10 COMMANDMENTS OF MARKETING SUCCESS

Dec 29, 2018

“Good marketers see consumers as complete human beings with all the dimensions real people have.” – Jonah Sachs

What is marketing success?

To really understand what marketing success truly is, most of us will have to rethink what we mean by marketing. Marketing isn’t just about finding ways to reach potential customers like by sending emails or posting about new products on social media. And it is definitely not about finding ways to trick your customers into buying your products or services. It is so much deeper. According to the American Marketing Association, Marketing is the activity and process for creating; communicating and delivering offerings that have value to customers. online-marketing Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-framed-eyeglasses-905163/ Marketing requires us to understand who our customers are. We must learn about their values, their beliefs and their preferences, to really know how we can communicate with them in a way that is mutually beneficial. In a nutshell, marketers have to:
  1. Find the target audience who share their brand’s values and have a need for their product
  2. Learn about their potential customers to provide a product or service that can help them
  3. Create offline and online marketing campaigns that connects and communicates with their target audience
Marketing is a responsibility. If you are a marketer you are responsible for what you sell to people and how you sell it to them. The promise you make before the sale needs to be in line with the value delivered thereafter. How you define your marketing will ultimately define your marketing success. Now that we’ve discussed what marketing entails, let’s define marketing success. If your marketing success is determined by the number of emailers sent, or followers gained on social media then by all means, go ahead and continue to do what you’re doing. But you may have also started to notice that these emails and posts that you are spending your precious resources on, are not getting you any quantifiable results in terms of sales.
“Our jobs as marketers are to understand how the customer wants to buy and help them do so.” – Bryan Eisenberg
Think of whom you created your business for and how you can serve them better. It’s our job to see customers as multi-dimensional beings with needs, values and beliefs, recognize them and find the best way to fulfill these needs in a way that is most convenient to them. And that’s what marketing success is all about. Here are 10 rules, or commandments if you will to show how you can embody marketing success in your everyday marketing endeavors. And we have an extra special gift for you at the end of this post, so keep reading!

10 COMMANDMENTS OF DIGITAL MARKETING SUCCESS

1. Thou Shalt Not Be Separate from Your Brand

Branding and marketing, both work phenomenally when it is personal. However, cruel and superficial the world may seem at the moment, people really love people and are driven by the need to connect with each other. The more your brand resonates with you, the more people will be attracted to it. You don’t need to have a magnanimous personality or have a billion dollars to make it happen. You only need three things: Honesty, authenticity and integrity. Once you master the three, your brand will be unstoppable. This is why names like Neil Patel and Gary Vaynerchuk are successful. They are honest about their failures, authentic with their content and put integrity above everything else. They’re honesty and authenticity makes them easy to trust in business too. This is one of Gary’s more recent videos where he shows a day in his life and gives a real picture of his entrepreneurial experience. Sure, not everyone can be Gary Vaynerchuk, but not everyone can be you either.

2. Thou Shalt Not Fail To Plan

Planning is the most important stage of brand building. Planning for something implies you have a well-determined goal –in branding, it means you know what image you want to create and how you’re going to create it. Having a clear brand image in mind will enable you to do exactly what it takes to reach your business goals. It helps in decision-making and aligns your product/service with your brand. Whatever you need, you can make it happen with the help of your game plan. When you plan for it, you streamline your efforts to achieve marketing success. Planning also helps you look back on what you have done towards your goals and ensure that any mistakes you may have made in the past become lessons for your future. planning Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-writing-on-white-book-1043514/

3. Thou Shalt Not Play The Blame Game In Vain

In a business, there are many times when things go out of control or stray away from the initial plan. This is usually one of the biggest challenges companies face when it comes to running a business. In such cases, it might be instinctive to blame external factors. But what good does that do? There are many ways to avoid the blame game, but the most important aspect is to find the solution to the problem.  Remind yourself and your team of why you started the brand and what your end goal was for that particular project. Rather than wasting time figuring out whose fault it was, figure out the solution. blame-game Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/three-women-and-two-men-watching-on-laptop-computer-on-table-1124062/

4. Remember Why You Started Your Brand, to Let It Guide You

There is an old saying that goes, “never forget where you came from.” This essentially means don’t forget your roots. Never forget that eureka moment that changed your life, when you decided to lay it all on the line for your business. You don’t have to be a doctor or a fire fighter to impact lives. Marketers and brands do it every day, by providing just what your customers and clientsneed, at just the right time. Simon Sinek has written an insightful book called “Start With Why”, which has a great quote,
“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe”
Aligning every decision big or small to the “Why” of your brand will make your employees and customers believe that they are a part of something bigger, making you more than just a shallow company that is trying to make a profit. story-telling

