Are You Making These Costly Mistakes with Your Marketing?

Find out by grabbing a copy of my valuable FREE report: "The Seven Deadliest Marketing Sins…
Are You Guilty?"

Bonus: You also get a FREE subscription to my weekly Bright Ideas newsletter as my thanks!

Read Past Articles

Find out where Stacy is speaking next

Discover a simple way to plan for your business growth and success

Bright Ideas # 85 - The Easiest Way to Improve Your Marketing IQ

Does marketing always seem a bit confusing or daunting to you? Do you feel like most of the time you’re just throwing you-know-what at a wall and hoping it sticks?

If so, you’re so not alone. A lot of my clients feel that way when they first come to me.

But usually, once I explain concepts or strategies, my consulting clients nod and say “Oh, that makes sense”.

Of course, I’ve studied marketing for years. Plus, in my sick and twisted little brain marketing, advertising and sales have always seemed perfectly logical.

But very few things seem logical or intuitive when you don’t know much about them.

So if you want your marketing to be both easier to create and more effective, you have to learn more about it. And I don’t mean go back to school for an MBA.

-----
Become a marketing student in your daily life
-----

All you have to do is contemplate any of the hundreds of marketing and advertising examples you come face to face with each day.

I love analyzing print ads, billboards, radio ads and TV commercials. And it’s even more fun when my husband discusses them with me.

Let me explain…

A couple of years ago we had a pretty lively debate going about the new McDonalds slogan, “I’m lovin’ it”. Because, personally, I’m not lovin’ it. But he thought it was pretty good.

So I thought, maybe I don’t like or “get” it because I’m not part of their target market. After watching the commercials I decided, based on the type of actors they used, that I was probably right on the edge of their target demographic.

He is closer to the ideal. And that could easily explain the difference in our reactions.

Next, I started watching the rollout of Vonage Internet telephone service.

First, there were those branding commercials with that annoyingly catchy music playing, and then some brief text about the service. Slowly, they built up to full-featured ads with actors and scripts. Then the direct mail postcards started to arrive.

Across the board, all their marketing and advertising has had a fun, even humorous bent. Clearly they are going after a younger demographic. But not too young—which makes sense.

After all, folks in their twenties and thirties are most likely to embrace new technologies quickly. And they are already comfortable with alternative modes of communication like cell phones, email, and texting. So a computer-based phone service wouldn’t seem scary to them.

I thought the entire campaign was both fascinating and brilliant.

Now I’m intrigued by the new Lexus commercials. The first one I saw featured jazz singer Diana Krall sitting in her Lexus. She’s talking about hearing one of her favorite musicians in concert while she’s listening to him on the car stereo.

Now they’ve got similar commercials with Elvis Costello and John Legend as well. Plus, they’ve added a piece featuring one of their sound engineers.

He talks about how they’ve created this amazing sound system tailored to each car. And he ends by saying he was recently configuring his home theatre system, and he used the Lexus sound system as a benchmark.

Wow! How powerful is that. Especially when you consider the target market...

Clearly, Lexus is going after an affluent market in their 40’s-60’s. And they are targeting audiophiles and music aficionados in particular since they’ve decide to use their sound system as their USP (that one thing that makes them better, or different, than the competition).

I like the concept. In fact, my parents fit this target market to a tee and already own a Lexus.

But my husband promptly said that he didn’t think that USP was strong enough. An amazing sound system simply isn’t enough to convince him to buy a Lexus.

However, when I asked him, “If you were deciding between a Lexus and BMW, would it be enough to sway you between the two?” he felt differently about the idea.

Do you see how this works? Each and every day I’m improving my marketing IQ simply by studying what others are doing. And you can do the same…

-----
Your Homework
-----

When an ad, brochure or Website catches your eye, ask yourself…

1) Why?

2) Who is the target market?

4) Are they speaking to them effectively?

5) What is their USP?

5) Is it strong enough to convince someone to buy from them over the competition?

6) What have they done to convince the target market to buy (testimonials, examples, features & benefits)?

8) Do you actually remember what they are selling, or just the clever ad?

7) What else could they do differently or better?

If you really want a crash course, try doing this with sales letters or infomercials—particularly any that have been around a long time. Those are proven to be effective or they wouldn’t still be used.

Before you know it, marketing will start becoming second nature to you too.

Do you have a marketing, advertising or writing question you’d like to have answered? Email me and you might see the answer in a future edition of Bright Ideas.

Was this info useful?
=======================
If so, feel fr*ee to share it with your own list, post it on your site, post it on your blog, or add it to your auto responder. Just make sure you leave it intact and do not alter it in any way. All links must remain in the article.
And, you must include this at the end of the article:

Please notify me at stacy@success-stream.com when my article is used, whether online or off. Thanks!