Marketing is easy, right? Well, it doesn’t really have to be difficult, but it does require some forethought and planning. More importantly, it means understanding the entire point of marketing: explaining to potential customers what your product can do for them. Unfortunately, a lot of marketing out there fails at even that…
1. Customers Can’t Tell What You Do
Sometimes people think they need to use big phrases and keywords in their marketing and they forget to speak to who is important: people. If someone visits your website, or walks past your store, or sees your ad or your Facebook page, they should immediately be able to tell what it is you do. The best marketing sums this up in a short phrase that can often be used as a tagline.
2. Customers Can’t Understand How You can Help
Marketing too often is caught up in features. Our product does X, Y & Z. That’s great. How does the fact that it does X help me? While it may be clear to you that a pressure washer that has a 1200 PSI is a good buy, how does a potential customer know why that’s a good (or not so good) number. What applications is 1200 PSI pressure washer good for? When should they consider more, when should they consider less? If you think in terms of benefits to the customer or how you can solve specific problems, your marketing will be much more effective.
3. Customers Can’t Tell You Apart From Your Competitors
MBA-types like to talk a lot about competitive advantage — what sets you apart from your competitors. While this is a lofty, intellectual concept, it really is important. Not only from a business strategy, but also in marketing. To boil it down: why should someone choose you over your competitors? This should be obvious from all of your marketing efforts.
4. Customers Don’t Look to You to Solve Problems
Customers buy things because they have a need. Sometimes that need is just for those trendy new shoes, but often times they’re looking for something to solve a specific problem. This is especially true of services and business-to-business products. Do you know what types of problems can be solved for your product or service? Do you specifically address those problems and how you can help in your marketing? There is great content ideas here for blogging and social media….
What other ways does marketing fail?