To ensure that you have the correct communication with your audience, that you are delivering the correct message to the right person at the right time, you will need to follow a plan. The easiest way to start is to put together a workshop with key individuals and go through the 6m’s. Once you have identified all of these areas then your real marketing can start.
Let’s introduce the 6m’s of marketing,
Market
While of course any business owner would be more than happy to have “everyone” as their customer or client, it’s just not going to happen. Make sure you know your market inside out, who they are and what they want! This way you will know how best to attract and retain the RIGHT clients. You could work in a particular vertical, or work with a certain size of business. The more granular you can get your target audience, the more effective your marketing will be.
Mission
Make sure you are clear about what you want to achieve. It could be as simple as growing your email database, or it could be to launch a new product. Unless you are clear about the focus for the campaign it will be very difficult to write your message or select the relevant media. Also, it will be impossible to know whether you have been successful.
Message
Make sure your message is specific and clear. A consumer needs to instantly understand your message and feel encouraged to discover about the product or service you offer. This message should them be consistently used across all of your marketing material. This will encourage trust and recognition.
Media
Ensure that the media you use is relevant to the message you are portraying and your audience. E.g. If you are aiming your products at children ages 3-10 you may choose to advertise on television at peak children’s show times, or in magazines distributed via school bags. But putting information on LinkedIn may not be the right platform. Really think about this area, there are so many more channels you can use these days, but you probably can’t afford to use them all. Pick the most relevant and use them well.
Money
Make sure you have a budget and try to stick to it! If you have calculated how much you can spend you need to choose your marketing route accordingly. You do not want to be overspending when you cannot afford to!
Measure
Measuring how successful you have been is important in understanding what works for you and what doesn’t. Measuring success can be achieved in a variety of ways, e.g. how many new customers you gain, how many clicks you get onto your site or how much profit you are making. You’ll know which area of marketing is working for you, and at that stage you might want to introduce another ‘M’ for multiply…if its working do more of it!
In Conclusion
This is the simplest and most effective way of getting your marketing plan underway, and in our experience we have found that hosting a workshop, where you have lots of individual inputs will bring about the best results, download the 6m’s list here and keep it by you while in your workshop, of course, if you need help with this, its something we can assist with so don’t hesitate to get in touch.