Sometimes businesses forget why they do marketing in the first place. They’re so focused on getting a newsletter out, or updating their website, or blogging, or tweeting, or cranking out a new brochure that they’ve overlooked why they’re doing it at all.
Your business shouldn’t engage in marketing just so you’ll have a nice image. Good marketing should enhance your image, but that’s not why you do it. You don’t do it simply for name recognition (again, that’s a nice benefit, but not the main thrust). Businesses shouldn’t do marketing just to keep creative types employed, either. So why should your business do marketing?
You want customers and prospects to engage with you. You’re looking for leads. And you’re looking to qualify those leads. Not everyone is your customer. And that’s a good thing, because you can’t afford to reach out to everyone. You’re looking to match your goods or services with the people that are most likely to buy whatever it is you have to offer.
You don’t want people to say: “Wow! What a great [ad, blog, flyer, catalog, etc.]. You want them to raise their hand and say: “Yes! This is what I’m looking for. Tell me more!”
How do you do that? With an offer and a call to action. Simply put, your offer should be something they want (something that has value to them) and your call to action is something your reader has to do in order to get the offer.
Rather than talk more about this, let’s show you what we mean. If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably interested in improving your marketing efforts. So we’re going to offer you something that can help you do that. We’ve got a great little eBook called Direct Marketing Insights for Success in Today’s New Economy. All you have to do to download this free eBook is click on the link above (that’s your call to action).
By clicking on that link, you’re raising your hand. You’re telling us that you’re serious enough about improving your marketing to at least read up on it. And maybe—down the road a bit—you may be interested in talking to us directly about how we can help you. Not everyone will click on the link. That’s OK. We’re trying to figure out who is interested enough in marketing help to raise their hand now. If you don’t raise your hand, we won’t bug you. If you do raise your hand, we may see if you’ll do it again with another offer. And then we may ask you if you’re interested enough to talk about it.
Do you have a plan for getting your customers and prospects to raise their hands and tell you they’re interested in what you have to offer?