Cut Through The Marketing Clutter
Every experienced marketer knows that you can’t quickly give up on a
prospect just because they did not respond to your first marketing
communication. Prospects are very busy with their own personal challenges
and other pressing needs and issues. Your message is often just another ad
that flashes in front of them without so much as a second glance.
It
is crucial to recognize that people aren't really thinking about your
business or waiting for your message to arrive. More than likely, you are an
intruder into their life and an interruption in their day. If you are lucky,
they'll see your message and give about half their attention to it; let
alone act on it.
It
is very difficult to get their attention and deliver your marketing message
effectively. Consider this - it is estimated that the average person is
bombarded by over 3,000 to 4,000 marketing messages every day. Now that’s
clutter!
Try
this exercise to understand the extent of the clutter problem. Take one
hour out of your typical day and count how many marketing images you are
exposed to. This could be anything from a logo on a pair of shoes to the
auto company nameplate on your car. Any image that any business enterprise
has printed or broadcast to remind you of their offering is eligible. Also
include any other entities such as churches, interest groups, schools, and
non-profit organizations. Tally your count up after an hour, multiple it by
twelve and see where you stand. The results will stagger you.
This
number will be much more dramatic if you did your survey in a shopping mall
or retail district. Or, if you counted as you were driving down the highway
with the radio on, it’s even more striking. There you were being targeted
with audio ads as well as the visuals of billboards and logos on passing
trucks.
The
problem with all this clutter is that your message can get lost in the
market. You spent a lot of time and money on this message so it is too
important to be ineffective. So how do you cut threw this mess to reach the
buyer and affect their decision making process?
It
all begins with the approach and quality your marketing message. Is it
crystal clear to your target market exactly what you do, what you offer, and
how it will benefit their lives? And how do you know its working?
Try
carefully crafting your message over time through a process of testing,
measurement, and evaluation. Select the best of several approaches to
your message and test them against each other to see which performs better.
Then duplicate the results of the top performer across the rest of your
marketing.
Testing creates data that you can analyze and supplies you with the true
response to your message. Most importantly, it takes intuition out of the
process and bases your marketing on cold hard facts.
Your
marketing message is too critical to be left to intuition or the opinion of
a few employees, family members, or friends. Your prospects and customers
have the ultimate say on what they want to hear. So, let them tell you what
will cut through the clutter to get their attention and lead to more sales.
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