Marketing is about results. Key to achieving results is your ability to be adaptive and forward-thinking — involved in a process that lets you evolve your marketing campaign as new information enters the picture.
People who achieve great results from their promotional efforts understand the marketing process. You’ll often notice they have high levels of energy and a ceaseless flow of great ideas. Indeed, it would appear they have the ability to create “marketing magic.”
If you want to tap into this magic, you must immerse yourself in the marketing process. When you are enthusiastically involved in reaching your marketing goal, you are better able to draw upon resources and techniques which will produce high-powered results.
Here are seven dynamic ways to create your own marketing magic:
1. Keep Your Business In Your Back Pocket
Nearly every act you perform, every word you utter, holds the opportunity to promote your business. It can be subtle and nearly invisible, or overt and commanding, but it never stops and it happens every day.
Every thought you have, every action you perform, has a reaction at some other time and in some other place. The degree to which you consciously think about promoting your business determines your ability to spot opportunities whenever they come and wherever they are.
Keep your business in your “back pocket” at all times. Promote everyday and in all circumstances.
2. Test to Achieve Your Desired Results
You must be able to measure the results of your marketing efforts. Unless you have a way of identifying results you can never fully utilize the power of a dollar. Measuring results allows you to make comparisons among advertising models and make adjustments as needed.
3. Focus on Investment Returns
You must focus on getting the most for your advertising dollar. The real cost of advertising is measured by the return on your investment, not the cost of obtaining the ad. Be willing to spend more up front to make more at the other end.
In less obvious ways, this principle is just as valid when dealing with people or events that seem to have no immediate bearing on your business. These are investments of your time. Use discretion since time is a precious and limited commodity. Yet, never forget that businesses are often born and millions are made when time was the only initial investment.
4. Be An Insider
You need to be active within your industry. Stay in touch with current trends, follow the activities of your competitors, and talk with like-minded people. Be on the cutting edge by constantly expanding your network of contacts. You’ll discover you can then tap into your market more easily and target your promotional efforts with greater success.
5. Know Your Customers
Understand who your customers are, where they congregate, what they need, why they need it… in short, get inside their skin. When you know your customers you can hit their “what’s in it for me?” buttons. Offer them more than they need – both before and after the sale – and your efforts will pay off.
6. Give People Benefits
Realize that when people become interested in something they have a voracious appetite for information. If they’ve made an impulse decision to buy, they want information to justify that decision. If they haven’t decided to buy, they need information before pulling out their credit card. Either way, you must come through to secure the sale.
Seek to inform people rather than sell to them. Inform them in ways that show what they will gain. Give them enough to feel empowered as an informed buyer.
7. Use the Power of Words
Words are magic when their power is understood. In the hands of a skilled marketer words are crafted to create a sense of need and urgency in people.
Words arouse emotions. Used right they can conjure up vivid and seductive mental imagery. Words can inspire the trust of a spy or satisfy the logic of a mathematician. Words can motivate people to act on unfulfilled needs and desires. Use words to induce emotional responses in people and you will achieve your marketing objectives.
Rudyard Kipling called words a powerful drug. Use language to your advantage and seize the power of this drug.
These seven strategies are very powerful for the dynamic marketer. Set your sights on a desired outcome, throw in a little enthusiasm, and you’ve got a formula that’s nothing less than magic.
Brett Krkosska provides how-to advice on family and home-based work issues. Get start-up guidance, business ideas and inspiration at http://www.HomeBizTools.com. Become a subscriber for a fresh and original perspective on today’s business issues: enews@homebiztools.com
