Think of the marketing you create like a three-legged stool – every campaign, whether email, direct mail or social media, needs the right message, to the right market, through the right media to be effective.
Who's Your Target (it's not "everyone")
Marketing your business effectively involves targeting a specific audience rather than trying to appeal to everyone. Here are a few reasons why:
Resource Limitations: You have a limited budget and resources. Trying to market to everyone means you spend money and time trying to attract people that will never come to your business.
Message Relevance: Different groups of people have different needs, preferences, and pain points. Tailoring your message to a specific audience makes it more relevant and compelling, increasing the chances of them choosing you.
Cost Efficiency: Targeted marketing efforts are more cost-efficient. You can spend money on strategies that are more likely to reach and resonate with your ideal customers, maximizing your return on investment.
Customer Relationships: Building strong relationships with a specific group of customers can lead to word-of-mouth referrals and repeat business. It’s easier to cultivate loyalty and trust when you understand and meet the unique needs of a defined audience.
Analytics and Measurement: It’s easier to measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and make data-driven decisions when targeting a specific audience. You can track metrics more accurately and adjust strategies based on real insights.
By focusing on a specific target audience, you can create more effective, efficient, and impactful marketing campaigns.
Market directly to your customer list – the people that have given you money in the past and are most likely to do so again. (We are assuming you have a customer list…) These existing customers already know, like and trust you so it is easier to convince them to return again. Giving existing customers exclusive offers provides more excitement and engagement for customers, motivating them to return.
There are many ways to slice and dice your customer list. In our Royalty Rewards® database one simple way is by targeting active, inactive and lost Rewards Members. You can also target top customers by lifetime spending, or monthly spending. You could choose geographic areas. Maybe you have interest groups (by meal segment, or car brands), or membership levels. Each one has different needs, motivators and will require different incentives. Considering WHO is getting a particular piece of marketing will help you determine the MESSAGE and the MEDIA.
When new customers see people getting fun, exciting marketing in your business, they will want to know how they can get in on it too, which helps to grow your customer list.
Send the right MESSAGE
This successful marketing example uses the theme of Christmas in July.
What makes that the right message?
- Christmas is a much-loved holiday, and appeals to customers’ emotions.
- In mid-summer, Santa on a surf board attracts attention.
- This was a mailed postcard, large, 6.5×11, personalized and full color. It gets noticed.
- It’s out of the ordinary – your customers seek different, creative, and FUN. Boring is well… boring.
- It gives the recipient an irresistible offer. A reason to take action and a deadline of when to do so, creating urgency. You can offer anything, as long as it’s something your customer WANTS.
Choosing Your Media
Picking how you will deliver your message is your last decision. Your message and market need to be determined first because every market responds to different media.
What is the message that you want to send to your target market so that it will grab their attention and they’ll respond? Then the last thing is what media is the most cost-effective to reach that target market?
Often a huge mistake that Business Owners make is buying space in a publication, on Google or Facebook, or on the radio, or in the newspaper without thinking about the target they will reach. If the media choice is too broad, you end up paying for an audience that will never be interested in what you are offering. That’s wasted money.
Figure out who you want to target, then what you’re going to say to them, and then how you’ll convey it. That HAS to be the order if you want to make your marketing dollars work for you.
Focus Your Firepower
Over time, you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t work for your target audience, which means you can focus only on the marketing that brings you results and stop paying for marketing that doesn’t.
Our direct mail campaigns (like the one above) have proven to work over and over again, yet many Business Owners have an instant reaction about how they think it’s outdated, or how it might be perceived, or how much it costs. And, really, marketing is about two things, math and human psychology. It’s not about how you feel, or what your friends think, or if other businesses are doing it or not. You really have to put emotion aside and know the facts. Tracking marketing results is the heart and soul of Royalty Rewards® so we can report on if the marketing was successful, or when it needs to be improved.
You spent X dollars, you got Y sales as a result. These people came in, they spent this amount of money, compared against the marketing and premium costs. That’s the math. The human psychology is how can we get more people to respond? What grabs their attention? That’s all that matters.
Remember… you are paying for all the circulation or coverage of the media you choose. The less waste the better. The people that your marketing reaches that are not likely to come to your business is wasted money. Find out everything about who your best customers are: study their similarities and habits to understand what interests them. Match this information with the media this group of people most likely looks at. It might be social media, or email, or direct mail. Monitor the results.
All the other stuff is just noise.
If you want to start creating a comprehensive customer list so you can focus on sending marketing that targets your audience, with messages and offers that they respond to, through all the marketing media channels – book a call to discuss having a free trial of Royalty Rewards for 90 Days.
Choosing A Loyalty Program
Learn what makes customers stay loyal, how to pick a program with the right features, and how to give your business that extra edge.
Are You Leading the Way… or Just Catching Up?
Imagine you’re at the start of a race. You’ve trained, mapped out the course, and can practically see the finish line. You start strong, you’re ready, and you’re in control. Now picture jumping into a race without any training or map. You might catch up, you might miss a few turns in the road, and each step feels like a scramble to keep pace.
This is exactly how marketing can feel when you’re either taking action with a clear plan—or just reacting to whatever happens.
Engaging with your Community
You and your team live and work in your community, you can form deep relationships with local customers, charities, schools, community events, sports teams and other businesses, leading to strong word-of-mouth marketing and local support. This idea is very strategic because in addition to benefiting the community – it gives you a reason to create a lot of effective marketing and encourage new and repeat business.
