Successful marketing really boils down to one primary business activity: doing whatever it takes to influence your customers to take the action you’ve decided in advance.

As simple as that might sound, the approach to this activity can vary enormously. But here’s the key: the “recipe” for a successful approach is well documented and easily adaptable by any viable business.

If you want to be successful, then there’s a “secret recipe” that is easy to follow. When you learn this secret, you’ll realise it’s something you “knew all along”… but the difference is in the DOING, not in the knowing.

So what’s the secret? I can reveal it here in summary: if you always look at your business marketing with the customer’s “what’s in it for me?” mantra in mind, then you’ll make the impact you want. To get it right, here’s a simple 5-step formula to follow.

But before I explain in more detail, let’s break down that primary business activity:

Doing whatever it takes to influence your customers to take the action you’ve decided in advance.

“Doing”
is about taking ACTION. Planning is great, but nothing really happens until you do something. Planning ensures you do the right thing (or helps evaluate what you do so you can keep improving… test, evaluate, revise). Too much time is sometimes spent on things that just don’t matter. Customers really don’t care if your phone number is in 14 point Times New Roman or 14 point Minion — lots of time is taken up making unnecessary adjustments! As a graphic artist and marketer, I see this happen quite a lot… headings and copy are very important, as is legibility, and there are ways of writing and presenting that get better results. But just getting out and taking that first step… “doing” is what builds momentum.

“Whatever it takes”
this is where assumptions should make way for test results and real research. The book ‘Scientific Advertising’ is very succinct on how testing and tracking advertising made such a different to each campaign. Be prepared to do even what you don’t initially feel is right… so long as it works! This might also mean a radical adjustment to the type of marketing approach you’ve always taken. “Oh, we tried that a few years ago and it didn’t work.” Really? How? How did you measure or test or track the results? What did work? What didn’t work? Do you know for sure?

“To influence your customers” (and potential customers)
Influence comes from a number of sources, and one of the best summations of the areas of human need and influence I have seen come from Robert Cialdini and Tony Robbins. Learn the triggers and ways to influence… from “social proof” to “exclusivity” and other areas of influence. Dan Kennedy (no relation!) is one direct marketer who uses a perfect example in his “takeaway selling” approach. Denny Hatch talks about eight “copy drivers” that make people act… fear, greed, guilt, anger, exclusivity,salvation, flattery and patriotism. This is where you answer “what’s in it for me?”.

“To take the action”
What are you achieving when you don’t get customers to respond to your offer? If you’re “just putting your name out there” … that’s great if you have money to burn, but if results count more than just awareness, then you need to give your customers ways to respond and take action. Awareness can be a marketing objective, but it is usually reserved for big players. The owner of a single restaurant is going up against the odds in trying to create a brand like McDonald’s. It doesn’t mean that branding doesn’t matter at all… but not considering how your customers will respond, and not encouraging your customers to take action isn’t an option for many small businesses.

You want them to spend money with you? Then step them through HOW to do that… what action they need to take to meet your objectives.

“You’ve decided in advance”
This is where your planning and research affects your results. Success doesn’t happen by accident. You need a deliberate plan. Imagine a game of football where there was no scoreboard: how do you know if you’re winning? How do you know if you’re meeting your goals?

Dean’s 5 Step Marketing Recipe

From my experience, and as a summation from what I’ve read and heard from marketing experts, this 5-step sequence should be followed in order for your marketing to be successful:

1) “M” stands for Market

The first part of the marketing recipe is all about your market: knowing who your potential customers are, and what they want. Generally the product doesn’t come first, the market does.

To use a fishing analogy (I love analogies!) — it’s no good having the perfect bait (offer) if you’re not fishing “where the fish are.” And just like fishing, RESEARCH plays a bit part in your success. Who are your fish? What do they eat? Where do they hang out? What are they attracted to? Sometimes there are lots of different categories of customers in your market.

For example, take a travel agency in an outer suburban area. Your main market might be families with 2 working parents and 2 children at school. You will probably have a number of secondary markets too. The more you sell, the more you can get to know your existing customers, what they’re like, what they buy, where they travel.

Of course, potential customers are as much a part of your Market as your existing customers. So when you’re doing whatever it takes to influence your customers — or potential customers — you must first understand who they are, and what they want.

2) “O” stands for Objective

In essence, you must ask yourself WHY you’re doing what you’re doing… what is the objective? Here, you’ll figure out your goal, and then you can compare that to what you know about your market.

