Developing a marketing system
The first step in developing a marketing system is to understand the process of selling anything. There are three critical components:
You need a product or service.
You need a marketing message to communicate.
You need a delivery system.
We know that most people spend the bulk of their time on their products or services. It's what they do and they are comfortable doing it. But without a marketing message and delivery system all you are is an order taker. You hope that people will buy from you but have no organized, systematic way to bring them in.Once you are in business and have a product or service to sell, you must think about what the marketing message is that you want to communicate. Certainly you'll want to make sure propects know what the features of your product or service are, but better yet they need to know the benefits to them.Often business owners only think about what it is that they offer, not what the benefit is to the customer. Let's face it, we as customers don't really care about the features as much as what the product or service will do for us. Our benefit!Many companies may be selling the same benefit to customers. In order for your marketing message to be successful you'll need to tell the prospect why your delivery of benefit is better than the next guy's. We call that your unique selling proposition or USP.Your marketing message needs to communicate both the benefits you will provide and your USP, why you are the go to company to get this product or service.Now that you have a product or service and have developed a powerful marketing message you must have a delivery system. How will you get that great marketing message out to prospects? Here are some possible delivery systems:
Newspaper ads
Coupons
Telemarketing
Yellow pages
Direct mail
Radio promos
Website
Email campaigns
Pay per click ads
You can check out a more comprehensive list of marketing channels on my website.In this series on developing a marketing system I'll show you more on developing a marketing message and an effective delivery system. For now remember that both are vital. If you have a crummy marketing message it doesn't matter how effectively it is delivered - it just won't be effective.Likewise, the greatest marketing message in the world that is delivered poorly won't generate any results either.Can you tell me right now what your marketing message is? Is it focused on benefits and your USP? Have you tested your delivery systems to find the most effective ones?If you haven't given time to seriously developing your marketing message or testing your delivery systems, you'll want to catch the next few posts to see how. by Steven Schlagel