If you’ve happened to ready more than one of these Marketing Wisdom blogs, then you know that I’m constantly harping about the fallacy that advertisers save money with D-I-Y, or “free” media-produced marketing, for the reason that the results from these “money saving” measures are generally ineffective in communicating a motivating message to the customer while extremely effective in branding the sponsor as an amateur business.

But, like with most everything, some good can come from these ‘half-baked’ marketing efforts…at least it can for the competitors of D-I-Y marketers or those who trust their marketing message to the hack work that comes from the media who promise to design and produce your marketing message for “free.”

Simply put, when you do your own logo – as opposed to hiring someone who actually does logos for a living – or entrust your marketing message to the ad salesman rather than pay a professional writer and / or designer to develop compelling words and pictures, you are making it just that much easier for your competitor to connect with customers.

Of course, in a market where pretty much every business does their marketing “in house” or relies on the TV-radio-newspaper-magazine to punch out ads and spots there’s a remarkable homogeneity to what you see in the paper, hear on the radio, and see on the TV.

Seriously, how many spots do we need where the smart wife/girl friend trumps the doltish, clueless husband or boyfriend?

Haven’t we all heard enough radio spots featuring dialogue between the studio engineer correcting the guy reading the copy?

Are you encouraged to patronize a business whose owner murders the language while reading the copy in his radio spot?

Don’t all of the bank ads showing a line-up of well-fed bankers in shirts and ties start looking the same to you?

Just because the newspaper sells ad space by the inch, do advertisers really get their money’s worth by packing every single inch with words and pictures?

And one of my favorites…

Even though computer design programs allow access to a mind-boggling number of fonts, are readers impressed when an ad contains 6 different fonts – each in a different color?

Interestingly, I’ll venture that almost none of the business men and women who pride themselves on their DIY marketing or their frugality when the media produces their advertising, cuts their own hair or allows the house painter to pick the color to paint their house.

Back to the point I was making when I began: half-baked marketing makes it that much easier for your competitor to produce ads, spots, direct mail, whatever that “stands apart” from the rest.

And when you consider that between 70% and 90% of the cost of any mass marketing effort is the cost of the media, e.g., getting the word out, it would stand to reason that one would want to justify this expense by making sure that the message, was as good as it could be.

This is why, whenever I see or hear a good ad or spot, I don’t immediately credit the creative folks. Instead I’m impressed by the person who was smart enough to pay a professional to make him or her look good.

It’s no secret that people will pay more for a thing when they understand its value, and little or nothing for something else that has no value to them. But what if some unvalued thing could actually do them some real good…if they only took the time to understand it?

No, I’m not talking about card counting in Vegas. As befits the title of the blog I’m talking about marketing and specifically the lack of value that so many struggling business folk seem to place on it, when a modest understanding of marketing could turn their business fortunes around.

A profound disregard for marketing especially where I live is pervasive. It’s expressed in the countless “do-it-yourself” logos, brochures, newspaper ads, radio spots and websites. Furthermore, the culprits brag about the money they saved by doing the marketing themselves or hiring their sister’s best-friend’s nephew.

Obviously they must think that marketing is either unimportant, or so basic a function that anyone can do it…like being a politician.

For those that consider marketing unimportant or irrelevant they will – sooner or later – be out of business and as such be beyond any help. For those of you who think marketing is “basic” you are right…and wrong.

They are correct because, in today’s highly competitive business environment, marketing is “basic” in that it is essential. But they are wrong if they think that marketing is so basic that everyone (training, talent and experience not withstanding) is equally capable of creating effective marketing results.

Unfortunately most business people do. Yes, I said MOST. Just look around you. How many real estate ads feature a smiling realtor? What about the “business” bank ads show a skirmish line of bankers? Or the automobile dealers shove a picture of a car in your face? And restaurants that show you a…plate of food. It’s as if marketing hadn’t evolved since the Middle Ages when ale houses hung a sign over the door showing a tankard of ale.

Not only do these folks act as if marketing is some basic commodity like electricity, they are treating what they do as a commodity as well. “Buy from me. I own a suit. I sell stuff. I have a nice smile…”

What they’re really saying is, “There no difference between me and the others guys who do or sell what I do so you might as well buy from me.”

Except that there is always a difference between one provider and other. Some people are honest, hard working, imaginative, resourceful, trustworthy and fun to be with. Others aren’t.

Trial and error is an expensive way to go through life. So smart people do some research before they buy. They read, ask questions, go on the Internet. Marketing aims to provide them the answers they are looking for to help them make the right choice for their needs. To do this well, you need to spend time understanding the personality, needs, habits, and behavior of the people who buy what you sell.

But anybody can do that…right?

Well, anybody can mow a lawn. Of course it helps to have a lawn mower, but even if you don’t want to buy “specialized equipment) you could cut your lawn with a pair of scissors assuming you had a strong back and lot of time.

Can anybody rewire a house? Not without training, experience and more of that “specialized equipment.”

How about brain surgery? I don’t think too many folks facing the need for such an operation turn to their sister’s befriends’ nephew. And here’s another funny thing. I don’t recall ever hear someone brag how much money they saved doing their own pre-frontal lobotomy.