How This One Franchise
Owner Lost $5,000

By Glenn Fallavollita, CEO – SellMorePayroll.com | Author | Keynote Speaker

• Word Count: 520
• Time To Read: 2.1 Minutes [Based on 250 Per Minute]

Since starting my consulting practice in 2002, I have seen many businesses fall victim to copying non-revenue-producing Fortune 500 Company marketing techniques. Why? They think that just because a business spends millions on marketing, their campaigns must be top notch. Right? Wrong.

Sure, big businesses are spending tons of money on marketing, but they are betting that "message repetition" will make the difference. Should you take this same approach, all you will do is waste your time and hard-earned money trying to duplicate this technique.

Read How Much These Companies Are Spending.

To put things into perspective, look at what some companies have spent (from 2010) on marketing:

• GM: $1.1 billion
• McDonalds: $2 billion
• Pepsi: $2 billion
• The Coca-Cola Company: $2.5 billion
• Wal-Mart: $2.3 billion
• Now write your annual marketing budget here: ____________________

How Bad Marketing Advice Cost This Franchise Owner $5,000.

I recently spoke with the owner of a professional training franchise who told me he paid $5,000 for a one-time direct mail campaign that didn't generate $1 in sales. And during this conversation, he told me that the corporate office was rolling out a national campaign featuring a well-known speaker and asked him to take part in it.

The plan was for this franchise to mail 5,000 flyers to a list of local businesses to promote this speaker's workshop. His out-of-pocket cost was $1 per flyer or $5,000.

The Results Were Disastrous . . .

After talking with this business owner, he told me he received zero calls from the mailing. This was no surprise, as he did not have:

• A telemarketing follow-up strategy.
• A game plan for promoting this workshop to his database of past clients/prospects.
• A way to capture someone's e-mail address who visited his website.
• Any type of marketing collateral to further educate a prospective attendee.

Three Additional Reasons:

• The person who designed the campaign (and gave the marketing advice) did not have any skin in the game; they would not lose their job or money if the campaign was not successful.
• The owner was relying upon the corporate office's expertise - again, from a person that didn't have any vested interest in the outcome of the campaign.
• There was no landing page on his franchise's website to further a potential customer's understanding on the subject matter.

By the way, he was not the only franchise owner who wasted thousands of dollars on this mailing.

Executive Summary: You and I can't afford to waste our money trying to emulate big business advertising - we simply don't have enough money to generate any momentum on a mass marketing basis.

Although it is easy to "write a check" for a marketing campaign, we are better off spending time doing these things:

1. Building a database of customers, past customers and targeted prospects.

2. Creating a proactive series of e-mail and direct mail campaigns.

3. Picking up the phone and calling prospects.

4. Targeting niche markets with our marketing messages.

5. Innovating our business to ensure we are the best value, not the best deal.

About The Author

Glenn Fallavollita is the President of SellMorePayroll.com, a Division of Drip Marketing, Inc.  He founded Drip Marketing, Inc. in 2002, and serves as CEO, lead copywriter and strategist.  He is also instrumental in developing the curriculum, format and expansion of Drip University - the training arm of Drip Marketing, Inc. and SellMorePayroll.com.  His work, insight and creative talent has been the catalyst for the delivery of more than 35 million e-mail campaigns on behalf of his clients.

To learn how we can help your payroll service increase its sales with our payroll marketing system, visit us on the web at www.SellMorePayroll.com or call us directly at (856) 401-9577.