Effective Marketing Begins at the End

If you are like many marketers, your decisions are based on what you’ve done in the past, what your competition is doing, or worse yet – you advertise because you feel like you “…just have to advertise.” There is a better way.

Dr. Stephen R. Covey writes that the ability to “Begin with the End in Mind” is one of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Where his concepts can be applied to many aspects of our personal and business life, I think this is an important one to embrace when marketing our businesses. Try using this simple 3-step approach to a goal-centered marketing campaign.

• Identify a single goal. When planning your next campaign, be sure to ask, “What do we want to happen?” Some want the phone to ring. For someone in retail, it might be to get customers to the store. Regardless of the goal, you have to have one and it needs to be written down before any other work can begin. You only get one, so choose wisely. This will now become the focal point of the rest of your efforts.
• Plot the best course. Now that we know where we’re going, we just have to find a path to get there. Spend some time researching all of your different media options. Talk to your advertising sales-representatives. Ask them each to put together a plan that uses their product to reach your goal. Spend some time online and talking with peers searching for innovative marketing tactics. Try not to dip into your old bag-of-tricks. Just because something worked last year doesn’t mean you should stop looking for something better.
• Now go get it. Simply turn it on, sit back and most importantly, measure the results. You need to be able to report data with accuracy. Did you have an increase in sales? Did the phone ring more? How many new visitors came to your website? Use available technology and unique promotions to track behavior accurately. Ask your web developer for detailed reports to reinforce your findings.

Begin your next marketing adventure with the end in mind. You’ll find that starting with a clearly defined project goal will keep you on track and will lead you one step at a time toward marketing success.

Author: Arrick Garringer
Arrick Garringer is a Media Designer at SpinWeb. His background includes graphic design, brand development and marketing solutions. In his spare time, Arrick enjoys his family, playing music and really strong coffee. Contact Arrick at arrick@spinweb.net or 317.324.1100.

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