When I first thought of how to market my business, ideas for
how to do it were things like.. print a brochure of flier, run
an ad, send out some postcards. But I later discovered that's
actually upside down and is the last of 3 steps in an effective
marketing strategy.
Many marketing efforts fail because they don't follow the
right order of things. We often focus on the fancy glossy
brochures, and the image we project. I'm not against creating
an image, by the way, but for small business owners, image is
not the most important thing. We can leave that to giant
companies with colossal marketing budgets. They can afford to
focus countless dollars on "image-marketing."
As small business owners, our marketing budgets are often
limited. So when we implement a marketing strategy, the goal
has to be "How can I get my ideal clients to take action,
respond, get to know me and my business, and choose to do
business with me?"
Logos and fancy brochures may get you some oohs and aahs from
friends, family, business acquaintances and even prospects, but
they are rarely set up to accomplish the goal of increasing
business.
From my experience, here's the most effective order of things
for implementing your marketing actions:
1) Who: When you think of marketing your business,
the first thing to think about is the profile of the person to
whom you are targeting - your target market. Who are
they, what's their greatest need in your area of expertise, and
how do they express that need. The answers are what you put
into your marketing.
2) What: And what you put into your marketing
is the message that is specifically tailored to your
target audience. That message must resonate so strongly with
their problems that they prompted into action. Action that
makes them pick up the phone, go to your web site, etc.
3) How: The how is the tool you use to convey
the message to your market. The tool or the
media is the postcard, the flyer, the ad, etc. If you do
not first know your target market, then the message will be weak
which then makes the tool/media ineffective. Often people say
things like "postcards don't work" when the marketing process
actually failed in steps 1 and 2 above.
When you finally get to step 3 where you are choosing the
tool to reach your target market, the question to ask is
"What action do I want them to take?" And your tool (flier,
postcard, ad, etc) must lead them directly into taking that
desired action. Don't leave it up to the reader to figure it
out. Specifically say things like "Call now for ...." "Click
here to..." "Go to <web site> for..." Always end with a "call
to action."
Key Questions For You:
- How can you get so crystal clear on the profile of
your ideal client that you're able to refine your
message to their specific problem so that you can
then choose the best tool to reach them?
- What's the specific action you want your prospect to
take and how can you make that action step crystal clear
within your marketing materials?
