I'm on a mission to broaden your marketing horizons! (2)

Earlier, I noted that most people – businesses and consumers alike – perceive marketing to be about selling products and services through promotional activities, particularly digital marketing and social media marketing.

When I talked about ‘strategic marketing’, they interpreted it as ‘defining your ideal client’ and/or ‘developing social media plans’.

Why has marketing become so myopic?

I've three possible answers to this:

• Firstly, digital marketing and social media are very visible and can have an immediate impact. We all get a buzz when a post goes viral and I’m sure many of us can’t stop ourselves from regularly checking how many likes or comments we get.
• It’s also very accessible – 'anyone' can write a blog or post on LinkedIn or Instagram and start to get some sort of following. It might not be as good as using a professional agency or freelancer but it’s accessible. Yet few business owners would attempt to create an advert for a magazine.
• And finally, strategic marketing planning sounds difficult, boring, and time-consuming. It doesn't give immediate results. While it builds the foundations of everything else we do, often we can get away without doing it for quite a while without obvious detriment.

I regularly see businesses of all sizes use a scattergun approach to social marketing – hoping something will stick or resonate with someone out there with little regard to who their target audience is and why their product/service will be of use to them.

So please, I beg you, broaden your marketing horizons.

When you do your next campaign or plan your next product launch, step back and see the whole perspective of marketing. Start with the following simple questions to check you’re on track:

• Whom are you targeting? Why?
• What problem are you solving for them? Or, what added value are you offering them?
• Is your target market big enough to be worthwhile focusing on?
• Is the offer of value to your customer and to yourself? (Does it make sense financially?)
• Are all the other elements of the marketing mix lined up?
• Why should they buy from you and not someone else? (tip- don’t beat yourself up too much about this – most businesses do not have a completely innovative and new-to-market product!)
• How does this launch/campaign fit in with your business objectives?
• If it doesn’t – should you be doing it? Or, should you update your business objectives?
• Get some objective feedback
• Most of us work in a silo. Find a trusted supporter who understands your business & genuinely wants to see you succeed but isn’t afraid to tell it how it is.
• How will you measure your success?

My mission is to help your business succeed through accessing the full power of marketing – to develop strategy and open that big box of marketing tools that are lying unused and start to see exponential results. That's what makes me happy!

If you would like to find out more about how your business or organisation would benefit from a more strategic approach to marketing, please message me or email june@mtperspectives.com to arrange a free 45 minute discussion.