Alfred's Marketing Wisdom

Wait… STOP! Before you put fingers to keyboard to write an email, design a webpage, send a postcard, or pick up your phone to make a sales call, you should know a few critical things.

You should know why you’re doing what you’re doing, and where it fits in your overall marketing plan.

Plan, you say? Yes. You bet. Absolutely.

“To accomplish great things we must first dream, then visualize,
then plan... believe... act!”
(Alfred A. Montapert)

Taking Montapert’s advice, let’s apply it to our marketing. Creating a full marketing plan from scratch is a bigger project than we can address here but we can simplify the process for discussion’s sake.

Let’s talk about a marketing campaign to launch a free or paid product, using Montapert’s process.

Step 1 - Dream.

Most entrepreneurs do this one without any coaching. Unfortunately many are all too prone to skip right to the last step (Act!) without doing the critical work in between.

Step 2 - Visualize.

Moving past the Dream stage to Visualize is putting a bit more structure around your dream. Here you can see in your mind what you want to do and how it will happen conceptually.

Step 3 - Plan.

Ok, now we’re getting more grounded here. If you skipped right to Act, you’d be effectively throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. In marketing, that’s called a stupid waste of money and time.

Planning involves writing down your visualized dream, in gory detail. Here are some things to consider:

• Who is your target market? When you’re done with this Plan step, you should have a detailed written picture of EXACTLY who your target prospect or client is. Right down to what they do for fun, how big their family is, how many pets they own, how much money they make and what they like to spend it on, plus all the basic demographics, etc, etc.
• What do they want and how can you deliver it? Yes, that means you must figure out who your market is first, THEN figure out what to offer them. They won’t buy it if they don’t want it even if you think they need it. Truth.
• Where are they? Are they on the web, on social media? Do they live around the corner from your business? What do they read? Where do they shop?
• What language do they know? I don’t necessarily mean English, Spanish, or Swahili, although that’s obviously important. I mean - how do they talk, what slang do they use, what regional terms do they know, etc. For B2B, what industry ‘code’ do they speak?
•  How well do they know you? The more familiar they are with you, the better response you are likely to get.
• How will you get their attention?
• How many times will you contact them?
• What media will you use?
• What assets do you need for the campaign? Product? Copy? Graphics? Sales or customer support staff?
• What will you offer them?
• What do they have to do, or give, to get your offer?
• What’s the goal of this campaign?
• How will you measure results?

That ought to get your juices flowing! When you have your plan written - and by the way, you can use any method you are comfortable with such as whiteboard, post-it notes, computer (beware of distractions!), or old fashioned paper - it’s time to move to the next step.

Step 4 - Believe.

Now it’s time to believe in your plan. First, take a step back and take a hard look at your plan and fill in any obvious blanks. Tweak it only if you absolutely must. It’s easy to get into a non-productive circular pattern by planning, reviewing, planning, reviewing, etc.

Take a deep breath and believe in your heart this plan is a good one. Your mindset is important and will come through in how you execute your plan and present yourself and your offer.

Step 5 - Act!

Ready, set, go! This is where you start doing. Get that plan off the whiteboard and into fruition. Make it happen, then watch the results.

Congratulations on a job well done! The next time the process will be almost second nature, I promise. Need a more in-depth, inexpensive marketing education? I highly recommend this one.