What is the Single Most Important Thing You Can Do to Grow Your Business in 2012 and Beyond? - Irv Brechner

Before I answer that question humor me for a minute to give you an analogy I39m a big NY Giants football fan and every Sunday at our tailgate I ask fellow Giants fans the same question quotWhat39s the single most important thing the Giants have to do to win todayquotI hear things like quotrun the ballquot and quotplay strong defensequot and quotsack their quarterbackquot and quotget the passing game goingquot No one ever gets the right answer Though profound no one ever says quotScore more points than the other guysquotWhen I ask people in business the question that is the title of this story I get answers like quotput more money into social mediaquot and quotopen more storesquot and quotget more salespeople on the streetquot These tactics may be fine but I don39t hear people verbalizing the correct answer which is quotGet more customersquot Score more points get more customers Profound yes Basic yes Then why don39t people verbalize scoring more points and getting more customersI think I know why Two reasonsamp183 It39s much easier to think about specific tactics than the big picture And in medium to large companies silos and protecting budgets prevent a clear understanding of the total marketing picture and where all the dollars are goingamp183 It39s easy to be seduced by exciting and sexy emerging technologies and put a disproportionate amount of time and money into them at the expense of proven workhorses that may be viewed as dull and boringWhile Facebook Twitter social media StumbleUpon apps and a neverending list of exciting technologies are sexy and worth investigating it39s critical to keep your eye on those proven tactics that generate customers such as Direct Response TV paid search email catalogs direct mail and others These traditional customer acquisition tactics may seem boring when compared to the new media options but the key word is quotprovenquotI read how dollars are being diverted from offline media in favor of online And that39s fine expected and acceptableamp8230IF dollars are not being diverted out of profitable programs In these difficult times you can39t say quotlet39s take 10 of our direct mail budget and put it into socialquot if the direct mail is continuing to generate customers It39s not right to reduce a paid search budget if it39s a proven customer generator and there39s room to growSo what39s the answer You39ve got to find quotnewquot money to prudently test and develop a long term plan with social and other emerging media I do believe in them But not at the expense of what worksGrab a PDF of this article at httpA69acquirgynetIrv Brechner has written over 100 published direct marketing articles and 13 books on a variety of topics He39s been a pioneer in online customer acquisition since 1996 and offline for his 35year career He has developed Acquirgycom39s quotCustomer Acquisition Intel Centerquot acquirgycomintel he evangelizes bestofbreed tactics to help companies acquire customers in the digital age He can be reached at irvacquirgycom Read all Irv39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Customer Acquisition IntelCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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