The 3 R’s of Marketing

When invited to be a guest blogger for my chums at Hillrich I asked; “what would you like me to blog about?”

The response was could I talk about the any number of things that companies do wrong in their marketing.

Simple enough but my concern was that in my busy weeks I meet many companies who do many things ‘wrong’ and there was a possibility of this blog turning into a book!

So I will try to summarise a handful of points that I repeatedly come across on my travels, although each one could be a blog in its own right. If you recognise ‘yourself’ or issues you are facing within any of these points then you will be able to refocus and renew your efforts with a fresh approach.

And that leads me to my first principle, what is your focus?

Whenever you start to create any piece of ‘marketing’ what are you trying to do?

I don’t mean whether you are creating an advert, or a website or a glossy brochure but what exactly are you  trying to do in regards to the individual you are aiming your messages at?

I pretty much guarantee you are only doing one of the following three – so be clear, most people are not.

Recruitment
Are you trying to recruit a new customer? If so, you may have to work very hard as this is the
difficult and expensive part of marketing, and fraught with the most disappointment.

When you are putting your recruitment messages together then bear in mind that your new audience may have no idea who you are so part of your message may need to be focused on educating your prospect as well as introducing your business, product, service or brand. So in effect, a big chunk of your message and therefore your budget will actually be spent on creating awareness and not necessarily enquiries or sales.

Retention
Is the marketing communication piece you are creating there to help you retain valuable customers? If so, these messages will differ to those of recruitment. You need to spend less time educating and introducing and should look to reassure.

Remind your customer of the great choice they made in choosing to deal with you in the first place. You can reinforce your point of difference and introduce new offers, products or services. You can spend time building a relationship and entering into a dialogue with your customer tailoring your offer to their needs.

Reactivation
Every business has dormant or simply ‘old’ customers; you have probably dealt with more customers in the past than you are currently dealing with. This is a gold mine. So when you are writing your next marketing message why not aim it specifically at your dormant customers? You do not have to introduce yourself, you do not have to educate you simply have to remind them you had a relationship and why they made a great choice.

It is an ideal opportunity to introduce any new products or services which may act as a catalyst to re-ignite the relationship… and this is so much more cost effective than recruiting new customers.

“I will make him an offer he can’t refuse”
A great line from The Godfather, but also a great tip in marketing. Once you are in front of your prospect then you have to make an offer. You have to be aware that the thing that interests everyone more than anything else in the world is….themselves. Not you, your product or your service, not your latest recruit, your new office, your newest clever gizmo.

Everyone is looking at your marketing messages and thinking ‘What’s in it for me?’ (WIIFM)

Benefits
So if you know everyone is thinking WIIFM then you had better have some benefits in your messages. How is your product or service going to benefit your customer? The common mistake here, especially if you are a business of ‘specialists’ and you let ‘in-house’ people write the copy for your ads, brochure or website, is that you may end up with feature heavy copy and not benefit led copy.

I have little interest in the grinding speed and capacity of my coffee machine but I like the fact it is quick, elegant, easy to use and produces a consistent quality of taste – for example.

What do you want me to do?
Finally make sure that when you sit down to create your marketing masterpiece you have a clear focus on what you want the recipient to actually do.

What is your ‘call to action’ (CTA)? Do you want the person to make an enquiry, by phone, fax, email?

Do you want to drive them to a website for more information, to request ‘a pack’, to make an appointment or to make a purchase?

Give people a clear and strong CTA or all your efforts (and cash) will be wasted.

Good Luck

Carl Hopkins
ch (at) kloog (dot) ch
(excerpts from the three R’s of marketing)

Carl Hopkins is managing director of kloog business development. www.kloog.ch

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