Welcome to the Lead Generation Community: August 2007

Every business owner shares one thing in common: the desire to create a stable, steady business that achieves profitability and grows over time. But not every business owner knows the secret formula that makes that possible. So what is that secret formula? In a word, it's marketing. "But what does the word 'marketing' mean?" you ask. "Is it just getting the word out about my business? I've already done that, and I can't really see any difference." In its most complete form, marketing is about much more than letting people know your business exists, although that's an important piece of the puzzle. In fact, in many ways, getting the word out is one of the last steps in a good marketing plan. A strong marketing campaign goes much deeper, and provides benefits that help you attract customers at the same time as you clarify achievable goals and create realistic plans to meet them. At its best, a marketing plan helps you understand:

Your business
Your customers
Your competition
The full range of opportunities available to you
The optimal way to attack those opportunities
Appropriate pricing
The marketplace in which you operate

Understanding, and communicating, these essential components will help your business catch fire. Whether you own a small or large business, if you're in the game to succeed, a well-thought-out marketing plan is one of the best tools you can employ along the way. This article will help you develop just such a plan. But before we jump right into the meat of the material, let's take a moment to discuss how the article will be structures.

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In order to sell a product or service, a company must establish a relationship with the consumer. It must build trust and rapport. It must understand the customer's needs, and it must provide a product that delivers the promised benefits.

If any one man wrote the book on marketing, it's Jay Conrad Levinson, inventor of the concept of guerilla marketing and author of the best-selling marketing series on the topic. Levinson has dubbed these three imperatives the "guerilla's manifesto" and, in fact, they truly describe what it takes to launch a marketing campaign that will drive your company to success.

The customer is always right, and some other important truths
In order to succeed, a company must establish relationships with customers. The strong, lasting relationships that will ensure a company's success are built on:

Establishing trust and rapport
Understanding customers' needs
Providing real benefits

In many ways, these three imperatives all reiterate one central concept: The relationships between successful businesses and their customers depend on careful understanding and reliable fulfillment of human needs. The business owner understands what people need, and does everything he can to meet those needs. Beyond that, however, Levinson argues that the successful business owner, i.e., marketer, also:

Understands that the impact of the message is more important than the number of people who hear it. "The guerilla would rather reach ten people with a message that works than 100 with one that doesn't."
Understands that providing real benefits is the only key to long-term success. Promising benefits is great, but if you don't come through, you'll lose customers faster than you can say, "boo!" Moreover, you must provide something people want, not simply something you want to sell. If you're the best fur coat maker in the tropics, you can advertise all you want to a local market and never make a sale. Instead, you'll have to broaden your market to colder climes, or put your skills to work making something people in your local can use.
 Understands the importance of positioning a business in relation to competitors and market leaders in the same filed. If you make a great cola, good luck going up against the big guys. To make your mark, you'll need something special to make yourself stand out. For instance, a cola sweetened with a sweetener that has no calories, no aftertaste, and is actually good for your teeth!
Understands the importance of budgeting wisely, but spending where it counts. For instance, if a good marketer decides to run a newspaper ad, he or she will make sure to hire professional designers and artists to make sure the business projects the best possible image.
Understands commitment. Even the best marketing campaigns will bring immediate, lasting improvement. Building trust and rapport takes time. Great marketers are both diligent and patient, and they don't change course midstream just because they aren't seeing results fast enough.

Understanding customer needs
Most business owners have an intuitive understanding of their customers needs, but that intuitive understanding becomes a much more powerful tool if you articulate and analyze it. Only then can you fully understand how to most effectively build the kind of customer relationship that will help your business succeed over time. This principle is central to both Levinson's and the SBA's formulation of marketing. As a starter point in your marketing plan, ask yourself the following questions, adapted from a list provided by the SBA:

Who are my customers?
Who are my potential customers?
What kind of people are they? What are their incomes? What are their needs?
Where do they live?
Can they buy? Will they buy?
Am I offering them real benefits, when and how they want them?
Is my business in the best place?
Is my pricing right?
How do customers perceive my business?
Who are my competitors?
How does my business compare with my competitors'?

Your elevator pitch or mission statement
Do you have such a statement? If not, it's time to put one together. This statement might be called your elevator pitch. It should be short enough that you can explain your business in the course of an elevator ride from the first to the sixth floor. Alternately, it could be called your mission statement. Either way, the statement should answer four key questions:

What does your business or product do?
What is the core benefit you provide?
Who is the recipient of that benefit?
What is your unique selling proposition?

Try identify the benefits that your customers crave.
If they're like most people, they want again, adapted from Levinson:

To be safe
To be happy
To have fun
To be attractive
To be sexy
To be successful
To like themselves
To be liked by others
To be free from pain
To have more leisure time
To accomplish more in a shorter time
To feel good
To eat well
To be healthier
To connect with their loved ones

Your target market.

Niche markets
If you're trying to be everything to everyone, you're probably setting yourself up for failure. Instead, what you need to do is identify the market segment or segments that you want to reach, figure out how the products or services you offer match the needs of consumers in that market, then craft a short statement that explains your benefits to that particular audience. The more precisely you can describe your ideal customer base, the better you can use your resources to maximize profits and build loyalty. Ideally, you'll be able to identify one or more niche markets. In the simplest terms, a niche market is a small segment of a larger market. Alternately, it may be a group of customers who have specific needs that are not being met adequately by the major competitors in the marketplace. Generally, customers in niche markets meet the following criteria:

They are easy to profile. You can determine the demographics, psychographics, and geographics of this group without difficulty. Psychographics include characteristics based on ideology, values, beliefs, and attitudes.
They are easy to access. You can identify at least two or three ways to get your information to this group.
They have profit potential. These customers spend enough annually on similar products or services to make your efforts worthwhile.

Networking is the art of making personal connections. Whether you're an extrovert or an introvert, networking is a powerful way to operate, and it's as much about helping others as it is about helping yourself. Good networking is an easy-to-learn habit that will lead to all kinds of opportunities in both your professional and personal life.