Craft Focus - Dec 2017/Jan 2018 (Issue 64)

business advice craft focus 41 obstacles to buying and selling. For example, consumers often don’t know what they want, they want more than they can afford, or they can’t decide which of two products is more important. Consumers can’t figure out how to budget and pay for a product, and all of these obstacles make buying less likely. Similarly, manufacturers struggle to find consumers who’re willing to buy its products. They must figure out how to get money from a customer, and then how to deliver products in return or how to customise those products – these are all obstacles that make selling more difficult. Removing these problems increases the likelihood that buying and selling will take place. So that’s ‘marketing.’ What is amazing marketing? Here’s a definition for amazing marketing: ‘Amazing Marketing: spending as little time and money as possible to remove as many of those obstacles as possible.” An amazing marketing plan will have these three components: 1. Messages that potential customers find relevant and timely The thing to get in the way to buying and selling, is a potential customer’s lack of awareness of why the customer needs it. If your customers don’t get what you’re selling, they certainly aren’t going to buy it! Unfortunately, most marketing messages are written from an inside looking out perspective. They concentrate on naming the product, placing it in a category, listing out its features and functions and, worst of all, on this history of the company that made it. An amazing marketing plan starts with messages, which create a connection in the customer’s mind between what the customer wants and needs right now, and what you have to offer. Without such messages, a marketing plan is worthless. 2. Measurable vehicles for disseminating those messages Once you’ve created messages that resonate with buyers, your next problem is the communication gap between you and your customers. Screaming your messages into the wind won’t do; if shoppers don’t hear the messages, they won’t buy. There are, of course, at least a dozen ways to reach customers such as advertising, press releases, trade shows, websites, search engines, social media, signage, and so forth. An amazing marketing plan will identify the communications channels that will work best. What’s crucial here is measurability. Without reasonable metrics, you don’t know whether your message is being heard, and even more importantly, whether it’s having the desired effect. For example, if you’re running a print advert, you measure before/ after sales in the region where the advert ran. Similarly, if you’ve got a website, you measure the number of visitors who sign up for a free trial. Email marketing is always measurable. An amazing marketing plan will identify the specific vehicles that you’ll use to disseminate your messages and, most importantly, how you’ll measure the success or failure of those vehicles. 3. Methods that easily and profitably convert prospects into customers Once you’ve got messages that work, and know how you’re going to get those messages in front of prospective customers, your final obstacle is removing the barriers that keep customers from buying. You do this by setting up efficient sales channels and programs. These methods might include a trial usage period, online ordering, distribution network, retail placement, telesales, shared sales force (reps who sell products from multiple companies) or a dedicated sales force that only sells your product. The two important words here are ‘easily’ and ‘profitable’. You want the buying method to be as easy as possible so that the mechanics of buying don’t get in the way. The easier it is to buy your product, the more of that product you’re likely to sell. The other key concept is ‘profitable.’ Every sales method both costs money and determines to a certain extent the price that your product can command. For example, fielding a dedicated sales force is more expensive than offering a product online. That extra expense is justifiable, however, if the product is too complex to sell online or if customers prefer to buy your category of product from a salesperson. An amazing marketing plan will identify the methods by which you’ll sell your product and quantify the profit that selling through those methods will generate. It will then define, in brief, how you plan to develop those programs and channels. If you’ve been reading carefully, you’ll notice that there’s really not all that much content in an amazing marketing plan. In fact, the most amazing marketing plans of all can be communicated in a single page or a couple of slides. Michael O’Connor Grey Sergeant michael.oconnor@greysergeant.com