In fishing terms, you might have discovered that, in your ocean, there are 5,000 tuna. You know what the tuna are hungry for, so now it’s time to plan your objective to suit.

This is also time to plan a constant stream of marketing activity. Trying to land your whole catch of customers on just one trip out fishing is risky, unless you have the world’s best bait!

At the same time, if your market is tuna, and your objective is to catch whiting and garfish, you’ve misunderstood your market and any marketing you do aimed at the wrong objective will most likely be wasted.

Using the travel agency example again, if your main market is retirees, trying to sell Contiki-style “18 to 35s” holidays will not be a profitable exercise.

3) “O” stands for Offer

To “catch” your customers, you need an offer for them to respond to. Okay, so maybe my specific tuna analogy doesn’t quite work here, as tuna will bite your hook in a feeding frenzy without any bait attached (but it was the burley and planned action that enticed them up to the boat). In that case the offer was the burley — and the ensuing frenzy means that your landing your catch without too much need for bait!

Having no offer means no interest, no action, no response. This also applies to an offered your customer considers weak or not very appetising — you won’t get the response you are after.

You’ll sometimes come across advice to just get your name out there, so people know who you are. Having no offer means you either have deep pockets and can afford to waste money on advertising, or that your product sells itself without the need to advertise (maybe you’re the tax man?). This approach means you are relying on your customer to buy from you when THEY choose. “Getting your name out there” can help make you their number one choice, and trigger a sale when it’s time to buy… but it doesn’t mean you’ll get an instant return from your offer. That’s not to say that everything you do should involve hard-selling: often, you can influence your market when you’re not hard-selling (depending on your market and your objective).

If you have a tempting offer/communication/message that results in achieving your set objective, and use a number of good psychological “hooks” to land your catch (things like exclusivity, deadlines/urgency, reciprocity) then your results will reflect your efforts, so long as you reach your customers. That leads me to the…

4) “V” stands for Vehicle

Here’s where you work out what “vehicle” you will use to get your offer to your market. Advertising? What kind? Other types of marketing? Newsletters? Email? Letters? Postcards? Cross-promotions? Referrals? What positioning do you use? What vehicle matches your objective to communicate to your market?

5) “E” stands for Evaluation

You constantly need to MEASURE if your marketing is working. Test, test, test… track, track, track… measure, measure, measure! Evaluate both what worked, and what didn’t work. Revise/change your approach until it works. Keep on testing. Revise and adjust until it gets better. What does your customer cost you to become a customer? What is their value? These answers help determine your offer and assess whether you are meeting your objectives.

I remember some years ago reading* about a handbag manufacturer who would get together the new season’s handbags, and, knowing his cost (but not disclosing it), would assemble a range of people, including staff/employees, to estimate the wholesale and retail value of each bag by looking at it. He could pick winning products for that season by knowing in advance which bag had the best perceived value at much more than his cost to manufacture, so he knew which product was likely to be most profitable. A simple strategy that was very effective.

The testing/evaluation section of marketing it is often overlooked as too time consuming. A better perspective is to be aware that NOT evaluating properly could lose you a fortune! Have you heard this saying about training your staff… “what if I train my staff and they leave … well, what if you don’t train your staff and they stay?!?”

Success Formula Summary

The MOOVE formula gives you a handy foundation to understand, plan, create and evalue your marketing. You can use the MOOVE formula to transform your idea into action and into profit.

Remember, for successful marketing… MOOVE it or lose it!

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Dean Kennedy has more than 15 years of practical, street-smart marketing experience. Prior to his focus on marketing, he was enterprising and earning money from a variety of sources, right back before he started school. From early days as a paper boy and lawn mowing kid, Dean was involved in a range of sales roles and now, through his company DMK Business Systems Pty Ltd (dmk.com.au), assists small businesses and community organisations with a range of marketing, advertising, design and printing services. To find out if DMK can assist you, please contact us today.

*I’ve recently re-read the book — it was in The Power of One to One by Ian Kennedy and Bryce Courtenay — and the example refers to Park Lane handbags back in the 1960s, where Ian Kennedy was once manager. This excellent book was one of my earlier influences on direct marketing and database marketing, back when I was doing political marketing in the 1990s. ISBN is 1875574301. Looking online for copies in May 2007, I found several online, only 1 used on Amazon, but several elsewhere, including eBay and some Australian book sites, for much less than the Amazon option.

Ian Kennedy — no relation, like Dan Kennedy! — is often referred to as “the father of direct marketing” in Australia. I found an interesting bio at http://www.scgroup.biz/HTML/TeamIanKennedy.htm.