Are You Marketing or Wasting Time and Money?

The reality of today’s economy has one overriding message: “If you’re not telling your story correctly and directly to your customer, you are doomed to fail.”

Marketing is not the process of describing a topic, product or list of product features. It is not about how many videos or brochures you can produce. And, marketing is not demonstrating how much you know about your product or service. Marketing is the process of emotionally engaging a potential customer by explaining what’s in it for them. Before people will buy from you, they must believe that there will be a measurable return for their money – that they can clearly see the “value” to them of your product or service. If they don’t see value, you’re not marketing, you’re just “describing.” Defining your value in such a way that your buyer sees their solution in your product is the number one thing you must do.Related: Enhancing Trust and Credibility with Your TeamFar too often, business owners know too much about their product or business and not enough about their customers and their problems and needs. They develop what I call “self-focused” pieces and videos that talk about them but are meaningless to their buyer. They also come up with a variety of what they call “goals” thinking “more is best.” They usually have intentions and not goals; they confuse their buyer and eventually fail, wasting a lot of money and time along the way. It’s these same frustrated business owners who often say, “Marketing doesn’t work for us.” It’s no surprise that their marketing didn’t work.Effective marketing requires three key ingredients: consistency, value, and professionalism. If you leave out even just one of them, your marketing efforts will leave people with a bad taste in their mouth. Marketing needs to be your best continuous effortto understand your customers and their genuine attraction to your business.