What do I want to say?

The first stage of planning a marketing campaign is to establish what you want to tell people about your product or service.  Is it bigger, better, stronger, faster, than competing products?  What makes your product stand out from the crowd? 

Establishing the key messages you want to communicate will form the basis for any promotional material you decide to produce.

Who do I want to tell?

A scattergun approach to marketing is a hit and miss exercise.  You need to decide who you want to ‘hit’ with your key messages.  Clearly defining your target audience(s) will enable you to maximise the impact of marketing activity, ensuring the right people understand the benefits of using your product or service over a competing product.

Knowing your audience is key to the success of any marketing activity.  Failing to define the right audience will waste valuable time, money and resources, but knowing your audience will enable you to select the most effective means of getting through to them.

Select the right tools for the job

There’s a huge range of marketing tools available.  Advertising, online marketing, media relations, direct mail, events, open days, competitions, promotional giveaways…the list goes on. 

What’s important is that you think about how your audience would prefer to receive the information you want to communicate.  By email?  A personal letter?  With others at a conference?  By reading about it in a trade journal?  It is important to consider the options when selecting the means through which you communicate your messages to your target audiences.

On average, people buy on the seventh time of seeing.  An integrated campaign will ensure your message gets through without relying too heavily on one form of communication and overloading the people you want to reach.

For help with marketing planning contact us.

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