Look around the Internet for any period of time and you will find an article that tells you exactly what you and your marketing need to do. While this is a post about marketing, I don’t want to talk about what you need to do because I really don’t know what you need to do without understanding what you are trying to achieve.
That’s the question that should be driving your marketing?
What?
What do I want my clients and prospects to know?
What do I want prospective clients to do?
What is the right way to talk to these people?
What is the right way to reach these people?
Without answering those kinds of questions, need never comes into the equation because you are likely wasting time and money on things that will be ineffective.
So, how do you define what you want to achieve from your marketing?
1. It begins with you:
No matter what you are selling to your audience, the starting point is always with you.
What are you trying to deliver?
What is the value you are trying to create for your clients?
Its pretty simple, but you need to know the real, tangible value that you create for your clients or you are going to come off as flat and lifeless and just more of the same.
2. Who is the person you need to speak with?
Your audience isn’t everyone.
Even brands that are mass market in their nature aren’t reaching for and trying to talk to everyone.
That’s just impossible and it is the quickest way to fail miserably.
Why?
Because when everyone is your client, no one is your client.
So get with the understanding of who your client is.
What level are they in the organization?
What kinds of challenges are they dealing with?
Do they have a budget for these things?
Is it a special purchase?
3. What will success look like?
In understanding what you want your marketing to do for you, it is important for you to understand what success will look like.
If you design a marketing plan and campaign and you need 1,000 people to come into your funnel and you only get 6, that’s a failure.
But if you only need 8 people to come out of the other side of your marketing activities, and you get 8…that’s successful, but the person that is saying you need 1,000 is going to be going nuts.
So make sure you can identify what success looks like:
Is it sales?
Is it meetings?
Is it new newsletter subscriptions?
Whatever is meaningful, make sure you measure!
These are only 3 ways that you can identify and direct your marketing…let me know how they work for you.