Is Your Message, Your Brand, Getting Through The Clutter?
Quick! What is the name of your favorite restaurant? We'll get to this in a minute.
Okay, now on with the blog. The picture above is from a seminar I have done on all aspects of marketing. The idea focuses around a dart board, where the most outer rings are traditional mass media, expensive marketing, we go through the rings and other modes of marketing, as they get less expensive, more effective, until we hit the bulls-eye: Word of Mouth Marketing.
Why the picture? "Somewhere between 254 and 5,000 is a number that represents just how many commercial messages an average consumer gets each day" - Advertising Age, April 2, 2007. That was before the explosion of social media.
To really achieve your marketing goals and help get through the clutter make sure they are SMART; Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results oriented, Time Specific. You should also think about where your customers go to get information.
My favorite ad of all time is in the most outer ring of the dart board; Super Bowl Commercials! That ad is the Apple Macintosh 1984 ad. It was edited a bit and used in the Hillary Clinton campaign in the 2008 election cycle.
Most companies can't afford a super bowl ad, let alone any TV commercials. BUT, can you leverage local TV stations for their "Best of" contests they have? Does it make sense with your goals?
As we move from the outer ring we go through national and local print advertising, radio, direct mail, trade shows.
Closer to the bulls-eye you have websites, micro sites, banner ads, SEO, blogs, and email marketing. Regarding email marketing, one of my favorite books on marketing is Seth Godin's Permission Marketing. It is great for email marketing but a good read to be a successful marketer.
The first ring outside of the bulls-eye in my mind is social media. The rise of popularity of twitter, facebook, and LinkedIn really helps the SMART marketer leverage word of mouth. In a future blog I'll talk about how the combination of email marketing and social media can be extremely powerful.
Bulls-eye: Word of Mouth; your friends, clients, peers, and associations talking about you and recommending you and your company. PR through people writing about you in articles and blogs, customer testimonials.
Back to your favorite restaurant. Why is it your favorite? Have you told other people about it? Word of mouth is powerful isn't it.
How can you leverage aspects of marketing that make sense to help you achieve your SMART goals and help you promote your word of mouth?
By the way. Click here to learn about my favorite restaurant. Turn on your speakers.
John Meyer @johndmeyer
Yes, word of mouth marketing will always be unbeatable. I like the SMART concept, as it perfectly sums up what a marketing goal should attain.
Posted by: Abigayle Soderstrom | January 18, 2012 at 02:41 PM
The SMART technology is really smart! And when you add word of mouth tactics, then the things for your business go much better! So lets do our best to make our services the best ones!
Andy
Posted by: cmo conversations | September 21, 2011 at 01:38 AM
Word of mouth works because a positive testimonial also gets tagged, a testimonial that matters to you because of your association with the one who recommended you the service or product. If ads get as personal as that, then they could mimic the effect of word of mouth.
Posted by: Staci Burruel | August 16, 2011 at 06:44 AM
Direct mail is a technique that a lot of business owners don't know how to do right. Direct mail is one of the quickest ways to earn money in your business.
Posted by: custom direct mail design | August 10, 2011 at 01:27 AM
Busy place that was popular, and a popular popular show again the light place where a desirable place...
Posted by: GOLF manufacturer | July 22, 2011 at 09:00 AM
This knowledge is very useful, and future practice need to use...
Thanks for you!
Posted by: Golf Glove | July 22, 2011 at 08:56 AM
Hi, Great info. Thank you. Im just starting up with my companies new page and Im looking for allways that could be useful in marketing this.
I used a application for facebook called IQ link to make my fb-page look more professional, it was a free application and i think it looked good.
I learned about this app through a friend of mine who uses it to. The application could be found here : www.facebook.com/iqlink
I think this is helpfull for us that don't have to much time or money making your own application to help redirect visitors to your website.
Br Daniel.L
Posted by: Daniel L | February 23, 2011 at 03:19 AM
This is a good start if you want to find your favorite place to eat or even sites that will surely help you like house rentals, real estate and the like. This is indeed a help and I appreciate the effort. Keep up the good work and more power.
Posted by: curtis johnson | January 31, 2011 at 12:38 AM