3 steps to successful marketing. A summary of FMS MD Clive Reddihough's presentation at Kent Vision LIVE.

Please click on the link to download the full presentation: 3 steps to successful marketing

In a complex, challenging and ever changing world, businesses today face three main marketing challenges:

1. Marketing ‘fairy tales’

Businesses are ‘besieged’ by a constant stream of the next big things in marketing. New technologies, new channels, new algorithms and much more, offer the promise of being the ‘one thing’ that could miraculously transform your business.

It’s tempting, for all of us, to reach out and grab one or more of these without really thinking about it or how it will contribute to achieving business objectives.
 

2. An abundance of choice

Online and offline there are a plethora of marketing and media channels available to businesses. On social media alone the choice can be baffling. When you extend the choice to include digital and ‘traditional’ marketing, businesses today are faced with a bewildering array of options.
 

3. Massive competition for our attention

In the late 1980’s a study in the USA estimated that people were exposed to around 5,000 ads a day.

A more recent study in 2014 suggested that average daily exposure to ads was just over 360 per day.

Whichever of these estimates is nearer the mark, one thing is certain we are all exposed to a lot of marketing messages every day. So, how do you make sure what you do cuts through all the noise?
 

Faced with these challenges it can be difficult for businesses to work out how to be successful at marketing. Simplifying things can help.

By following three steps marketing can be a beautifully simple means of making an organisation, product, or service more successful:

1. Focus on customers' needs and wants

Determine how what you do, or what you’re doing adds value to the lives of your customers. Identifying, anticipating and satisfying the needs of customers profitably is fundamental to the success of any business.
 

2. Stand out

Discover what’s unique about your business – what it does or the way that it does it – and communicate it in one simple, easy to understand phrase.

Identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer needs is good but on its own it will only put business on a ‘level playing field’ with others in their industry. Consumers need a reason to choose a business over others – that’s why it’s so important for a business to stand out from the crowd.
 

3. Communicate

Find the best way to talk with the people who are/who might be interested in what you have to offer.

It’s critical that businesses focus on their target audiences and reach out to and engage with the right people, with the right message at the right time.
 

The three steps to successful marketing: