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A BRIGHT MARKETING MANIFESTO

What makes your marketing stand out? Think very hard. Business guru Robert Craven argues that, for many companies, too often the answer is simply 'not enough'.

 

Take 15,000 owner-managers and managing directors of growing businesses.
Ask one simple, yet fundamental question about their businesses: What aspects of marketing and selling they need to get better at? Give them the answer(s) in a way that allows them to significantly improve their businesses. Return after one year and see the results. This was the Bright Marketing recipe.

AND THE REALITY…
Over the last three years I have asked the following question to over 15,000 owner-managers and directors at marketing masterclasses and seminars:
What is it that you want to know how to do by the end of this session? As a result we now have a pretty good idea of the key marketing issues that people want resolved.

At its simplest, the questions that audiences wanted the answer to came under one of six headings:

• What works?
• How to communicate effectively and how do you get heard?
• How should you focus and how should you target?
• How should you measure?
• How do you stand out from the rest and how do you get listened to?
• How do you go about getting more sales for your budget?

Tools For Growth

As we answered the key questions time and time again, we were able to develop, create and modify a set of tools that were fundamental to the growth of a successful business.  In the end we were able to identify and share an approach and attitude that separates the exceptional performers from the average ones. This common set of Bright Marketing tools creates remarkable results for those that use them in their businesses.

A World Of Similarity

Nearly everyone looks the same. Your competitors pay similar people with similar qualifications similar wages to use similar software on similar hardware to make similar products that do similar things at similar prices. We live in a world of similarity which I can almost guarantee that your competitors have similar, if not identical marketing materials to yours. 

You will be exactly the same as the rest of your competition if you also try to promote yourself by celebrating similar qualities (qualified staff, happy customers, value for money etc).  In most industries there is too much sameness; too much safe differentiation between the various competitors. 

The Failures

We discovered that the reason that most people’s marketing doesn’t work (as well as it could) is normally down to one or several of the following reasons:

• Lack of commitment - If you are not consistent and regular in the ways that you promote your product, then the odds are that you will not succeed.

• Lack of a clear benefit - It never hurts to state the obvious. You must sell something that people want. 

• Poor positioning - If you look exactly the same as your competitors and you offer the same benefits at the same price, then why should customers bother to come to you?

• KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!) - We have an ability to complicate things without realising that simplicity, clarity and focus will bring us the profits we seek.

• Paralysis by Analysis combined with dull thinking - Usually caused by attending inappropriate marketing courses and reading too many marketing textbooks.

Why People Buy From You

There are four possible answers:

1. You know exactly what unique set of advantages you offer your clients, and you set out to capitalise on these advantages.
2. You offer a unique set of advantages but you’ve never really identified them yourself.
3. You offer the client no unique advantages and you’re just lucky to still be trading.
4. You are about to go out of business because you are virtually giving the stuff away..

Be totally honest. If it's numbers two, three or four, there's work to be done.

About The author

Robert Craven is a keynote speaker and author of the business best-sellers 'Kick-Start Your Business' and 'Customer Is King'. His new book ' Bright Marketing - Why Should People Bother To Buy From You?' is out in July. As managing director of The Directors' Centre www.directorscentre.com the consultancy for growing businesses, Craven works with ambitious directors to break through constraints on business growth. He can be contacted at rc@directorscentre.com +44 (0)1225 851044

©2007, Robert Craven, Growing Business Magazine.

publication details

First published in Growing Business, June 2007.