Thanks to the Entrepreneurs Circle for this no-nonsense marketing blog :-

Here is an inescapable truth: Business owners who are marketing focused are much more successful than those who aren’t.

The fact is, doing what you do do better, cheaper, or even more of it, won’t of itself make you super successful. It’s only through the better marketing of your business that you can drive up revenue and profit.

So, how do you become more marketing focused?

Here’s my checklist:

Who are the ideal buyers of what you sell?

You need to be as specific as possible with this and clearly develop that picture and profile of who they are. This identification of your target market is really vital. You’ve got to get specific. “Women between 18 and 50″ or “Everyone” is not a specific enough target market. For example,  a builder in search of new customers can narrow his target market down to 800 homes on 27 different streets in his town. Now, with that kind of clarity you can do some really effective marketing, very cost effectively.

What’s your message to them?

Your aim here is to find an utterly compelling reason why someone in your target market should pick up the phone and call you or jump in the car and drive to your shop or go online immediately to find your website. If you can’t articulate simply and clearly why someone should come to you as opposed to one of the other many choices available to them in your marketplace – you’re  doomed, frankly, and your chances of achieving super success are slim in the extreme. So, what is it that your customers like best? Why do people choose you?

How can you reach them?

A common mistake made by so many business owners is that they start with the media. They don’t look at who their target audience is and what they want to say to them. They get seduced by a good sales person who sells them advertising space BEFORE they have worked out who they are trying to talk to and what that message is. The media has to come third in the process, not first.

Of course, the next stage on the road to super success is when you put in place what the experts call a ‘Marketing Funnel’. Watch out for the next in this series of blog articles in the coming weeks.