Your questions answered (4 of 4)

by Mark Nagurski, August 1st, 2008

Over the last few days we’ve been looking at how reader Stefan can create a marketing plan for his new business, based on three simple questions about (1) the target market, (2) the marketing message and (3) choosing the best marketing methods.

Today a quick and useful summary of take away points, from those three articles, for you to use.

Your Target Market – know who you’re serving and be fanatical about serving them

a. It’s more effective to start with your target market in mind and create (or at least tweak) a product / service for them rather than the other way around. It’s hard work to change the customer.
b. People tend to do things for a reason – to fix a problem, fill a need or simply find a better way of doing things.
c. Your biggest competitor is not likely to be another company but rather the ‘status quo’ – which may include doing nothing.
d. Create a detailed persona of your ideal customer – include demographic data and ‘day in the life’ info to develop a rounded image of to whom you are marketing. Give the persona a name and create more for other customer types.
e. ‘Everybody’ is not a market – the more tightly you define your market the better you can speak to it.
f. Don’t make assumptions – do your market research.

Your marketing message – get a strong message and stick to it, be defined by it

a. Your message is more than what goes in your ads – it should permeate everything about your business AND be consistent throughout
b. It should:
i. Speak directly to your target market (think of the persona you created)
ii. Answer their needs (what is the customer’s biggest pain, how can you solve it?)
iii. Be unique (if someone else can say it too, then it’s not unique)
c. If it doesn’t match up on one of these fronts, refine it until it does
d. With a good guiding principle in place, use it to create detailed taglines, website content, press releases or anything else you might need. Working from one concept will help keep it all consistent

Your marketing methods – results are key, be logical and test everything

a. The most important factor is return on investment
b. Assess your options based on the info gained from the steps above:
i. How well does this method target my market?
ii. How well can I communicate my message? (And is this method in line with my image?)
c. The final consideration is price, how easy will it be to break even?
d. If things are free, consider how much time is involved.
e. Choose a few marketing methods to test alongside each other. You’re looking for a ‘mix’ of methods not to put all your eggs in one basket.

Going forward

a. Test small, track the results, make changes and keep testing.
b. Don’t fall into the trap of ‘stop-start’ marketing – keep going even if you have enough business right now. Things may change and momentum is hard to get back once lost.
c. Keep up to date with new ideas – assess them and test them as they come to the fore.

Marketing doesn’t have to be complicated but it certainly needs a lot more thought than simply sticking an ad in the paper.

Thanks again to Stefan for his question and if you have a marketing question that you’d like to see answered, feel free to send it through to mark [at] reallypractical.com