The lights come on at 1:55 at the bar down the street.

A crowd of hopefuls is scanning the room, lowering their standards by the minute, desperate to go home with somebody.

That’s how most business owners market themselves.  They’re doing Reactive Marketing as my partner Stephen Semple calls it.

They only show up when the customer is already desperate and their pipe has already burst. You’re in a packed room with every competitor in town, all chasing the same person. And someone that desperate isn’t looking for a soulmate. They’re looking for whoever is cheapest, closest, and easiest.  Google Ads, Local Service Ads, and pay-per-click are all Reactive Marketing adding you into that dark, dank room just as the lights come on.

The people that brought dates left long before the lights came on. Proactive Marketing is courtship.  Mass Media. TV. Radio. Billboards. Storytelling. Showing up again and again, being charming and consistent, until they know, like, and trust you. You can’t ask for the date until they think you’re worthy.

Here’s why courtship wins. Research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute found that at any given time only about 5% of buyers are in-market ready to purchase, and the other 95% won’t buy for months or even years. Most people aren’t looking for a date tonight. But they will be. And when they are, who will they think of?

Instead you’re wearing too much cologne, wearing your lucky shirt, and using cheesy pick-up lines, hoping you stand out in a room full of competitors all doing the exact same thing.

My partner Roy H. Williams nailed it long ago: customers who already trust you think of you first and look for you by name. Your competitors never get a chance, cause they never even knew that customer was eligible.

Oh, and when you use Proactive marketing, even the dates Google says it got you? A lot of them were people who already had your number and were just looking it up. Google didn’t win their heart. You did, long before they needed you.  And Google still tries to brag to all it’s buddies they were the match maker.  Nice try, Google.

In an Aided Recall study in Lake Charles, Louisiana, consumers were asked to name a plumber off the top of their heads. Able plumbing beat Roto-Rooter and Home Depot. They were the only company that ran regular ads about plumbing. Able Plumbing was thought of 14% of the time, whereas Roto-Rooter was rarely thought of and Home Depot was never mentioned.

The catch? Courtship takes patience. As we discovered for our Sticky Sales Stories episode on Raid, they have been running essentially the same “Kills Bugs Dead” campaign since 1955.  That’s not a fling, that’s a marriage. If you ask anyone if they know a bug spray, Raid will be thought of first.

Am I telling you to never go out on a Friday night? Nope. Keep your Google Ads. When the lights come on instead of hoping you are a good choice, Google will act like your wing man and remind them that you are the choice they have already been thinking of.

So here’s your homework: look at your marketing budget and ask how much of it is spent reacting at last call, and how much is spent proactively winning hearts before anyone’s looking.

Because when the lights come on at 1:55 a.m. your competitors will be left scrambling, and you’ll be the one they already called.

For more on how ads work, check out @StickySalesStories on YouTube, and for marketing tips, tricks and secrets, take a look at @CrumbsForGiants.

Thank you to my partner Stephen Semple, for the words Proactive vs. Reactive.

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