Tag Archives: building brand awarenes

Five Steps to an Effective Marketing Plan

Plan blueprint

I’ll just start this post with some quotes I dug up:

“All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.”

Earl Nightingale (1921-1989) American Radio Announcer, Author & Speaker

“A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.
George S. Patton (1885-1945) American Army General, WWII

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”

Plato  (BC 427-BC 347) Greek philosopher.

Okay, no more famous dead people quotes but there’s nothing here that any of us don’t already know, it’s just easier said than done.  Many times we just don’t know where to begin, or if we do, we need a guide to help us along the way.  Most important though, it’s better just to get something down in writing.  By writing it down, it memorializes your thoughts and makes commitments to your goals much more definable.

So, where does one begin when putting together an effective marketing plan?

I have outlined below some very general, basic steps to follow to help you get started. Knowing that there are many very smart people out there, I prefer to use the wisdom of two authors, Roman G. Hiebing, Jr. and Scott W. Cooper from their third addition of “The Successful Marketing Plan” for reference.

Step One-Business Review

This first step is probably the most involved and perhaps the most important as this entails building the database that you will use year after year as your benchmark.  Various sources for gathering this data exist, not the least of which are your own sales records and will include analysis of your company, your competitors, your product and the marketplace respective to whom you are trying to target.  It is also important to look at the philosophy of your company, your goals and aspirations, and how you want to make a difference.  Your business plan is a great place to start but you may need to do secondary research from industry reports. Surveys and focus groups are also sometimes involved. From this research you can start to analyze your Problems and Opportunities.  Some people refer to this as the SWOT analysis (stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats).  The more information you can include here, the better.

Step Two-Marketing Objectives and Sales Objectives

No plan works without clearly defined and measurable objectives.  With the thorough understanding of your target market and its demographics and buying patterns, you articulate what it is you want this target market to do.  What action do you want your target market to take?  How will the target market use your product or service and what are their buying cycles and habits?  Once you’ve established what you want them to do (your marketing objectives) you can now quantify how these actions translate into sales and profits.  If you haven’t defined exactly what kind of sales you hope to achieve, it will be difficult to know how the plan is performing.  What kind of sales must you have to make a profit and stay in business?  What kinds of margins are you able to command?  Be as specific as possible.

Step Three-Plan Strategies and Communication Goals

Here you are defining the desired perception of your product or service within your target market relative to your competition.  This is brand positioning and helps you decide how you will communicate with the target, what awareness and attitudes will be necessary to deliver on your defined objectives.  While the marketing objectives above are specific, quantifiable and measurable, the marketing strategies explain how these objectives will be met and will guide the tactical marketing tools you establish later in your plan.

Step Four-Tactical Marketing Mix Tools

It’s not uncommon for many business owners to jump right to this step.  Do you need a new website?  Is email or social media a better way to go?  Should you buy television advertising time or use outdoor billboards?  Will ads in trade magazines build more awareness?  If you have done a good job in the previous steps, this step should almost build itself.  You will have a clearer understanding of what marketing tools to use with the information formulated above.

Step Five-Budgets, Payback Analysis & Calendar

Clearly you must know what the execution of the plan is expected to cost as well as whether your plan’s marketing programs will generate the projected revenues that will exceed expenses.  This is also the step where you establish the calendar of when certain tactical activities will take place.  It is here that you can establish those tactical activities that should bring about a faster result and therefore a quicker return on the investment versus tactical activities where the results are longer term.  This kind of prioritization will determine your calendar.  It is important to stick to this calendar and budget in order to track the plan’s overall effectiveness.

If it seems like the seventy hours per week you are already putting in simply doesn’t allow time for creating this kind of marketing plan, don’t feel alone.  It is where my passion for helping business owners took me and why I offer to help with this important business process.

Feel free to contact me if you have questions or comments.

Next time I’ll talk about your Marketing Plan Execution.

Article-Based Advertising Can Get Results

Classical booksEveryone loves the storyteller who captures our minds and tickles our desire to be entertained, to be carried away to a world that only exists in our imaginations.  It’s what makes the classics so accessible and worth reading; their creators were incredible storytellers.  I wrote a recent blog about how to use storytelling in your marketing,  but there is a recent post about a two year consumer preference survey which supports this concept of creating content on the Internet that can help build brand awareness and drive sales if written as an article or in a story-based form versus other methods of online advertising.

