Simple Marketing Principles No.2 – Know what you want
15 December 2011
Imagine this. You’re off to do some Christmas shopping. But you have no list of people you need to buy for and you haven’t thought about what you want to buy them or when you’ll see them to give them their present.
Guess what’s likely to happen? The chances are you forget at least one person, get something that you decide later isn’t really what your aunt wants and you probably spend a lot longer wandering around shops that don’t have any inspiration… Plus you haven’t arranged to see them, so it’s an expensive last minute dash before Christmas to get to the post office and get it delivered on time.
If you’re like me and you’re not the biggest fan of shopping – especially in crowds – this might be your worst nightmare.
And marketing can be the same.
Now imagine you’re putting together an idea for a campaign. Don’t get confused by the term campaign – anything you do is a campaign! Whether it’s blogging, tweeting, advertising… or something much more complex and wide reaching.
So, for example, this is a leaflet campaign. Imagine you know who and where your customers are (your list of gift receivers) and you know what they want (what presents to buy them) and, even better, you know how you’re going to get that leaflet to exactly the right people in plenty of time (no need for expensive post office deliveries).
By knowing the who’s and the where’s and the when’s, you can also start to know how many leaflets you need to deliver in order to get the number of enquiries you want. You can even start to tell your customers exactly what you want them to do… for example, visit you, call you or email you.
As soon as you know what you want, and for that matter what your customers want, things become so much easier. You can put together a plan, arrange things in plenty of time and get a good deal on anything like printing or delivery.
If you don’t have a plan things can become very chaotic and the results you can expect drop dramatically. Not because you’re necessarily doing anything wrong as such, just because things don’t go quite right…
Our big tip? Know what you want and how to get the result you want in everything you do.
Now. Where’s my Christmas list?
