Marketing Must Motivate, Educate, But Never Entertain
That’s what marketing does and that’s what marketing must never do. Nothing creates mystique in business more than marketing. There are some very good reasons for that.
Marketing is not show business. There’s no business like show business and that includes marketing. Marketing is the motivate business, the educate business and the create a desire business. Marketing is not in the entertaining business.
Show business should entertain and amuse. But marketing should sell your product or service. Marketing should gain you market share, increase profit margins, and grow revenues.
Educate
By educating your prospects and customers you can take full advantage of helping them succeed at whatever they wish to succeed at. As soon as possible, learn what it is that your prospect wishes to succeed at, and then show how what you are selling can make that success achievable.
Education Tactics
- Consistently deliver your newsletter,
- educate – don’t promote,
- get backlinks from reputable websites,
- participate on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter by sharing great information and helping others find what they want,
- consistently write educational blog content,
- stimulate reviews on sites like Google+, LinkedIn and Yelp,
- submit press releases to online distribution sites such as PRWeb and
- find industry or local publications that accept contributed content.
Motivate
Information motivates. The most beautiful, interactive websites on this planet fail if they are not built around providing relevant, valuable and meaningful content that prospects and visitors want or that motivates them to take the action that your business wants.
Motivation Tactics
What does your target audience want? What types of content would help you gain their trust to the extent that they recommend your products? It’s important to research:
- Buyer personas and their relevant segmentation
- Keywords that they likely use to research products in your category
- Your competitors’ search engine strategy (SEO) and results
- The use of social media marketing platforms by other companies in your industry
- Formats your target audience prefers
Some people believe that based upon studies, people like marketing that entertains. True. People may like marketing that entertains but they sure don’t respond to it. To make matters worst, the marketing community nurtures this thinking by presenting awards based upon glitz, glamour, glitter, humor and originality, special effects and jingles. Those awards should be given for profit increases and nothing else.
The only thing that should be glamorous, and glittering is your bottom line.
About the Author: Patrick McFadden is the owner and marketing consultant at Indispensable Marketing , a strategic marketing firm in Richmond, VA. We help small to midsize businesses get new or better results through creating a strong marketing foundation that will carry the company’s marketing efforts into the next decade.
Indispensable Marketing takes a process approach to developing and installing your small business marketing.