Pat Benatar

“Love is a Battlefield!”

In this edition, DIT Web Solutions would like to acknowledge Pat Benatar.

In the 80’s, along with all the other great artists of that time period, I grew up listening to hits like “Love is a Battlefield,” “Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” “Heartbreaker,” “Shadows of the Night,” “We Belong,” among others.

Patricia Mae Giraldo, born January 10, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York, known professionally as Pat Benatar, is an American rock singer and songwriter. In the United States, she has had two multi-platinum albums, five platinum albums, and 15 Billboard top 40 singles. Here in Canada, she had eight straight platinum albums, and has sold over 35 million albums worldwide. She is also a four-time Grammy Award winner and will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November 2022.

Pat Benatar has been touring since 1979, and is still performing currently, like many of the great artists I have been writing about.

What I love the most about Pat Benatar, is that she hasn’t let up and keeps pouring it on! I find with artists like this, they tend to take advantage of the current scene to further promote their art. You can use any opportunity, anytime, to your advantage. It just takes planning, market research and able people to launch it.

While studying all of Pat Benatar’s tours, it was amazing to see that she hasn’t stopped at all since 1979, sharing her amazing voice with her fans the world over!

At DIT Web Solutions we understand that sometimes running a business can be a Battlefield, but the marketing doesn’t have to be! I have come across some common misconception in this business over the last 30 years; some have called these marketing myths.

Over the years, here are some of the common misconceptions I have come across:

1. “I am not going to promote my business because there is a recession right now.”
2. “I am going to ride it out.” (I personally noticed this one can destroy a business!)
3. “Everyone is on vacation right now so there is no point in spending money on promotion.”
4. “I have no marketing budget right now.”
5. “It didn’t work, so I won’t do that again” (re: the last marketing/promotion campaign).
6. “I don’t want to overpromote.”
7. “Talk to me in the new year about promotions.”
8. “Google Ads didn’t work for me.”
9. Someone said to me once “SEO is dead.” Really? When did everyone stop searching the internet?
10. “I am too busy, so promoting now would be a waste.”

Ok, let’s break these down. First of all, I know no reason for a business to ever stop promoting. It is better to have too many leads, possibly wasting some, rather than the reverse, ALWAYS!A veteran owner of a very successful insulation business and a great person, once told me, “I realized years ago that my job was to keep that phone ringing,” and he was right!

1. A recession? Even if such existed, I would promote in volume, as there are always opportunities. Look at the last 3 years. We ourselves expanded, along with many of the companies we are promoting.
2. Riding it out never works! In fact, that usually means you will not promote your business until the market or media tells you that you should. All the successful businesses and artists we have been writing about didn’t ride out anything, they created their own successes.
3. “Everyone is on vacation.” First off, everyone is a generality. Right now, in the middle of summer, it is surely a vacation time period for most. If we had not ourselves been promoting, we would not have gotten the great leads we received last week. Yes, it is taking a bit more promotion than usual, but businesses are open, people are buying, even while on vacation! Again, this is not a valid reason to cut your promotional actions.
4. “I have no marketing budget right now.”  Here is the handling. Right now, open up a Promotions Account with your bank, transferring 10% of your income before taxes every week and use that money for promotion your business. You should always have promotional money! I know of no successful business or artist that ever stops promoting.
5. “It didn’t work.”  Promotions to some degree work. I’ve had people call me from flyers I sent out in the 90’s, as they kept them. Promoting can’t be done with a “try it” attitude for a short period, then you bail. Did you do market research before your promotion that didn’t work? Did you find out the “Hot Button” that would move your audience to buy?
6. “I don’t want to overpromote.” I don’t even know what that means! Always promote your business!
7. “Talk to me in the new year.”  I would always have my marketing plan ready to go for January 1st, every year, versus at the end of January, or later! The sooner you start, the sooner you get results!
8. “Google Ads didn’t work for me.” I have heard this from those who weren’t Google Ads Certified, running their campaign on auto.  I was at Google Headquarters in Toronto, at a briefing by the Google executives, and all the while I was watching a staff member making adjustments on the fly to one of his client’s Google Ads campaigns. Google Ads need someone trained overseeing and adjusting the campaign continuously. Also, Google Ads gets even more optimized after month 3, as the software will have accumulated key information by this point.
9. “SEO is dead.” That’s like suggesting that people have stopped searching the internet – simply untrue.  Every year we are taking companies with extremely poor search rankings, to ranking on Page 1 for multiple search terms. This has resulted in more traffic to their websites, thus more leads and more sales.
10. “I am too busy so shouldn’t promote.” Wrong! You always want that phone ringing. Sell it for the future. When your jobs are all completed and then you start promoting, you are “behind the 8 ball!” (at a disadvantage).

At DIT Web Solutions, we’ll get you ranking on Page 1 and keep you there!

So, is work a Battlefield? Well, it can be, if you buy into the false information.

When you have untrained people on your SEO or Google Ads or if you fail to do market research for your promotional actions before launching; if you don’t persist and only test something for a few months, then YES, it quite possibly could feel like a Battlefield!