I packed a yogurt cup with me as I left the house this morning. I love yogurt. It is a good pick me up late in the afternoon. I like the chunkier, fruit flavored yogurts. They tell me it is good for me too. So I was off to a good day, that is, until I got ready to eat my yogurt this afternoon and realized I had not picked up the one key tool I needed: a spoon. Have you ever tried to eat from a yogurt cup without a spoon? Let me explain that no other method or no other utensil compensates for a spoon. You cannot effectively fork eat yogurt. Neither can you drink it from a straw. It will not shake out of the container into your mouth. If you are going to eat yogurt, a spoon is an essential tool.

In marketing, we also have tools that we use. They are key to the way we do business. For instance, you may have printed materials that you use, such as brochures and business cards. You probably have internet based tools like a web site, an eblaster, social media, perhaps even an app or two for mobile customers. You may have trade show displays, outdoor signage, videos, wrapped company vehicles, and company logo wear. How effective are you in using these tools? The answer to that is really based upon your understanding of two concepts which are vital to successfully marketing your company’s products and services.

All marketing is leading to a sale

The purpose of all marketing is to lead to a sale. That sale may not happen for a very long time or it may happen shortly after a marketing tool is used. In order to understand which tool to use, you have to understand what phase of marketing you are using. We break marketing into three phases (see my article The Three Buckets of Marketing.) One phase is designed to lead to another. Awareness Marketing helps a customer understand who you are and what you are selling. First Time Sales Marketing is geared towards making an offer so that the customer has to make a decision about making a purchase from you. Retention Marketing is about keeping a customer past the initial sale. These phases then recycle as you make your retained customer aware of new products, get them to buy it for the first time, and retain them once again. Specific tools are designed to work well with Awareness, but do not work well with First Time Sales or Retention Marketing. For instance, putting your logo on a shirt and handing them out to potential customers in your target market will make them aware of your brand. If you are effective in your message and design of the shirt, they will become aware of you. However, logo wear is not going to make them sign a contract with you. When you are building a marketing campaign, you need to understand that you need tools to effectively reach customers in each phase of marketing.

What are you promoting?

The second concept you need to understand comes from a clear focus on what you are promoting. Marketing is tasked with the promotion of whatever your company is selling – either a product or a service. (Even if you are a not-for-profit organization, you are promoting something that is important to your corporation surviving, even if it is goodwill towards people.) We have web sites and brochures that describe these products and services. Marketing is also given the task of promoting and guarding the reputation of the company’s brand. We have all known companies where their products were good, but they fell victim to a bad corporate reputation and everything collapsed around them. It is the job of marketing to promote the company name in a positive light. Again, there are tools that work better for promotion of the products and services and others that are better for promoting the good name of the company. For instance, you may sponsor a charitable event. This is a great way to promote the company so that the community has good feelings about you. Some may argue that there is no connection between the marketing dollars spent on such an event and sales. But if you understand that you are promoting the company brand in your goodwill spending, it does help with sales in the long run. If it works the correct way, promotion of the company leaves a potential customer with good feelings about your company and they are more inclined to do business with you – a good corporate citizen – then some other company they have never heard of before. Which tools do you use in each case?

Too many times I see clients of ours fall in love with one tool or the other. The method becomes more important to them than the thought of using the correct tool for the situation. When you are making your marketing plans, understand what you are promoting – the product or the company brand – and the correct tool for each of the three phases you will encounter in those promotions. If you can make your plans in this order, you will keep yourself from being ineffective in your use of your marketing tools.

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Photo by De-kay