This article has been bouncing around in my head for a little while.
Mostly because I haven’t found time to tell you about the meeting I went to where my client was surprised when I said, "No, I am not a marketing guru."
I have been working in sales and marketing for more than 20 years
and enjoyed considerable success in my work as a marketer, but I do not claim
to be an expert or guru - I'm still learning new things every day. Then again, how could anyone credibly claim to be an
expert when you take a look at the diagram below?
The marketing communications channels shown in the diagram do not represent a
complete picture by any manner of means – if I had put everything down, the
diagram would have become so complex that it would have been almost impossible
to understand.
In the old days, Marketing was much more straightforward with only a
few ways to communicate with the market. Now we count more than 60 ways to
engage with your market and thousands of individual branded variations in the
mix.
So the question is, how do you get your message in front of your target decision makers and noticed?
So the question is, how do you get your message in front of your target decision makers and noticed?
This is where a lot of CEOs, accountants and technicians from
medical types to IT entrepreneurs that I’ve met over the years haven’t quite
realized yet that it is no longer just about a bit of PR and advertising with a
bit of social media chucked in on the side. Its much more complex these days.
In today’s fast moving, connected marketplace, the sheer number of
channels available makes it almost impossible to be an expert in all of them,
especially some of the more arcane ones.
Setting aside things like the message, its quality, its focus and so forth, these days our experience shows that a key part of success lies
in identifying which of the many communications channels is relevant to your
market.
For example, there is absolutely no point in investing a fortune in marketing
on Facebook if your target market doesn’t use Facebook as a way of finding out
about the kind of products and services you sell. That would be a bit like
trying to sell premium beef burgers to vegetarians.
This is something we recommend strongly that you do as part of the
development of your relationship with you market - not the selling beef burgers bit. We mean finding out how your target
decision makers look for information on the kind of products you sell and
concentrate on those channels because they are where you are most likely to get
the best return for your marketing buck.
If you do, take the time to do this, experience shows that you
increase the chance of your campaigns being successful and generating the
demand your business needs - at least a 50 better chance in our experience.
As for the client I mentioned at the beginning? Well their team is doing well communicating across just 4 channels and generating a much greater volume of enquiries than they had been before using more than 10 channels.
As for the client I mentioned at the beginning? Well their team is doing well communicating across just 4 channels and generating a much greater volume of enquiries than they had been before using more than 10 channels.
As always we're happy to answer any questions you might have and it would be great to hear your views.
Author - Tim Sandford
(Bye the bye. I'm working with the design guys to publish the full channels diagram, if you'd like a copy get in touch and we'll send you one when its published in a couple of weeks)
