Cooking and Marketing

John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing had an interesting post last week comparing cooking and marketing. "People tell me I’m a pretty good cook," he writes, "and here’s my secret. I’m not afraid to take ingredients I like and throw them together and see what happens."

This, he says, is a lot like marketing. We know the goal we desire, and we know what ingredients to put together to reach that goal. And, while there are proven principles to follow when marketing, "I’m afraid there is no marketing cookbook just for your business, only a set of proven tools and ingredients."

Often I hear painting contractors ask about what marketing works best. They imply that there is some recipe that will start the phone ringing off the hook. But it simply doesn't happen that way. Door hangers might work great for me, but those results are based on many things-- the message on the piece, the timing of delivery, the neighborhoods I target, and much more.

All of these factors are the ingredients that go into your marketing recipe. We all of to play with these ingredients to discover how much of each will give us the taste we desire.

And sometimes ingredients that seem odd together turn out very well. I just love the combination of cinnamon and cayenne pepper on chicken. The first time I tried it I wasn't sure what to expect, but it turned out well. The same is true with marketing-- sometimes we need to experiment. The result may be something that we really like.

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