If all else fails, consider the tack of yogurt maker Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm Inc., a Londonderry, N.H., company with revenues of about $9 million. Hirshberg got so fed up with bad service from distributors that he started a distribution company in his own region. It was an expensive and arduous task. ("Probably everything that could happen to us has," he jokes ruefully. "Every night when I go to sleep I wonder if one of my drivers is going to injure somebody.") But after five years Hirshberg believes it was one of the best moves he ever made, because sales in stores serviced by his drivers -- who are paid on commission -- are much higher than in comparable chains.
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Marketing Is Eternal
Despite the enthusiasm and success of these company owners, they would be the first to admit that there are drawbacks to do-it-yourself marketing. One of the main problems is the amount of time it takes. Innkeeper Chuck Hillestad puts it well: "You can't rely on one positive article or one clever trick. Marketing is eternal." While some chief executives hire people to take over the implementation of their marketing ideas, Hillestad persists in doing his own: "At this point we could afford to pay someone to do this, but why bother?"
Shepherd Ogden of The Cook's Garden knows all too well how consuming a do-it-yourself effort can be. While he was learning desktop publishing, he was constantly distracted from other aspects of his business. Even now, on top of all his other duties, he has to maintain the system. And in these days of fast-paced technological advances, who knows how long it will take for his system to become obsolete?
Event marketer Robert Sun logged in thousands of miles (and shelled out considerable expenses) to attend his promotional tournaments. With event marketing, there is usually a fair amount of administrative logistical work that falls into somebody's lap. At the New England Culinary Institute, it takes about two months of coordinator Pam Matecat's time to arrange the annual Quadrathlon.
On the other hand, if you bring someone in-house to handle marketing, warns Chuck Savage of Kullman Industries, you should be certain that person is multitalented. Otherwise, the support staff can easily get too big and too costly.
Slower growth is often a characteristic of companies that try to do a good deal of their own marketing and promotion. Take Stash Tea, for instance. It's taken the company 19 years to grow to $12 million, and at that, it's still not a household name. A region-by-region approach to a national market -- especially if the owner has to be present -- can be at worst impossible and at best slow going. The latter is what Robert Sun is finding with his game, 24. And Sun faces an additional problem: the tournaments drummed up more demand for his product than he could deliver, because of a shortage of distribution channels. Still, it is a better problem, he says, than having products languishing on the shelves, which would probably lead to the closing of distribution outlets.
Despite those and other problems -- such as how Magellan manages to control the number of demonstration instruments it gives away -- many companies are finding that traditional marketing techniques are just not working for them. Their products or services may simply be too specialized for advertisements to pay off. Or they want to experiment with more direct and measurable approaches to increase their market share. Or, like Tom Lisicki of Stash Tea, they simply believe that in the long run, they can do the job better than anyone else can. "I'm much more confident in my own staff," says Lisicki. "Plus, if you do it yourself, you learn and you do it better the next time. And the more you do it yourself, the more the synergies start to happen."
-- Reported and written by Susan Greco, Nancy Lyons, Robert A. Mamis, Martha E. Mangelsdorf, Anne Murphy, and Edward O. Welles.
RESOURCES
Marketing
Guerrilla Marketing Attack, by Jay Levinson (Houghton Mifflin, 1989); $8.95
Marketing on a Shoestring, by Jeffrey Davidson (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1988); $14.95
StreetSmart Marketing, by Jeff Slutsky with Marc Slutsky (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1989); $14.95
Successful Catalog Marketing, by Richard S. Hodgson (Dartnell, Chicago, 1991); $39.95
Advertising
The Advertising Handbook, by Dell Dennison and Linda Tobey (Self Counsel Press, North Vancouver, British Columbia, 1991); $8.95
Ogilvy on Advertising, by David Ogilvy (Random House/Vintage Books, 1985); $17.95
Publicity
Do-It-Yourself Publicity, by David F. Ramacitti (Amacom/American Management Association, New York, 1991); $17.95
"Radio-TV Interview Report," a 50-to 100-page newsletter published by Bradley Communications Corp., in Lansdowne, Pa., for program directors and talk-show producers across the country. An entrepreneur can place an ad in the directory, promoting himself or herself as an expert on a given topic and inviting interviews. A full-page ad costs $479. A cheap way to get publicity. A tape is also available. For information contact Bill Harrison, at 215-259-1070.
Event Marketing
"Special Events Report," a biweekly newsletter published by the International Events Group, in Chicago. Subscriptions cost $340 per year ($225 for nonprofits). IEG also publishes IEG Directory of Sponsorship Marketing and IEG Legal Guide to Sponsorship. Call 312-944-1727.
The Center for Corporate Community Relations at Boston College, in Boston, a membership organization providing training, consulting, and research to companies that are interested in event sponsorship, cause-related marketing, and community relations. Call 617-552-4545; in Oakland, Calif., call 415-287-9377.
