The four line marketing strategy that guarantees success
Sales and marketing are intrinsically linked but they are of course two very different things. If sales is about “doing the deal” and marketing, put simply, is “telling the story”. I am going to reveal a guaranteed way to get the most from your marketing spend and increase sales at the same time. Here it is… the four line marketing strategy.
1. Get closer to your customers.
2. Understand what motivates them.
3. Give them a reason to choose you.
4. Keep them coming back for more.
That’s it. Easy.
It is course not that easy. However I do believe these are the fundamentals of any successful marketing plan assuming of course you have a story to tell (a brand). Let’s look at each of them in detail.
1. Get closer to your customers.
Do you really know who your customers are? Put it this way if they stopped buying from you would you know how to get in touch with them to ask them why? Data acquisition is vital for any business today. Who are your customers? What have they bought? What are they likely to buy in the future? How do they wish to be contacted? Email lists, mobile numbers, names and addresses allow you to send targeted messages to your customers. This has proven to be far more effective (and cost-effective) than a conventional scatter-gun advertising approach.
2. Understand what motivates them.
Knowing why your customers engage with you is as important as knowing who they are. We are all motivated by different things and your customers are no different. Price, quality, service are all strong motivators but so are the less tangible, emotional factors. As Seth Godin says “brands are the stories we tell ourselves” . So think about why you engage with the brands you love? Some brands just make you feel good about yourself and that is a powerful motivator in its own right. What motivates your customers? Why not ask them? Assuming of course you know who they are.
3. Give them a reason to choose you.
You are competing for business and probably within an crowded marketplace. So why should prospective customers choose you? What are you offering that your competitors are not? Your may be competing at the higher end of the market on quality or at the lower end on price or somewhere in between. Your market position will be defined by where your competitors are. Understanding this will help you tell your story and define your differences.
4. Keep them coming back for more.
A one-off sale is fine but we all want happy customers who come back time-after-time and who will eventually become advocates for our business. Think about how you can reward loyalty and how you can offer more. Make your customers feel valued because valued customers are much less likely to stray.