5. Honour Your Audience and Offering

As mentioned earlier,the promise of your brand must be equal to the value delivered. An empty promise can wreak havoc for your brand. Imagine this, you are just about to get into a #FitnessRoutine and you are looking for great shoes that match your purpose be it Running, CrossFit, MMA or anything else. You see this great advertisement online for shoes, which promises sturdy soles, soft and comfortable cushioning and a great grip; most importantly the product is within your desired price range. You buy them, they even reach you on time, but the second you put them on, you know that the fit is wrong, the insides are hard, and the soles are weak. What are you going to do? Besides returning them and demanding your money back, you’re probably going to tell everyone you know about the disappointing experience you had with that one shoe from that one brand and nobody you know, and probably nobody they know will ever make a purchase from that brand ever again. Think of the customers this brand has lost because of the bad publicity ripple effect, which you started. If it can happen to that brand, it can happen to any brand that doesn’t deliver on its promise. It could happen to your brand too. This is the reason why you need to balance your initial promise and the value delivered. Customers just want to be able to trust a brand and get exactly what they are promised. Giving customers what they were promised or even something a little bit more, is what will give you your first taste of marketing success. audienceSource: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-iphone-6-744780/

6. Thou Shalt Not Practice Inconsistent Brand Communication

This is a commandment all marketers must practice regularly. There is no doubt that marketing is all about trying different ways to communicate with your audience and experimenting to see what works with them. But that doesn’t mean you have to change it drastically every time. Whether you fail horribly trying to rebrand your look / logo or make bad decisions for your social media platforms, it can cost a fortune or a fallout in your following. This is why it is important to set your brand values in the start and follow through on social media, on blogs, in your logo, in your marketing collaterals etc. Everything has to portray the same message: where you are from, who you are and what you are here to do. Of course, you can mix it up a little. Crafting Genius ran a contest a couple of months ago that reached thousands of people and got many responses. The funny thing is the campaign combined Bollywood and social media. Although social media is within our forte, Bollywood is not. Yet because we stayed true to our original brand purpose, our audience was comfortable and engaged with the campaign wholeheartedly. Check it out here.

7. Thou Shalt Not Make Your Website Your Last Priority

Websites are the new shopfront. Before finding an office space, we suggest you find a hosting space. Your potential customers could be ordering food, shopping for clothes, or booking travel tickets right now on their smartphones or laptops. When they look up for a product you sell, your business won’t show up if you don’t have a website (and an SEO-friendly one too). As a result, they’ll choose to go with a competitor’s product and BAM! You just lost a sale. Before you start marketing, before you start selling, make your website. We say this because once the word gets out about your brand, people will want to look you up on the internet to make sure you’re a credible business. Here’s a complete guide to help you create a simple, functional and interactive website by Social Media Today. website Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/computer-keyboard-laptop-screen-109371/

8. Thou Shalt Not Resort To Plagiarism

Copycats, unfortunately, it’s too late for you now! If you’ve watched “The American Meme” on Netflix, you know there was a time when plagiarising would pass on the internet, as long as you changed a few words here and there. It was easier to taste marketing success when the internet was accessed by a privileged few. But now that people are more active on social media, and there’s so much content available, originality is the crowning glory. Being inspired by existing content is one thing but ripping it off completely is simply disrespectful.

9. Thou Shalt Not Use Black Hat Optimization Techniques

Optimize your web page for what it really is about, so that search engines can have a nice and easy time finding out more about your business. Check out this blog by Design Hammer, to learn how you can avoid being penalized by search engines for using any black hat techniques. digital marketing Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/advertising-alphabet-business-communication-270637/

10. Thou Shalt Not Neglect Social Media

How dare you! If your brand does not already have a social media plan and social media profiles, you are missing out on so many potential customers. On social media, your main priority must be to provide valuable, consistent and relevant content to your followers, so that they get a closer look at what your brand is all about. Today, where everything is live, and life unfurls in 30-second stories, your customers too, would love to peek behind the scenes to see what goes into the making of your brand. They want to see it all and they want to see it now. It’s a great way to attract the attention of your target audience, bring more awareness about your brand and connect more closely with your loyal customer community. If you’re just getting started with social media, this amazing article published in the Entrepreneur can help. social Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/apps-blur-button-close-up-267350/

Takeaway:

Following these 10 Commandments of Marketing Success will take some time and practice, but eventually redefining your goals can transform your business and brand more than you ever thought was possible. What do you think of our 10 Commandments of Marketing Success? Do you agree with us? Let us know in the comment below. And here’s a special gift from us for you! Get your free wall poster of the 10 Commandments of Digital Marketing Success below! We hope this will inspire you daily, and guide you through your journey in 2019.

10 COMMANDMENTS OF MARKETING SUCCESS

FREE WALL POSTER

Have a fantastic 2019! Team Crafting Genius
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