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Ten ways to make your marketing work

Successful businesses know it isn’t enough to have a great product or service at competitive prices. True success depends on marketing: letting your customers and prospects know who you are and what you can do for them.

Marketing isn’t advertising, and it isn’t sales. Advertising is a part of marketing; sales are the result. At its most basic, marketing is communicating, and the companies that do it best emerge as leaders in their fields.

Here are 10 ways to make your marketing set you apart:

1. Vary your approaches. Some people are readers, others are more visually oriented. Some people appreciate printed material they can carry with them or file away for future reference; others prefer online communications they can read quickly and save without bulk. Your marketing should include something for everyone: printed materials, online publications, advertising, personal presentations — all are effective components of a good marketing program.

2. Maintain your branding. Too often, marketing campaigns suffer from a lack of cohesion. The salespeople develop a brochure, the president’s assistant designs PowerPoint presentations for speeches, and someone in human resources puts together a newsletter. A centralized marketing team can make sure the message and the branding are consistent across the organization, which increases recognition and credibility.

3. Don’t stop. Marketing isn’t a one-time operation. You should be in touch with customers and prospects every 90 days in one way or another: mass mailings, blast e-mails, sales calls, phone calls, presentations to groups, newsletters, advertising, seminars…they all add up to keeping your company top of mind with the people who count.

4. Say thank you. When your marketing leads to sales, show your appreciation. Small notes, personalized letters, discount offers, preferred customer benefits or appreciation lunches all are ways to say thank you. Use them often, both for long-term customers and new business — but make sure your thank-you efforts are consistent with your overall branding and message.

5. Know when you’re marketing. Every person in your company is marketing all the time. Every time someone answers a phone or hands out a business card or responds to an e-mail, it’s marketing. It’s worth your time to teach them what and how to sell.

6. Use your collateral. Too often, marketing brochures and flyers are used only for their original purposes. Boost your marketing power by thinking like a bank: Enclose a brochure or flyer or even a business card in every piece of mail you send.

7. Use news. It takes a great deal more time and effort to attract a new client than it does to expand your business with your existing customers. Create an external newsletter to highlight additional services and products that may interest your current customers, and an internal newsletter to reinforce your corporate message and build loyalty with your employees. Send them as both print and e-mail publications to increase readership.

8. Dual-purpose your efforts. If you have an ad that’s been effective in a trade magazine, use it on a post card. Consider turning a brochure cover into an ad. Think about how to use print collateral online — as a website banner, or a small signature file on your e-mail, perhaps. Just be careful not to slow the online page-loading process with huge pdf or jpg files.

9. Measure for success. If you can’t tell which of your efforts prompts the greatest returns, you are at risk of Einstein’s definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Develop measures for your marketing, such as online programs that track visits to your website or readership on your e-mail campaigns. Periodically survey newsletter readers to see what captures their attention, and ask customers how they learned of your company or product.

10. Consult a professional. Marketing campaigns take a great deal of time and expertise. If one outside agency coordinates all the components, you’ll send stronger, more cohesive, targeted messages that can improve responses. You’ll also have more creative resources to help carry your branding to different demographics in ways they all appreciate.

For more information about how The Simons Group can help your organization with print and electronic marketing projects, contact Lee Zoldan at lzoldan@thesimonsgroup.com.