The most successful -- and effective -- marketing campaigns have a few basic characteristics in common. See how your marketing matches up...
Looking to improve your marketing efforts? No matter what marketing weapons you choose to use to promote your business, products, or service, the most effective marketing campaigns all have common characteristics.... PROFITABILITY
The best marketing campaigns sell your product/service... at a profit! These campaigns always make more money than they cost and always motivate people to buy what you're offering.
LONGEVITY
Effective marketing is marketing with staying power. It can be used for months, weeks, and years. It maintains its selling power and appeal over long periods.
ATTITUDE
Great marketing stands out from the mass of other messages by showcasing attitude: That of your company, your product,your customers.
SUBSTANTIVE
Power marketing puts substance ahead of style, emphasizing the real benefits of your goods or services without having to rely on chicanery, obfuscation, or gimmickry.
CUSTOMER-FOCUSED
Marketing that works is marketing that connects with the customer and focuses on their needs and interests, not the advertiser's. It engages them by talking to them, instead of about you.
SOLUTION-ORIENTED
To that end, effective marketing helps consumers understand how their problems or issues can be solved using your services. As Jay Conrad Levinson says, "People don't care about marketing." They care about their lives, not your business.
PERMISSION-BASED
Again: people aren't interested in marketing. This is particularly true as the number of marketing messages we are exposed to increases exponentially. Interruption-based marketing (e.g., "pop-up" browser screens, SPAM) is NOT effective in the long run. Modern-day marketing involves getting customers' consent to market to them. It emphasizes creating a relationship with consumers.
TAILORED
The best marketing recognizes the different strengths of various medium (t.v., radio, internet, magazines, etc.) and is specifically crafted for delivery VIA those medium.
CLEAR
Great marketing is clear, concise, and easy to understand.
IMAGINATION
The most effective marketing shows flare and imagination but always with the goal showcasing your product and getting people to buy.
Use this short list as a guide to evaluating your new marketing programs, especially if they seem not to be effective... Look to see if there's a characteristic that's missing or needs to be enhanced. Doing so could be just the thing to make your marketing stand out and sell!
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Jim Allen, The Big Idea Coach™, is a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach who helps small businesses creative effective low- and no-cost marketing plans. For more info & a FREE newsletter, visit: http://www.SmallBusinessMarketingCoach.com
About the Author
Jim Allen, the Big Idea Coach, helps you make your small ideas big & your big ideas real. For more ideas, subscribe to his bi-weekly ezine, THE BIG IDEA, by sending a blank email to: mailto:bigidea@add.mb00.net