Government Shutdown? Your Marketing Shouldn’t!

While our elected officials argue and point fingers, is your message getting to your leads, contacts, and customers?

Unlike Congress, you need to be focused on results, not just making a lot of noise. Can you imagine not having a budget for your company, campaign, or project? You need customers and you need sales, it’s as simple as that. To do that you need your marketing to work for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week and not take extended holidays, costly vacations, or disappear for golf outings every Tuesday.

 In today’s online driven world of marketing it’s a numbers game. You need to get in front of as many potential leads as possible, make them listen, entertain them a moment, and most importantly move them to action … for you! To get those numbers, your marketing can’t work like a part time intern. You need workaholics – and I’m not talking about you personally, I’m talking about your marketing materials and content.

How? There are a lot of answers to this question, but here are a few to focus on:

 1) Know your customer/audience (or find out… fast)

2) Be where your customers are

3) Keep testing to make sure they like it

1) Know your customer/audience. Sounds easy enough, but have you taken a close look lately at who your customers really are? What keeps them up at night (besides increasing taxes, worthless government programs, and endless debates)? What do they need, and what kinds of questions are they asking to solve their problems? Some of the answers you might be able to pull from past experiences, but there could be some other info right under your nose.

 Tip: Go to Ask.com and type in a question or problem your customer typically has. You’ll see a number of questions, related questions, answers and resources all pop up. This is a great snapshot to see what people are asking, what your competition is offering, ideas for your marketing efforts, and how to tailor your message to meet your customers’ needs.

In just a few minutes you can compile some great insights into what’s most important to your customers right now! They might even be asking questions you weren’t aware of, or thought were less important. Just think of how this kind of information can help improve your company’s efforts, and not just in marketing, but in a number of areas.

2) Be where your customers are.  If a senator gives a speech and no one is there to listen, did it really happen (and did it really matter)? In political terms it’s often called a filibuster – taking up time, talking about anything or nothing, so the other person can’t speak. You… don’t have that luxury to ramble on. You have a message you need to deliver, and that message needs to reach your target audience.

So… deliver that message where your customers hang out. Again, sounds easy, but it takes a little research to be most effective. How? You need to ask. On web forms, in surveys, even in your everyday sales efforts, make sure you are asking, “How did you find us?

3) Keep testing to make sure they like it.  You’re not gonna know what your customer likes without a little testing.  And once you have that figured out, you’re going to need to continue to test.  Is what they like now the same thing that they liked 5 months ago?  Have their tastes changed?  Is that same marketing content getting stale to them?  Test, test, test…just like high school.

Let us know if you have any questions or comments concerning marketing for us here at Ydraw.  As always, we are here to help!