Building your marketing machine

Your success is largely dependent upon the success of your marketing. And while marketing can be difficult or intimidating, it can also be a lot of fun, creative and energizing. The steps outlined in this post are designed to help you get the ball rolling and the ideas flowing.

Step 1: Understand your audience
To sell, you need to understand your customers. Start with a tight definition of the customer – who, where, how many. Then walk a mile in their shoes to try to understand their attitudes, needs, and wants. The more clarity you can bring to this process, the more successful you will be. The following two examples show two different definitions for the same service – a deli located near a college campus:

• Definition 1: College students
• Definition 2: Under-grad and grad students attending State University; Aged 21-24 (21+ drinking age); typically live off campus in local apartment complexes. Active fans of the university sports teams… etc, etc. etc.

Why define in this detail? Because it will be easier to identify your customer’s problems and to create solutions to meet their problems.

3rd party data and research is extremely helpful during this exercise. Great data can be found through business organizations, research companies or on the web. Just make sure to weigh the data carefully and it is usually a smart idea to find multiple sources of data to support any assertion you make.

Step 2: Identify their problem
Once you have a good definition and understanding of your target audience, then you can start to think about what problems they face every day and how your products or services can help them. Using the deli example above, you may identify problems such as:

• Lack of available food options for late night cramming during mid-term and finals
• Local games are not shown on local TV if there is not a sell-out
• Money is tight for college students
• Etc.

With the target customer’s problems in mind, you can create a smart marketing plan that will capture their attention and hopefully get them converted to a customer.

Step 3: State your solution
All things being equal, customers are usually focused on their needs, not your product. Communicating with the customer in their terms will help them quickly understand how your product or service fits into their life. If you simply state what the service or product is, then you are putting the burden on the customer to figure out if they want to buy from you. Continuing with the deli example:

• Example 1: “College Street Deli offers fresh sandwiches, salads and cold drinks.”
• Example 2: “You study. We cook. College Street Deli is open all night during finals week and this week offers free delivery of any of our fresh sandwiches 24 hours a day.”

Example 1 describes the service while example 2 provides a solution. For the cash-strapped, time-starved, tired student, which message is going to resonate more? The solution sells.

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These steps are the foundation of a good plan and will lead you to discussions about where to advertise, who to partner with, how to change your offering, etc.

And if you make the process fun, update your assumptions frequently, realize you are going to get some things wrong, and expect that things are going to change, you are going to build a powerful marketing machine that will ensure your ongoing growth and success.