Possibly the question I am most often asked goes something like this ‘What should I do to market my product?’, or ‘How should I advertise my service?’. I then ask probing follow up questions, and that’s where it tends to break down. In the euphoria to get the word out, we can easily forget the process and method to the marketing madness.
Make it Easy as 1-2-3
You can make your next campaign as easy as 1-2-3 by working through the following – in order! Please continue to email me for thoughts and ideas about your marketing, but be prepared for me to ask you about the following:
#1 Purpose
What is the purpose of your marketing? On the surface that may seem like an easy question, but not all marketing purposes are created equal – that is not all are designed to immediately sell more product.
The purpose of your marketing can be:
– Informational focused
– A teaser to intrigue
– A sales generator
– A lead generator (not the same as a sales generator)
– Word of mouth “bait”
– A call to action
– Brand reinforcement
You need to know first and foremost what the purpose of your marketing campaign is. You can have multiple campaigns with different purposes, but you can’t have different purposes for one campaign.
#2 Message
Once you know why you are marketing. You can begin to craft the message. Ask yourself “what am I trying to say to my customers?” Your key, or central message to the customer needs to be clear, concise, and laser focused. You’re not trying to tell me what War and Peace was about, or testing your soft skills on them, you’re giving me the first sentence and letting me decide how I want to proceed. You can have multiple campaigns with different key messages, but you cannot have multiple key messages in a single campaign.
#3 Medium
Only after you know your purpose, and your key message, can you decide on the proper medium. This is where I see people go wrong most often. They start with an idea they want to use Youtube to promote their service, and then work backwards to the purpose and message. Only after you know #1 and #2 can you decide on what the best medium is to reach your customers with your message.
Think about your current marketing…did you work through the steps? If not, would your marketing efforts been more successful had you of?