I hate to break it to you. Even if you are the boss, it’s really not all about you. At least not in your marketing anyway.
When it comes to making decisions about the types of marketing you are doing, the message you send, and the way you send it, it has to be more about the customer—your target market.
When you run an ad in a publication, newspaper, on an outdoor sign, think about who is going to see it. How far away will they be? Will they be doing something else when they see it? Do they have any limitations that will need to be addressed? Ask yourself:
- Is the font size big enough?
- Do the colors contrast enough?
- Is it legible?
If you are updating your website what you think is really COOL, may not come across that way to your target market. Even if your computer monitor is 24 inches, you can probably bet that your customers aren’t searching the internet on such a large screen.
Your messaging needs to be directed to the right market as well. The copy and the images you use in your marketing has to speak to your target market. You may think a certain photograph of your product is super-cool, but will your customer? Try to find words and phrases that will ring true to your customer, if they like your marketing they’ll probably like your product.
The Super Bowl is not only a major contest for the National Football League, but it’s also a big day for advertisers as well. One of the problems, though is the Super Bowl attracts a VERY wide range of viewers. (I’ll assume you watched the Super Bowl this year and happened to see a few ads in between cheese dips and beer runs.)
The broad range of viewers and corresponding range of target markets helps me make my point: How many ads did you see while watching the Super Bowl that you thought were stupid? Guess what? The ad was probably not directed toward your demographic. Either that, or the ad agency did a really bad job.
So, it really isn’t about your preferences when creating a marketing campaign, it’s about your customers. You want your marketing to draw in customer to like your ad and ultimately buy your product.
There are lots of reasons why your business may not have marketing staff: you may not have 40 hours of marketing work to be done each week, you may not be able to afford salary and benefits for additional employees, or maybe you just don’t want those goofy marketing people dancing around the office everyday.
Neither is marketing. Alright, I wouldn’t begin to presume marketing is anything close to brain surgery, but the point is why would you do the marketing work yourself when you can work with a marketing expert?
Marketing isn’t about the latest, greatest, coolest, fanciest, funkiest, most award-winning…”campaign”. Yep, all those things are pretty good, but what’s most important is your business. Well, that and getting more of it.