What are the goals for your marketing? If one of your
goals is not to make customers, you need to relook at your goals. All marketing
should lead a prospective customer along a step-by-step path closer to a sale.
There are too many businesses that have not mapped out this process – and that
typically has to do with one of two problems: business managers who want every
bit of marketing to lead to their cash register or marketers who don’t have a
plan to do anything in marketing but to make the consumer aware of your brand.
Both are marketing pitfalls.

We take a phased approach to marketing plans. The first
phase is to make the consumer aware of your brand. Too often, business managers
want their awareness marketing to lead directly to a sale. While that may
happen occasionally, it is the exception to the rule. Awareness marketing is
made to help consumers recognize your brand, to become familiar with what you
are selling, to understand how it compares to other brands, etc. For instance,
viewing a logo does not make anyone want to buy anything unless that logo
stands for a brand that the consumer is aware of and desires. That cannot
happen unless there is a successful awareness marketing campaign that comes
before any sales are transacted.

However, you cannot stop your marketing at the awareness
phase. It has to move a customer to the second phase, which is where the
consumer actually tries your brand for the first time. This is where a smart
marketing plan will help you. Between the awareness phase and the first-time
sale phase, there are transition steps that answer specific questions.

•
How does this brand help the
consumer?

•
How does it compare with other brands
and solutions?

•
What is its value?

•
Is there an incentive for the
consumer to buy now?

If you answer these questions with your marketing, you
will be able to smoothly move a prospect from awareness to making them a
transactional customer.

These steps should be recorded for each prospect you’re
encountering. This is where marketing and sales need to work together. I put a
lot of stock in what the sales reps are hearing from customers. If consumers
are hedging at some point, you need to circle the team and come up with a
solution to solve the roadblock. When you have the solution, be sure to
announce that to consumers with your marketing.

Do problems arise that were not encountered before? Of
course! Business is rarely static. If you are innovative in solving customer
problems, your competitors will eventually copy what you are doing and your
solution will become common. For instance, I am old enough to remember when not
all public buildings had air conditioning. It was a novel thing to be in a cool
building in the heat of the summer. Now it is so common that buildings without
it are rare. What does that mean for your marketing? It means you will have to
continually monitor your target market and your competition’s offerings to
them. Your brand has to be seen as needed and valuable.

The second step of marketing is often forgotten in
marketing plans. If your marketing is just focused on making the consumer aware
of your brand, you are missing the mark. Change your plans to include this
critical second step.