Is your marketing message ready for prime time?

In this day and age it seems that everyone is enamored with social media marketing, internet marketing, websites, search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click (PPC), networking, and mobile text marketing, just to name a few.

While these tactics can be good ways to market your business, and in some cases are very cost effective, there is still the need to consider the basics.  Why?  Because the basics are the foundation of not only your marketing plan, whatever way you do it, but because they also communicate the essence of your brand.

Can you even name the marketing basics?  I call these “Marketing 101” and they include:

  • Customer Need – if you can’t define their need(s) then how can you satisfy them?  If your product does not solve a need, then it will fail.
  • Value Proposition – this is the value the customer will get from your product/service.  Put it in their words.  Do you solve their need?
  • Target Market – defined as the group of customers that have a need for your product.
  • Segmentation – within a target market there are different segments that must be identified because while they may have similar needs, the value proposition and the message about your product will likely need to be different to catch their attention.
  • Unique Selling Proposition – aka product differentiation.  What is different about your product than your competition?  Why should someone buy yours instead of theirs?  What is your hook?
  • Positioning – this refers to the way you communicate the value proposition to your target market segments.  Use the wrong words and you miss the boat.
  • Benefits/Features – Too many people talk about features and not enough about benefits.  A customer really does not care about a feature.  They care about what that feature will do for them, known as the benefit.  In other words, this product will do xxxxx (the benefit), because it has yyyyy (the feature).  Some features are self-explanatory and people know what the benefit is automatically, but with many you have to tell them.  Don’t assume they will make the connection between what the benefit is of a feature.
  • Competitive Advantage – what makes your business better able to deliver the value proposition than the next guy?  Is it sustainable or will you be copied quickly?  Is your product Better, Faster, Cheaper, Smaller?  If you can’t answer these questions then don’t expect your customers to either.
  • Buying Behaviors – what are the common behaviors of each segment?  Where/how do they buy their products?  Are you able to sell to them the way they usually buy?
  • The Whole Product – this refers to the buying experience from start to finish, as opposed to what many businesses do; just the sell the product itself and assume they are done.  If you have a great product but have made the transaction difficult, you may lose the customer for future business. You must assure that every “touch point” the customer has with you is satisfactory or better.

Once you have paid attention to these items you will be able to communicate the right message to the right group of people using the right words.  If you are not satisfied with your marketing, maybe its time to consider that its not your tactics that are the problem.

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