Marketing Made Simple

Wouldn’t it be great to have dozens (or hundreds) of people with lots of money to spend (your ‘ideal’ customers or clients) contact your business every month or have thousands of people visit your retail store eager to buy? This is what good marketing is all about. But how do you start?

One of the most important lessons I learnt about marketing from my mentors is that marketing is simply maths and psychology.

What does that mean? Answer : Each marketing campaign needs to be analysed using questions that relate to the purpose, goals, actions and results expected. Perhaps some examples are in order…

Marketing psychology :

• What is the readership demographics of the newspaper I wish to advertise in?
• Will someone read my advertisement? Is the headline interesting enough?
• What’s the purpose of the advert? To sell from the page, or to create leads?
• Does the content (body copy) of the advert make sense? Will it be understood by a fifth-grader?
• Have I used ‘power’ words that have been tested and proven to improve response?
• Do I have a strong guarantee?
• Will the reader take action – call, request further information or visit my web site?
• Will the advert attract the ‘right’ type of prospect?

Marketing maths :

• What is the circulation of the newspaper?
• What is the cost of the advert?
• If the advert costs $600, how many leads and sales do I need to make to break-even?
• What is my conversion rate to a sale from leads generated from the advert?
• What is the lifetime value of these customers?

Every marketing campaign whether it’s print or internet advertising, direct mail, fax promotions, etc requires answers to these questions about maths and psychology.

Unfortunately most business people are busy and don’t take the time to use this method to correctly plan a particular marketing strategy. The outcome is either – spending money on something that got no response, OR, a marketing campaign that brought in good leads, good sales and good profit!

Creating Wealth by Adding Value!

Make me rich!

Everyone wants to be rich (or at least have a good disposable income). It’s human nature. Often this desire comes out of the ‘frustration’ of the daily grind (the rat race). Getting rich quickly is even more desirable, hence the search for the ‘holy grail’ of being able to create wealth the easy way, but in reality it involves some exchange of ‘value’ for money. This got me thinking – so I grabbed a few books from my personal ’success’ library.

Here is how wealth is able to be created (in broad terms) by an individual or by a company :

• Creating / Inventing something (e.g. Apple iPod)
• Producing / Manufacturing something (e.g. Apple iPod)
• Improving something (e.g. Newer models)
• Providing a service (e.g. Settlement agent, Financial Planner, etc)
• Repairing / servicing something (e.g. Auto vehicle servicing)
• Selling (e.g. selling own manufactured product)
• Trading (buying and selling)
• Holding something (it becomes more valuable the longer you hold on to it).

Even ‘holding’ onto real estate is adding something .. time (which equates to more demand as the human population increases).

When we provide our knowledge and skills to something we are paid. For example, accounting, bookkeeping, hairdressing, auto servicing to name a few. We are paid in direct relationship too how many people can provide the same thing, the skill and expense required to attain those skills (e.g. medical degrees, etc), and the demand for those skills. How can you do ’something’ that few other people can do (which is in demand)?

For example, someone that can touch their nose with their tongue might be neat, but how is that going to make them money? (Apart from appearing on television as a novelty).

The big money question is ‘How can I add more value, quicker and easier, and to more people?’

This is one strategy…

Use leverage

The definition of business and financial leverage is using less of your resources (time and money) to create a bigger end result (Return on Investment). Here are some of the ways you can use leverage to obtain a bigger result.

• Your Skills
• Your Knowledge
• Your Money
• Your Time

Some examples may include :

Your Skills

• Employing staff, delegating or outsourcing.
• Applying your skills to bigger projects for a bigger reward
• Creating information products (books, audio and video recordings)
• Creating business systems

Your Knowledge

• Creating information products (books, audio and video recordings)
• Creating business systems

Your Money

• Purchasing income-producing assets
• Utilising media to communicate your marketing message (e.g. advertising, direct mail, email, etc).
• Re-investing in the business (e.g. marketing systems, technology)

Your Time

• LABOUR : Employing staff, delegating or outsourcing.
• TRAINING : Training staff so they can perform their functions well.
• SYSTEMS : Introducing systems to ensure the job is done right the first time and consistently.
• TECHNOLOGY : Using technology (e.g. using video conferencing instead of travelling to a meeting).
• MARKETING : Developing lead generation systems to reduce time spent acquiring leads one-by-one.
• GROUP SELLING :Speaking and selling at seminars rather than speaking to prospects one-on-one.

Hopefully the strategies mentioned above have given you some ideas. You can also have a close look at your chosen business niche or investment area (residential real-estate, commercial real-estate, stocks, etc) and see how other successful business owners or investors have added ‘value’ or used leverage to create wealth. It’s not worth re-inventing the wheel. Find a way to copy what works and improve on it!