5 tips for successful marketing #1-5 Marketing Tips

5-marketing-tips

 marketing tips

5 tips for successful marketing

Marketing Tips 1-5

Please find below, marketing tips 1-5 in our series for successful marketing, plus an expanded description for each in the blog post below.

  1. Think deeply about who you are, what you do, your target audience and your competition, this should set the tone for all creative and marketing outputs from here on in.
  2. Don’t go to market without developing your brand, positioning and ID thoroughly.
  3. What has worked best for you in past could work for you in the future, plan your strategy now, not when you need it.
  4. Be sure you make a plan, stick to it, update it and make a note of what works and what doesn’t.
  5. What do your customers actually ‘want’ from you? Analyse deeply, what do you ‘really’ look like?
marketing tips 1
Marketing Tip 1

Marketing Tips 1

Think deeply about who you are, what you do, your target audience and your competition, this should set the tone for all creative and marketing outputs from here on in.

Who are you, no really, who is your company? Who are the employees, what do you stand for and why? Is it value, is it expertise, style or cool. What are the pillars that underline your company and how do you operate? Why does this matter? Well it matters because you are unique, your business is different to anyone else’s and as such your marketing should shout this from the rooftops, ‘we are different to everyone else!’ Your USP is your ally, use it. You don’t want to look like the competition, another ‘me too!’. You need to establish what your real values are before you can provide any marketing. Who are your customers, who would be your ideal customer? Again, nothing goes out until you are sure of it all and more.

marketing tips 2
Marketing Tip 2

Marketing Tips 2

Don’t go to market without developing your brand, positioning and ID thoroughly.

Like number one, we should take all this fantastic in depth understanding of your business and develop a brand to fully represent it. All this beautiful, unique information about your business is invaluable and you can use it to discover your true position in the market place. Once you understand who you are and what you do, it feeds the development of how you are seen by your customers commercially and visually. It should represent the value you put on your product or service, your tone of voice, it should be effective and appeal to your target audience. Your difference will provide a memory, it will define you.

marketing tips 3
Marketing Tip 3

Marketing Tips 3

What has worked best for you in past could work for you in the future, furthermore, plan your strategy now, not when you need it.

The most important part of this tip is the timing. I’m not just talking about more complex tactical strategies, I am talking about a more basic perspective. Don’t wait for the quiet times, don’t be satisfied with what you have got. Plan for it now, don’t wait for the recession. Maybe you know when the quiet times will come, diversify, consider them early on and don’t keep making the same old mistakes, look back to look forward.

marketing tips 4
Marketing Tip 4

Marketing Tips 4

Be sure you make a plan, stick to it, update it and make a note of what works and what doesn’t.

I know this sounds a little like tip 3 but I believe it requires some more detailed analysis. Its about being consistent but remaining flexible and open to change. When you have developed this well thought out plan, don’t just stop if it doesn’t work, keep going, it may be a question of campaign length for it to work i.e. one newspaper ad may not get you anywhere, a six-month campaign will bring much better results.

Alternatively

You may need to develop the strategy, continue to update the plan, tweak the outputs and your proposition. Everything we do in life usually involves an update and I don’t just mean the apps on your smartphone, although this is a pretty good example. Most software application business’ have a team of people continually improving the functionality of its product. It might mean smoothing the edge of a button or providing a different outcome for a certain logical process, but the development plan is the same as in marketing. Most of all, its goal is to appeal to and delight more and more users based on the target market. Like in marketing its designed to work, but it can always work a little better. Better marketing means better clients.

Continue to update and develop the marketing output to achieve the desired results. Stick to this plan going forward and update it constantly to move one step closer to your goal. Refine your sales, lose the customers you don’t want and keep the kind of clients you value most. Improve your ‘value proposition’ to potential customers and get the ones you want. Your marketing can do this for you, if you stick to, analyse and update your plan.

marketing tips 5
Marketing Tip 5

Marketing Tips 5

What do your customers actually ‘want’ from you. Analyse deeply, what do you ‘really’ look like?

Improve your credibility, your customer, your visibility. A potential customer will judge you harshly and it will only take them a few seconds to do so. Your window of opportunity is short and so this is the reason why I recommend you take your marketing seriously. You hold the answers and you are great at what you do, but are you really a marketing professional? If you are honest with yourself and believe me, you must be brutally honest, you will get results.

If you are serious about your business, you should be able to ask yourself some really challenging questions. For example, is your business card rubbish? Do you look too cheap? Is your website old fashioned, does it look a bit dated? is the logo a slightly different style in several different examples of your marketing? does your business look like it has any credibility?

BE HONEST. Your business is your livelihood, why would you not take it seriously right?

BE HONEST with yourself, don’t ask friends and family, they are more likely to tell you how great you are!

Find a real marketing professional or agency who will challenge you, but don’t be offended. They won’t hold any emotional attachment, they will view you impartially, just like a potential customer or client. Just because Sarah in accounts is great at adding lovely visual filters to her holiday snaps, does not mean she can run your marketing. So many small businesses make this mistake, indeed external agencies can refresh what can usually bog down internal marketing departments.

Your customers can discount your offering in a millisecond and will judge you instantly. They are fickle, they are dazzled, they need reassurance and they will judge a book by its cover. Your marketing isn’t just informational, it should be transformational. Make sure your cover is good and make sure you can live up to it or else you will ultimately fail. So unless you are incredibly fortunate, make your own luck.

Analyse your business in depth either at the beginning or during a business refresh, or what we call in the trade, re-positioning your business. It will help you to understand your brand, positioning and business identity. Ultimately it will define the image you can live up to, keep it consistent in your marketing and honest in your approach. Your customers will look to you for honest answers. The truth is in you, you just need to know where and how to apply it.

Your Call to ‘Marketing Action’

If you want to discuss your business marketing in more detail why not call us here @ The Marketing People on 01543 495752 and ask Richard about our free ‘business focus’ consultation. Alternatively email richard.brooks@themarketingpeople.com

Challenge yourself, challenge your business, create more opportunities to sell.