3 Key Marketing Concepts

If you want to be successful in your marketing you must understand 3 key concepts.  What are these 3 concepts?  The WHO you are going to, the WHAT you are saying, and the HOW you are saying it.

Let’s look at each one and I’ll explained the importance.

First, the WHO.

Most companies just blast their message out to as many people as possible.  The problem is that this is very expensive.

You only want to target the most likely people to buy your products and services.  This is much more cost-effective.  Companies like Coca Cola and McDonalds are generally not good companies to model because their business is so much different than yours.  However, you can learn from watching them that frequency and top of mind awareness IS important.

So, the WHO is key.  Without the WHO your marketing message will likely fall on its face.

The second part is the WHAT.  What are you going to say.  Thousands of books have been written on sales, marketing, advertising, and communication but let’s just explain that you need to touch on their pain points.  You need to solve problems.  Prospects don’t care about YOU, they care about THEMSELVES and their pain.

WHAT you say is very important in your marketing, just like WHAT you say in your sales appointments is important.

The last part of the formula is the HOW you deliver your message.  In other words, what type of media should you utilize?  Direct mail?  Radio?  Internet Advertising?   And within each of these types of media there are subsets.

The WHO and the WHAT you are getting across determine the HOW you are going to say it.  In other words, if you are targeting CFO’s of Fortune 5000 companies, then radio advertising is grossly ineffective.

Now, which of these are the most important.  I will give you two answers.

First, all of them are important, and if one aspect is missing from any of these formulas your results will suffer.  Its like a 3 legged stool.  If one leg is shorter than the others, the stool will not be level and effective.

At the same time, however, the WHO of what you are selling is the most important.  Because if you get that right, you can a lot of times get at least poor results (instead of NO results) from your marketing.

Why?  Because a bad sales pitch to a targeted person is better than nothing or even a good sales pitch to the wrong person.

Case in point?  A bad sales pitch on why to buy a Mercedes Benz to a person making 300k a year who is looking for a luxury car is a lot better than a great sales pitch to a 5 year old with no assets, no ability to buy the car, and poor understanding.

But once again, all 3 components are essential for true success.

So, before you craft any marketing message remember it is the WHAT you are saying, HOW you are delivering your message, and to WHO you are saying it that is all key.