Marketing Advice
Is your goal in marketing and advertising to make sales?
by Bruce Bates Cooperative marketing
Bruce Bates 
Cooperative marketing
If your goal in marketing and advertising is to make sales, you are definitely doing something wrong.
The goal of marketing and advertising should never be to make sales.
When it comes to advertising there is an exception to the rule - if you create advertisements gears towards existing customers those are intended to make sales.
Normal advertising doesn't involve making sales, and marketing never involves making sales. Customers make sales. Marketing generates customers.
If you do not have customers, and your goal of advertising and marketing is to make sales - you will find yourself in a never end battle struggling to make money. You will constantly have to find the next sale.
Make customers, by doing so you have repeat buyers. The sales keep flowing. Selling someone a product does not create a customer.
I hope this makes sense but I am open to debate and questions :)
Oct 18th 2012 09:13
Cooperative marketingIf your goal in marketing and advertising is to make sales, you are definitely doing something wrong.
The goal of marketing and advertising should never be to make sales.
When it comes to advertising there is an exception to the rule - if you create advertisements gears towards existing customers those are intended to make sales.
Normal advertising doesn't involve making sales, and marketing never involves making sales. Customers make sales. Marketing generates customers.
If you do not have customers, and your goal of advertising and marketing is to make sales - you will find yourself in a never end battle struggling to make money. You will constantly have to find the next sale.
Make customers, by doing so you have repeat buyers. The sales keep flowing. Selling someone a product does not create a customer.
I hope this makes sense but I am open to debate and questions :)
Oct 18th 2012 09:13
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Comments
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Bruce Bates
Cooperative marketingAurang, I am not so sure I agree. What you need to do is turn those old methods of marketing, into new and refreshing methods of marketing. Paid advertising works great. I pay for all sorts of various account upgrades to better my marketing ability and I use paid leads and I use pay per click and just about every other form of marketing. The thing is when I spend money, I consider it a long term investment not a short term investment. I don't spend $1000 dollars in pay per click ads and expect to make a $1000 or more in return. Thats a silly thought. However I know that if I spend $1000 that a lot of people will be visiting my site. If I use that to brand myself, to inform visitors about myself, my products, and my business - then I have begun to develop a relationship. If they reach out to me and socially connect, then I have developed a relationship. It doesn't matter if they spend money or not. I have used google ads to promote blogs, linking to various posts for various search terms. I sold nothing on some of the blog posts I was promoting. But I got a lot of subscribers. My articles branded me even though I was using paid advertising to promote myself. Some of those people became customers long after my ads were paid for. As I said the goal of advertising is about building customers, not making sales. Oct 18th 2012 10:05 3 Likes |
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QueenHajar Akanqi
 EntrepreneurshipThank you Bruce, owning a business offline, I did not try to sell my business services, I was selling myself. My customer came by word of mouth. So I believe I have the same energy online, ME,MYSELF, AND I. Oct 18th 2012 11:40 |
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Victor Courville
 Jerky DirectWe all have different opinions and different ways to Market. But we must Brand ourselves and participate regularly.We must be persistant in all our gatherings in the Social Networks. It is not always about selling products. But we all know our goal is to profit sooner or later. But we do need to build relationships with everyone in the cyber world and offline.It is definately providing needs for those that are looking for solutions. Oct 18th 2012 20:33 |
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Ian Begg
 Marketer, EngineerBruce I thank you for the invite, This is an interesting topic, and I agree with your post about building customers rather than sales. Internet is mainly people looking for information or entertainment, I believe if you can link the two then sales will follow because people come back to sites that are fun or interesting. Oct 19th 2012 01:51 |
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Bruce Bates
Cooperative marketingQueenHajar Akanqi Both of my parents are business owners and my whole life I have watched my mother effortlessly bring in customer after customer (she was a people person) while my father struggled endlessly trying various advertising methods and to this day struggles with getting customers (he is not a people person). Its all about self image! Harold, always a pleasure thanks for the kind words and thanks for being here. Kenneth, educating and learning is an on going process. I teach people of all experiences every day. I also learn from people of all experiences everyday (even brand new marketers). We are honored to have you hear helping us in this adventure :) Victor, as is usually the case, you are dead on! Thanks for being here. Ian, the pleasure is all mine. I don't think the internet has any single usage. I think the exact same rules apply online as offline. Its either info, pleasure, or want/need. Thanks for joining :) Oct 19th 2012 11:23 1 Likes |
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Teeray L.
 Researcher, Blogger, GamerCan you offer some advice on customers and readers? I have a lot of non-marketing content online in articles and blogs, so customers would be my readers, right? Am I going to have to place "products" into my content in order to start increasing my earnings? To start with, I'm not selling anything at all but still need to figure out better branding, marketing of some sort for gaining a bigger audience, etc. Oct 19th 2012 11:27 1 Likes |
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Bruce Bates
Cooperative marketingTerray I will make a new thread for that topic but it will take me a couple hours as I am in the middle of a lot of things right now (or you can make a new topic about it and see if anyone else has input before me) I do have a lot of advice on converting readers so keep your eyes peeled :) Oct 19th 2012 11:40 |
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Teeray L.
Researcher, Blogger, GamerAwesome - thank you for responding quickly. I will check back later as I have offline responsibilities the rest of the day. Will definitely be back this evening to see if you've had time to post anything else. Oct 19th 2012 12:08 |
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Lucas Kain
Freelancing WriterGreat initiative, Bruce. Would love to hear some tips, if you decide to share! Will need them soon enough. :) Oct 19th 2012 18:25 |
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Kay Brasher
Helping Others On the Road to SuccessThanks for the invitation Bruce. Nov 3rd 2012 00:48 |
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Diana Bascom
Health Consultant; Shop ConsultantI appreciate the invitation to join, Bruce. I look forward to learning from everyone in this group. Nov 3rd 2012 19:10 |
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Bruce Bates
Cooperative marketingSteve why for do you feel you can continue to drop links everywhere. On this group it simply is never going to go unnoticed and you continue to do it. Please stop. Sep 9th 2013 20:28 |
I have witnessed using the same old methods means nothing is available for you until you grab the organic traffic from your marketing skills......using paid advertisements not work often but some good big networks can bring some good results for you like Google, yahoo etc.
Oct 18th 2012 09:25