Jack Loechner, writing for the Center for Media Research, sites a two year study conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation whose results show that “article-based advertising was preferred by 53% of respondents who said they are ‘very likely’ or ‘somewhat likely’ to read and act upon the material, compared to 51% a year ago.”  And of the age demographic of 25 to 34, there was a 66% favorable reaction.  Even the affluent, those making in excess of $75,000 per year, showed a 60% likelihood of reading and acting upon this kind of content.  These results far outdistanced other methods of Internet advertising like pop-up ads and sponsored search.

In examining closer, we find that this two year study was sponsored by Adfusion, which is a company that writes “advertorials” for their clients that are placed in publications around the country.  These are stories that are made to appear as articles but are really brand promotions.  This could cause us to invalidate these survey results; however I believe that would be a hasty conclusion.

I am not saying that when writing a blog, article, or newsletter, that there should be a blatant self-promotion or an attempt to fool people into believing that they are reading a legitimate article when in reality it is simply brand advertising.

What I am saying is that if you provide value through the telling of a story, and your readers find it interesting, then you will likely see a positive reaction to your brand. This in turn can support the other methods of direct advertising which are a part of your overall media mix and as the survey above shows, can bring measurable results.

What are your thoughts?

An Argument for Spamming

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I recently read an article written by Todd Natenberg, who owns a company called TBN Sales Solutions.  It was in the local Kansas City newspaper in the business section but what caught my eye was the article’s title “In Defense of E-mail Spam.”  Having written a post recently about your online email reputation and how spam can all but destroy it, I naturally was very interested in what Todd had to say.

He believes that the concept of “opting-in” to receive future email solicitations is a flawed system as there are people that will opt-in who are not good candidates and there are those who do not opt-in that may very likely purchase your product in the future.  Situations change and therefore the statement of not “opting-in” now may not be valid later.  He says, “No business wants to merely send out an email. The goal is to have that email lead to action in the form of purchasing of services (or products).”  He raises a valid point that small businesses, who are the foundation of our economy, cannot afford the massive advertising expense to get the word out that they exist, and if you have “no call” lists and anti-spam laws, that you have severely hindered small businesses’ capability to market themselves.  They must have the ability to do economical email marketing.

Todd raises good points but here is where I believe his theory isn’t relevant anymore.  The traditional forms of blasting out a message to the masses, regardless of whether it is radio, TV, magazines, or …email, is rapidly losing its effectiveness.  Saying your message over and over, or louder and louder, hoping to find someone who might be interested only irritates and doesn’t promote the building of a relationship.  Seth Godin talks of this in his blog entitled “Bullhorns are Overrated,” where he says it’s probably better to find many people who choose to listen. Asking someone whether they would like to hear from you via email and how often they would like information is one of the best ways of building goodwill and lasting loyalty.  This is why the social media pilgrimage has built to such a crescendo.

One other thing I believe Todd omitted.  I don’t think we can fully comprehend the physical load on email server hardware if we were to “open the faucet” to unabated email solicitations.  The shear volume of “spam” could task these resources to their limit, forcing providers, companies, etc to make investments in additional hardware, the costs of which would ultimately be passed on to you and me as consumers.

What do you think?

How to Use Storytelling in Your Marketing Message

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Over the holidays we had relatives stay with us that live in France and as such, we don’t see them very often.  It was a relaxing time which gave ample opportunities to talk and share memorable events in our lives.  As we sipped hot tea (some of us having a nice malted beverage) and munched down fudge and party mix, the remembrances of the past came flowing out one after the other.  I was struck by how Tony related his experiences.  Every time he talked of an experience, he made the event into a story and I found myself being pulled into what had happened.  The mental images that he helped me visualize through his storytelling were so vivid that I felt I had lived the same experience.  I was captivated by the word pictures he painted and on a very emotional level, I could connect to what he felt at the time.  We laughed and enjoyed these stories well into the wee hours of the night.

We humans are a very relational species.  When other humans have an experience that is similar to one we have had, there is a bond created; an emotional connection that brings relevance and social camaraderie.  There is solidarity in our mutual experiences. Even if we do not know the other person, this solidarity enhances trust and brings forth from our subconscious memories, both remembered and forgotten, that are the foundation for the preferences and attitudes we now have.  Those very preferences and attitudes have strong effects on our buying decisions.

