The Marketing Agency Talk

You know you got to do some form of marketing to promote your product and services so that people will eventually buy them. Do you then know why you choose a particular medium, say, flyers, to advertise your product/service?

If your answer is “My competitors are doing so” or “It seems that it is the cheapest form” or “I don’t know but that was the first thing that I could think of”, I would suggest that you sit down and think. Think what? Think of the results you want for the amount of money you intend to spend.

When you advertise, you want results. If you don’t even have an inkling what kind of result you want to achieve, you won’t know answers to simple questions like “how much should I spend”, “what medium should I use”, ” should I do both TVC and flyer distribution or just one of them”. You must have an objective in mind. Is it to increase brand awareness? Is it to convince folks that your product is much more superior than Joe Smith Pte Ltd? Or is it to increase sale by 20% within the next quarter. Have a well-defined and specific objective. After which, work backward to understand the process you have to go through to reach your goals. This is how you can develop a plan very quickly.

When you know the “why”, you can start to think of “how”. Before doing that, one of the most important question you have to ask is what value are you providing to your target audience. They are NOT interested in what you are selling, they are only interested in what they are getting. They are not interested in your features, they are going keen to know the benefits they are reaping. As Anthony Robbins aptly put it, people will do anything to avoid pain and gain pleasure. So you must be able to tell your target audience that your product/services take care of a specific problem that caused them real pain (in terms of time, money, effort, pride, etc). When they use your product/service, not only the problem is eliminated, they gain lots of pleasure. Make yourself seen as the viable solution to their problem. You are the problem solver.

So if your concept of advertising is to stick some photographs, add in the price list and have your logo and company particulars printed big, bold and in a prominent position, well, save your money. Most of the time, such advertisement will not yield much return. The results are at best mediocre. When someone is doing a roaring sale, go get their marketing material to study and scrutinize every details to learn from it. Find out what are the compelling factors that make people rush to the store.

Always remember that your audience has only one question: “What’s in it for me?” If you got a compelling answer and you can present that in an extremely attractive offer, no one will turn you down without serious thinking. In fact, most shoppers will buy without much thoughts. People buy with emotions and then justify with reasons.