Remember that saying in the movie Field of Dreams, and I’m paraphrasing here, “If you build it, they will come.”? It was actually, “If you build it, he will come.” Well, you get my drift, don’t you? If you have a great idea, and then invent a fabulous product or service, do customers automatically purchase? I’ve worked with a lot of clients these past few years, who think if they have a great product, everyone will want it. But, here’s the catch. They don’t understand the value or purpose of marketing, branding and public relations. If no one knows about you, your company, your product, or your service, how will they even know you even exist? Here’s a short primer on why you should develop a marketing strategy before you even develop a prototype.
Marketing Informs Your Potential Customers
Marketing educates your current customers and prospects about your company, products, and services. Your target market needs to have a cohesive understanding of how your product works and what differentiates it from your competitors. In other words, marketing is a way to communicate your value proposition.
It Makes the Sales Process Easier
I know we all like to keep Marketing and Sales separate but equal; however, Marketing can actually make the sales process easier for your sales force. First of all, it brings in leads for the sales organization. Second of all, it qualifies those leads so the sales organization doesn’t have to go through that process. Third, the feedback loop from the sales people back to the Marketing department helps them to target future promotions. So, in essence, Sales and Marketing are actually a synergistic system.
Marketing Grows Your Business
Without marketing, which includes advertising, public relations, and branding, you would not be able to grow your business. Having a finite amount of customers wouldn’t do anything to grow the revenue of your company. Your customers will only reorder so many times. So, marketing is a way to increase your outreach to other prospects and convert them to customers. With marketing, you can reach other target markets and even other industries if that fits in with your company strategy.
Build a Powerful Brand
Marketing keeps your company reputation intact. Having a sound marketing strategy helps you build your brand name and that is important for increasing sales and expanding your business. You will be building trust, as well. The more you expose your company values to your audience, the more they will trust you. But you have to earn that trust with high-quality products and great customer services, as well.
Develop Social Assets
No matter what your business sells, you will want to develop social assets like building a great opt-in email list or developing a following on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Give your audience a way to connect with you and a way for you to connect with your audience. Whether your database is located in a CRM or an Excel spreadsheet, start building your social assets today and you’ll be surprised how powerful a list you’ll have in a short time.
Understand Your Marketplace
The use of market research allows you to understand how your audience thinks, how they use your technology, and what their specific likes and dislikes are. This feedback will be beneficial not only to future product development but will also help you align your direct communication efforts. This will also help you to segment that database you have so that you can truly do one-to-one marketing and customize what each customer or prospect receives from you. No use in flooding the airwaves with information that people aren’t interested in. Understanding your marketplace and your customers will allow you to understand what drives them to your website and your content.
Develop an Ideal Customer Persona
I know the last few blog articles I’ve harped about developing a customer profile or persona, but it is very, very important that you truly, truly know your customers. As I previously mentioned, look at other characteristics other than the typical age, income, location demographics. Find out their hobbies and interests. Again, this will help you with your communication efforts. Keeping your ideal customer persona in mind with every marketing tactic that you execute will keep you on top of your game. It is so easy these days to use polls and surveys to gather intel about your customers.
One way to promote your company is through effective public relations. Need some tips on how to write an effective press release? Download my white paper for more information on this topic.
To your marketing success,
Sheila
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