Why businesses must get real about marketing
When it comes to marketing it’s easy to focus on the more superficial aspects as they’re easier to grasp and often deemed to be more ‘exciting’.
By superficial I mean things like:
PR just for PR’s sake – not combining it with an overall business strategy – when it’s all about vanity and being seen in certain publications recognised by your peers but not necessarily clients.
Focusing solely on the look and feel of the brand – it’s easy to get bogged down by colours, fonts, the new shiny website or brochure etc with everyone having an opinion and being a self-anointed design ‘expert’.
Not asking the real deep questions - why we’re really doing something and the benefits it will bring to our customers.
Having a shiny new website is all well and good - But if you’ve not thought about what your target audience wants (and this will evolve) and how you’re going to drive traffic to your website regularly to keep it going as a live representation of your business; it really is no more than an online version of a brochure. And a pure vanity metric.
But when it comes to the more tough questions such as brand values, purpose and implementing what you stand for across all aspects of your business operation - people aren’t quite as enthused and prefer to bury their head in the sand and disengage. This in many respects is the boring, tough stuff about marketing that too often are easily ignored or forgotten. The drive to focus on the shiny outputs is often too strong “But let’s not waste time on this let’s just make the brochure”.
Where the real impact lies for successful marketing is understanding how and why something is being done. And the likely results that will have on that business – it’s about being more strategic and not being dazzled by the bright lights and pretty pictures but focusing on the real outcomes you want to achieve.
To get real about marketing the types of things that business leaders should always have in the back of their mind are:
Who is your target audience?
Where do your target audience (customers & future customers) hang out?
What do they really need from me? How do I really help them?
What makes me special and stand out from the crowd?
Then how do I create engaging stories and ways that help me to articulate this?
These are the basic questions that will really help you to get real about marketing. The answers you find should then help you to define your plan and what you need to do now and what you need to do later. Nothing is set in stone so try stuff out, see what works and then do more of what works. Oh, and don’t forget to measure effectiveness and have fun – it's too easy to forget this part.