This is why it is imperative that you tell a story when communicating with prospective buyers, whether on the Internet, in a print ad, in a press release or even in your corporate mission statement.  You must be able to tap into that emotional connection that will take a buyer from being just interested through consideration to the decision to purchase.  And this is true whether you offer a product or service as well as whether your customers are individual consumers or other businesses.  It’s all about people relating to people.

As you know, most stories have basic building blocks:

  • A story has a plot that can be followed from beginning to end
  • A story has a hero (maybe your company, right?)
  • A story has a villain (not necessarily another person as it could be circumstances or inanimate objects that are villains)
  • A story has a problem that must be solved
  • A story has a transformational moment, when the problem is solved

In her book entitled “The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling,” Annette Simmons says there are six kinds of stories that can be used in building a brand:

  1. Origin – formation and background of the company
  2. Purpose – shows why your company is in existence
  3. Vision – where your company is going
  4. Education – so people can put your product in context
  5. Ethics – what you’re doing right
  6. Connection – with the company

So, what story can you tell about your company or product?  How can you use storytelling to make that all important emotional connection?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Leave Them Wanting More: 5 Steps to Making Sure They Come Back

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In my varied past, I spent some time on stage as a professional opera singer, a wonderful and enriching experience.  One thing I learned was that during the curtain call when there was applause (assuming you got applause), you never wanted to let the applause die down before leaving the stage.  Really it was ideal to leave when the applause reached its apex and therefore leave the audience wanting more of you.  They were never quite satisfied and probably would be talking about you for some time after leaving the show.  It’s the same reason that no matter how hard you scream for an encore, you never get to hear that one more song.

You may wonder how this relates to an effort to market and promote your business.

Let’s make sure that we’re not confusing what someone wants with what someone needs.  If you start to leave people needing more, than your product or service is not providing what is necessary to sustain the consuming experience and it is likely that you will lose that customer.  Meeting the market’s needs is fundamental to having a product or service that is worth anything at all.

What I’m emphasizing here are wants.  A fundamental rule learned in every Economics 101 course is, “Man has insatiable wants and desires.”  The statement didn’t say insatiable needs.  Every human on earth has basic needs: we need to eat, we need to work, we need adequate health care, we need shelter, we need clothing, etc. Meet the needs and you’ll be okay, but probably not hugely successful, nor will you likely be able to sustain much growth.

What is imperative is that you are able to find how you can leave your customers or clients “wanting” more.  And this really begins with their initial exposure to you, say through your website, and goes clear through the lifecycle of that consuming experience.  Seth Godin in “Embracing Lifetime Value” reiterates how important it is for you to be able to quantify the value of that lifetime experience in order to understand what resources need to go into the relationship. You can then keep them coming back for more.

So, how do you make sure that your customers or clients leave with what they need but leave definitely wanting more?

  1. Make sure your website landing page tells them exactly what they need to know, no more. I believe that it is imperative to give enough information to fulfill the promise of the ad or email that drove them to your site’s landing page, but there is no reason to go beyond that.  If they need more information, provide an easy means for them to contact you so you can enter into a direct dialog, either by phone or chat, which as most salespersons will tell you, is how you can overcome objections and secure the sale.
  2. Try to invite questions that will cause them to engage with your site, with your brand or with you by picking up the phone. The key to consumer loyalty is the ability for them to directly engage in your brand.  Many marketers profess that companies no longer really have control over their brand with the new social media tools. You may as well accept this fact and make it as easy as possible, plus it will help you learn about what your customer needs or maybe even wants.
  3. Regularly add new, relevant content to your website so people will want to come back and see what’s new. This seems so obvious but I can’t tell you how many business owners build a really nice website and then never touch it for months and months.  Not a good idea.  Fresh content will also help improve search results.
  4. Make sure you are enhancing or adding features to your product or service, something your competition isn’t. This also seems obvious but it’s easy to become somewhat complacent as you start to have some success and forget about what improvements could be made to what you offer.  Always be innovating. 
  5. Constantly tell them how much you appreciate their business. Everyone loves to be appreciated and I believe this is rapidly becoming a lost art.  Loyalty comes by making sure to say “thank you.” Reward loyalty through offers that entice them to come back.  Make it lucrative for them to refer you to their network of contacts. 

Leave them needing more and you’ll lose them.  Leave them wanting more and they’ll come back.

Let me know your thoughts.