sporting goods business which sells equipment direct to sporting clubs. John has owned the business for over 20 years, and has had the same clubs year after year purchase from him. On the eve of his 21st year in business, John decides it is time to retire, and pass on the business to his son Matt.
In the first year of Matt’s tenure the business was ticking along the same as before, when John had the business. In the second year, a few of the regular’s started to shop with an on-line competitor, who to low cost business model could keep their prices down. In the third year, the government introduced a new law which increased the taxes on poker machines. The large sporting clubs, whose main source of revenue came from poker machines, started to reduce the amount of sponsorship it gave to local feeder clubs. The reduction in sponsorship meant that the clubs started to tighten their spending, and shopped around looking for the best price.
Year 3 was a disaster for Matt. Matt followed his father’s formula in running the sporting goods business. Now it is just not working. Matt started going into the blame game; blaming the on-line competitor for under cutting prices, blaming the government for increasing the poker machine taxes, so that the clubs were stop spending. Matt was blaming all the factors that were outside his control, but did not question what he was going to do to fix the problem.
Business owners who are below the line focus on problems. A business owner who is above the line, focuses on finding solutions. Marketing is all about finding solutions, because marketing is solving customer’s problems, and communicating effectively how your business will solve their problems. How can y
ou solve other people’s problems if you cannot solve your own?
Matt spoke to a couple of his friends who had businesses of their own. They told him how advertising in the local paper had worked for them. So a couple of weeks later, Matt placed an advertisement in the local paper, and he received a couple of inquiries. Matt went into a mini depression; he had spent $2,000 on an advertisement that had not really bared much fruit.
If you are an archer in a tournament, and you shoot only one arrow, how do you feel your chances would be in winning the tournament? Yet business owners like Matt, use the ‘one arrow’ approach all the time. How does one marketing campaign cut through all the clutter of thousands of other advertisements that an individual will see each day?
ACTIVATION
How many marketing campaigns did you conduct last year? ________________
How many of these marketing campaigns were effective? __________________
Inquiry Generation
“I don’t know which touch is going to get me a lead. But I do know that one of them eventually will”
Look at jewelry stores, nearly every second week; it seems that there is a catalogue inside the newspaper that promotes engagement rings. Now how many times does the normal person get engaged? In speaking to a jewelry retailer, this concept was put to me very simply, and he said “I don’t know when people plan to get engaged, but when they do, I want them to remember where they can buy their engagement ring from”.
The principle of multiple touches is about how many ways that you can engage an individual to enquire about your goods or services. The principle states that not one way will work on each individual, but one particular form of communication will engage them into action.
In the first year of Matt’s tenure the business was ticking along the same as before, when John had the business. In the second year, a few of the regular’s started to shop with an on-line competitor, who to low cost business model could keep their prices down. In the third year, the government introduced a new law which increased the taxes on poker machines. The large sporting clubs, whose main source of revenue came from poker machines, started to reduce the amount of sponsorship it gave to local feeder clubs. The reduction in sponsorship meant that the clubs started to tighten their spending, and shopped around looking for the best price.
Year 3 was a disaster for Matt. Matt followed his father’s formula in running the sporting goods business. Now it is just not working. Matt started going into the blame game; blaming the on-line competitor for under cutting prices, blaming the government for increasing the poker machine taxes, so that the clubs were stop spending. Matt was blaming all the factors that were outside his control, but did not question what he was going to do to fix the problem.
Business owners who are below the line focus on problems. A business owner who is above the line, focuses on finding solutions. Marketing is all about finding solutions, because marketing is solving customer’s problems, and communicating effectively how your business will solve their problems. How can y
Matt spoke to a couple of his friends who had businesses of their own. They told him how advertising in the local paper had worked for them. So a couple of weeks later, Matt placed an advertisement in the local paper, and he received a couple of inquiries. Matt went into a mini depression; he had spent $2,000 on an advertisement that had not really bared much fruit.
If you are an archer in a tournament, and you shoot only one arrow, how do you feel your chances would be in winning the tournament? Yet business owners like Matt, use the ‘one arrow’ approach all the time. How does one marketing campaign cut through all the clutter of thousands of other advertisements that an individual will see each day?
ACTIVATION
How many marketing campaigns did you conduct last year? ________________
How many of these marketing campaigns were effective? __________________
Inquiry Generation
“I don’t know which touch is going to get me a lead. But I do know that one of them eventually will”
Look at jewelry stores, nearly every second week; it seems that there is a catalogue inside the newspaper that promotes engagement rings. Now how many times does the normal person get engaged? In speaking to a jewelry retailer, this concept was put to me very simply, and he said “I don’t know when people plan to get engaged, but when they do, I want them to remember where they can buy their engagement ring from”.
The principle of multiple touches is about how many ways that you can engage an individual to enquire about your goods or services. The principle states that not one way will work on each individual, but one particular form of communication will engage them into action.
