This is not surprising to me, because I know the value that solid marketing practices bring to a company. However, most people I run into seem to have a view of marketing that isn’t based on the reality of what marketing truly is.

Marketing is the “Secret Sauce” that can propel your company to the next level. Without it, you may likely grow slowly or not at all. Without the “Secret Sauce” you will probably look similar to your competitors and lack the ability to dominate your marketplace.

So what is the “Secret Sauce” of marketing?

1. You have to be willing to open your mind and change what you think you know about marketing. This may sound harsh, but business owners and even marketing departments within businesses do not have a clue how to market effectively.

Marketing should be looked at from a holistic approach. You need to develop a marketing system or “machine” that runs continually and on “auto pilot”. That doesn’t mean there isn’t work involved, but it does mean that your marketing should be easier to implement and track.

1. Tactics Are Not Marketing!  Facebook ads aren’t marketing, Groupon Ads aren’t marketing, Direct Mail is not marketing, Sending email is not marketing……..These are simply tactics that carry your marketing to the target audience. If you start with tactics in your marketing approach, you’re likely to find limited success.

Your marketing needs to start with “who”. You may have several “who’s” that you need to speak to but the “who” is the most important part. Once you have that, you need to create “The Message”. This message needs to be so powerful that it will stop the “who” in their tracks and make them pay attention. Once you have the message, you need to come up with some Offers. You must offer something or it can’t be called marketing. Once you have these things in place you’re ready for the creative and tactical approach which is essentially figuring out how to get your message in front of the audience.

1. Sending out the initial marketing is only the tip of the iceberg. Once you have your marketing out in the marketplace, you need to have a system in place on the backend that helps you turn suspects into prospects and then into customers. It’s not always the job of sales to follow up 20 times and hope to close business. In fact, good marketing should make closing sales and landing customers much easier.

This is where the power of automation comes in. You need a system that can follow up with prospects, nurture them to maturity and set them up to be closed. You won’t have to rely on having superstar sales people at every turn. Granted, superstars don’t hurt to have, but how many are there? You need to make it as simple as possible to close business…even for your weakest sales people.

1. So where does all of this leave us? It probably leaves you thinking that either I have no idea what I’m talking about or you might be wondering what is missing in your marketing. If you’re in the first group, I can’t change your mind with a few short paragraphs here. If you are wondering what might be missing from your marketing and you would like to figure out the “Secret Sauce”, then we should sit down and talk about what you’re doing and try to find out if there are some things that you could do differently to improve your return on investment with your current marketing.

Send Lynndell an email at Lynndell@mailmasters.net or give me a call to set up a time to meet at 303-607-9424.

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A recent marketing program developed for a local restaurant by Mail Masters is proving to be a great success.

Business has been a bit slow for a local Mexican restaurant. They turned to Mail Masters for help after various marketing programs had failed.

After analyzing the situation, Mail Masters decided to target the local business community. The closest residential homes to the restaurant location were around 1 mile away. Not very close for Denver Metro standards. Since the restaurant is situated in a predominantly business area, it made sense to target this audience.

The question was, how can we get local businesses to help spread the word about the great Mexican Fare and bring in more customers for lunch?

The Plan:

Direct mail was decided as the best method to reach local businesses in the area. We needed to use a one-to-many approach that would attract more than one visitor per business. This is a multiplier effect, and as you will see from the results, this is a powerful technique to use. Here’s what we came up with.

We developed a lunch bag mailer with a catchy “memo” and 20 “Tamale Bucks” enclosed in an actual lunch bag. The memo has a picture of 2 staff members and a message that asks the office manager to pass the Tamale Buck Coupons around or put them in a place where employees can see them.

The results:

The results have been amazing up to this point. After mailing only 500 lunch bags, over 200 coupons have come in and more are coming in daily. That adds up to a 40% response rate.

What’s Next:

The restaurant plans on sending out this promotion to additional businesses in the area that haven’t been contacted yet. This is one aspect of their ongoing marketing campaign designed to grow their customer base.

Additional testing and a social media component can be added to this campaign to produce even greater results.

What Does This Have to Do With You:

If you don’t have a plan or a successful marketing plan that is helping you meet your sales goals, then you need to request your free marketing analysis. A customized plan that includes any number of marketing tactics can be explored for your particular goals. The new year is here and now is the time to get your business marketing working for you!

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