History is littered with the decomposing corpses of businesses that had great ideas, but failed to convince enough people that they needed the product or service they were selling. Why? Because their marketing mix was wrong. They had the product; they might even have had the price. Many will have had the place right. I suspect the majority of failed companies, however, didn't get the promotion right. They failed to tell the right audience - people who would be interested in buying their product and service - why they would want to buy it.
In a landscape that offers an increasing number of social networks with which to spread the word reaching those people ought to be easy, right? Right… and wrong! It's easy to reach large numbers of people using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest… but if your message is wrong then all you are doing is making a lot of noise without increasing your chances of turning these people in to loyal customers. According to a recent survey by eMarketer, 96 % of companies evaluate the success - or failure - of their social media marketing activities on the number of followers they have, and the number of likes their social pages receive.
Another survey by a company called Print in the Mix claims that almost two-thirds of businesses surveyed have no clear goals and objectives for their social media marketing activities. The problem is that these days social media is seen by many companies as synonymous with marketing. While it's now an essential part of a businesses marketing plan, it can't be the only channel you use. Advertising, PR, direct and e-mail marketing all still play an invaluable part in communicating with both prospects and customers - and unless there is a strategic plan, a clear message and a call to action that the target audience acts on, you are dooming your business to failure.
I read an article a few weeks ago that suggested that in the era of social media marketing was dying! Dying?! Marketing is more important than ever. The problem is that the majority of companies spend 80 percent of their time on the talking, and only 20 percent on planning what they are going to say… and that's just plain stupid.
In the coming posts I'll explain how to build a multi-channel marketing campaign for your business. How to define your market; how to fine-tune your message; how to communicate your unique sales proposition; how to find the right delivery channels and what objectives you need to set to enable you to evaluate both the success of a marketing campaign and - most importantly - it's impact on the success of your business.
For more information on how you can start to change the way you market in just 60 minutes visit www.thinkdifferently.ca, call me on +1 647.773.2677 or email lyndon@thinkdifferently.ca
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