The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Marketers

By Susan LaPlante-Dube is the President of Precision Marketing Group. www.precisionmarketinggroup.com.

Marketing is not something you do when you need new business. It is an ongoing set of activities that help you increase visibility, create brand recognition, and make it easier for people to buy your products and services. To

create the greatest success, consider these seven habits of highly successful marketers:

Always Use Customer- Focused Messages

It’s important to develop a clear, value-focused message. Value focused means speaking from a customer’s point of view in language that makes sense to him or her. Your message is not about what you do, but about how someone will benefit from buying your product or services.

Really Know Your Target Market

It is not enough to know you are selling to the technology industry, for example. You must know whom you are selling to specifically within a company. The techniques and messages you use to sell to the CFO are very different from what you use to sell to the CIO. Each is focused on different benefits, they read different publications, and they think differently about certain solutions. Highly successful marketers take the time to really understand who buys their products or services and what matters most to these customers.

Build Relationships

People like to do business with someone they know and trust. So step out of sales mode and into relationship mode. As you meet people, do not focus on how you can tell them more about what you do or how they can help you. Instead, show a true, genuine interest in developing a relationship that is based on mutual benefit. This does not happen in the first meeting. To truly build relationships, make sure you spend one-on-one time with people you meet outside of networking events.

Develop — And Follow — A Marketing Plan

A good marketing plan is a strategic and tactical tool that maximizes your time, propels your business forward, and provides an objective, real-time picture of your business and its success. A plan saves you money by making sure your marketing activities are integrated, thoughtful, and focused on your goals. Your plan doesn’t have to be elaborate — just create a simple calendar of activities for the year that build upon one common theme.

Create Consistency and Integration With All Your Marketing

Successful marketing is dependent on the integration of all your marketing activities and the consistent execution. As noted above, pick one theme (it should be consistent with your focused message). For example, perhaps your theme is “to save money” or “to get new clients.” Then, plan a series of activities to communicate

this theme. Write an article about the topic, make sure you communicate it on the home page of your website, use it in your elevator speech when you introduce yourself, and create direct marketing that supports it. Every piece of marketing you do should consistently reflect one another in look, message, tone, and action.

Measure Results

What’s the point of doing all this work and spending all this money if you have no idea what is working? Measuring results is not an afterthought. Plan for it at the beginning of each marketing program and make sure you put the right techniques in place whether it is a special web based phone number that provides reports, a landing page on the web site, coupons that are redeemed, or surveys  that people respond to.

Give It Time, But Know When To Change Tactics

Every program deserves time to work. Often when business is most challenging, people drop their marketing efforts just when they are needed most. Developing momentum in a market takes time and repetition. One ad will not deliver thousands of dollars of business. One direct mail will not fill your pipeline for the year. Give your marketing ample time, but be ready to change tactics when necessary.