Marketing is so often defined as “getting your name out there,” that many (even savvy) business owners invest time and money and energy into indiscriminate “awareness” activities.
A dentist re-doing the smile of a pageant winner;
An insurance agent buying a billboard;
An interior designer wrapping their car in branded logos;
An attorney hiring someone to “do” their social media;
A health coach paying content farms to produce regurgitated, bland and taste-like-vomit-twiced-wa rmed-over content for their blog.
None of these things are bad, NECESSARILY.
Some I even suggest to members; and a couple I have proven to be QUITE profitable.
PROVEN meaning, I measured it.
I tracked where leads came from, and whether or not these leads turned into MONEY.
PROVEN as in TRACKABLE and FACTUAL.
However, there MUST be some well-choreographed STRATEGY behind ANY marketing endeavor. STRATEGY is what gives muscle and MONEY producing power to marketing and it is a LACK of STRATEGY that leaves your marketing feeling as impotent — and as frustrated — as a 94-year old man with a free hall pass in the Playboy Mansion.
Not fun for ANYONE. =)
To create a MARKETING effort with MUSCLE, you must IMMEDIATELY abandon ANY thought that marketing is about getting your name out there.
MARKETING ISN’T ABOUT AWARENESS,
IT IS ABOUT ACTION.
So you MUST define (in detail) what you are HOPING will happen… what SHOULD happen after your marketing endeavor goes live. Effective marketing is NOT about awareness, it is about ACTION. What SHOULD that beauty queen DO after you brighten her smile? Should she blog about it? Should she do a before and after to be included in your materials? Should she post about it on her Instagram account with a LINK to your site? And how many times should she post EXACTLY?
What are you hoping will be ACCOMPLISHED as a result of your billboard? Do you hope people will call your office for an appointment? Well, you’d better GIVE THEM A REASON to do exactly that… on the billboard itself. None of this “join other happy drivers in NC” B.S.
So, you define the action you WANT people to take.
You REVERSE engineer that action,
and then you make sure your marketing ASKS for that EXACT action.
Keep it direct.
Keep it simple.
Keep it ACTION-BASED.
Do you want to keep a CONSTANT EYE on your own marketing, your own branding, your own sales funnels, your own MINDSET towards business growth? Join Women Who WOW… an online alliance of seriously driven women entrepreneurs. Message me privately to learn more.
