What Your Neighbourhood Cat Knows About Marketing

My guess is that you're thinking right now, "hang on, what does a cat have anything to do about marketing?" Well quite a lot actually. I recently moved into my new house with my lovely partner and one thing that we quickly noticed was this golden furred creature roaming around our neighbourhood.

To be totally honest, we weren't the most inviting of guests, often doing whatever we could to scare the little furry thing away from our kitchen window and backyard door. But here's the thing, no matter how many times we tried, or how often we impersonated a scary dog over and over again, the cat would simply come back the next day as if nothing had happened.

Frustrating isn't it?… But it wasn't until just this last week my sister was over to visit and she had noticed the cat. Boy, she jumped with joy and couldn't help playing with the cat despite me advising against it. And that's when I realised that the cat had won. Its persistence had paid off because it just won itself another fan and a nick name, "Tom cat". Tying it back into your business, how often do you find yourself getting excited and totally pumped up about implementing a new marketing strategy and then have it placed on hold because of a few lousy knock backs?… And the next thing to consider is what if you took on Tom cat's approach?…

Persistence works in all levels of business and particularly in marketing, you can't always expect that you'll get it right the first time all the time. So drop trying to be perfect about your marketing and be a bit more of a Tom cat and stick it out to the end. What you're going to notice is that in due course, while you may get feelings of "oh, it's not working out" or "what's the point of all this", the fruit is always there for you if you hang in there. But don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean that I'm a fan of lousy strategies. You have definitely got to know your purpose in marketing and do a bit of adjusting from time to time in your approach to maximise your results and return on investment.

Here's a quick run down on how to get the edge in your marketing so that you make the most of your marketing dollars and get big returns:

• Identify your specific target market 
• Explore marketing options based on relevance and cost 
• Plan out your implementation period 
• Roll-it out 
• Get feedback and adjust until you get the results that you're after 

Once you've fine tuned your tactic so that it works every time, you now have an effective marketing system that you know will give your business that client boost when you need it. And with the new year just around the corner, maybe it's time for you to reset those marketing goals for business and plan out the implementation for a bigger 2011. And remember, Tom cat never gives up because he's a winner, and so are you.

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