Left Brain Marketing for Right Brain People

Editor’s Note: This is the last in a three-part series on integrated marketing. Be sure to read the first and second installments.

As I was writing the last of this three-part series, historical changes in our society were creating profound effects on the carwash industry, thanks in part to the rising costs of energy, as well as some of the products directly related to our businesses.

No one can disregard the importance of saving money, energy and other resources. Additionally, a focus on sustainability can earn points as well. However, one cannot forget the reason we are in business ... to make money! Some say you have to spend money to make money. I partially agree. From a marketing perspective, I agree more with the phrase, “You have to spend time to make money.” And as time becomes equally as valuable and scarce as some other resources, making the best of it is well-regarded advice.

To that point, in our first article we focused on the avoidance of mixed marketing messages. We spoke about the 11 “Ps” of good marketing efforts. To recap, they are:

• Product
• Pricing
• Promotion
• Placement
• People
• Process
• Physical Evidence
• Personalization
• Participation
• Peer-to-Peer
• Persistence

These all take time.

In addition, the second article honed in on designing and developing the message. Structured for “right” brain understanding, it simplified some of the steps into building blocks:

1. Gain a fundamental understanding of what integrated marketing communication (IMC) is and what it is going to accomplish.

2. Market research and analysis of promotional activities with brand and business image management strategies.

3. Ongoing advertising management and design media selection.

4. Trade promotions, personal selling at the site, and site management.

5. Public relations, sponsorships, database marketing and the evaluation of ongoing activities.

All of this information was intended to help you round out your understanding of what drives profitability from a marketing perspective and how to form the basis of a plan to execute an effective IMC program. Of course, all this takes time.

The time versus value equation is an easy one to digest. Simply put, your time in developing an IMC program for your business will be returned several fold, not just from a financial standpoint, but from the position that it makes for happier, more well-informed customers. And we all know what that translates into.

Once in place, business can become more manageable, changes more easily accomplished, the feeling of organization will manifest, and the desired effect of piece-of-mind — knowing that you are dialed in (as well as can be expected) from an outward appearance perspective — is attained.

This time, we want to provide additional information to help make implementing these principles as simple as possible. After all, a lot of carwashers are right-brain people — creative, outgoing and social.

These important IMC tasks tend to side themselves more with left-brain activities. The design, research, development and implementation are all analytical and organized efforts. Looking at them in a different way can simplify the tasks at hand and make taking even the first step a good experience.

According to conventional wisdom, marketing has been regarded as best left to the “right brain” creative types, but those personalities and the marketing metrics (measuring systems that quantify trends, dynamics and