It reminded me of the importance of planning contingencies into your marketing campaigns. Ask yourself what would happen in the event that your marketing campaign or sales promotion is too successful? Does anyone remember the free flights offer from Hoover? Click here for the beeb’s write up http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3704669.stm

When you set up your marketing campaign, promotion or whatever, think about not only what will happen if it doesn’t work, but also what will happen if it exceeds your expectations. Hoover lost around £48 million pounds on this one. It was a badly planned campaign that attracted much more interest than Hoover could manage.

Thanks.

For example, if you run a computer company you’ll know your motherboard from your RAM and your hard disk from your CD-Rom. But you may not know the difference between your sales funnel and your buying roles, or your MBO and appraisal scheme.

So what can you do about this? Well, if you’re a micro business, one of the best things you can do is some personal development. Depending on your budget, you might like to attend a course, or buy a book that details the latest thinking or concepts. If you’re slightly larger, you could appoint a consultant to manage some of the more specialised roles. Obviously for the larger still you could take on a new employee, budget permitting.

But should this form part of your marketing plan? Well, to my mind, staff development is as valid a marketing campaign as advertising. People are one of the four Ps of marketing (or seven Ps of services marketing). The better trained you or your staff are, the better you will be able to service your customers needs and get those all important sales. For employees, training is a great way to increase motivation, generate commitment and improve performance.

But what happens when your customer asks for something you can’t deliver well on your own? You have three options: to turn the business away, to deliver a poor product, or to work with a partner.

Now, I’m a big fan of turning business away if you can’t deliver a quality product. Poor products or services have the potential for creating irreparable damage to your business, both in the short and long term - particularly in professional services where quality product and strong lasting relationships are essential. So could partnering be a sensible solution?

For an example, consider a web designer whose client asks for help in writing a marketing plan. Now the designer’s core skill is in building websites, but he doesn’t want to turn the work away. So, he cobbles together a marketing plan, with a range of traditional advertising and online tactics which he thinks will do the job OK. Fair enough, he can charge a little extra for the marketing plan, but will he have delivered a quality product that will delight his customer? It’s probably unlikely - after all, marketers these days are degree educated, with specialist qualifications and often lots of valuable experience.

So how do you know which option to take? Forget about profit for a minute and ask yourself ‘what’s best for my client?’. If you need to work with partners to deliver what your customer needs, then that’s best in the long term, even though it may mean you lose some margin now.

To develop a good network takes time and trust, but the harder you work at it the stronger the relationships you’ll build. Write some standard terms and pricing schemes and importantly ensure your network shares your values on service quality.