Cooking Up Effective Marketing

There are times when you HAVE to do things a certain way for the best results.  And then there are times when you can find easier ways to get things done.  This is true for everything from cooking a meal to running effective marketing campaigns for your business.

For example, since I don’t enjoy cooking, I’m all about a good crockpot meal.  I love the ease of throwing everything in at once, setting it for 4 – 6 hours and coming home to a lovely full meal.  While I like ease, ease doesn’t ALWAYS mean better.  Often the easiest meals to cook aren’t the healthiest or best for your body.

I’m sure you’re asking yourself, “why is she rambling on about cooking?”. Well, because marketing is a lot like cooking.  You can use the “set it and forget it” approach to marketing or go for the “five star meal” style.

Both ways of cooking up marketing are useful and effective.

Set It and Forget It

The “set it and forget it” marketing strategy includes things like billboards, rack cards, flyers, brochures.  These materials should hook your customers in so that they can come to you via social media, website, or your place of business to find out more.  

There is a purpose and place for this type of marketing. It provides prospective customers with small pieces of information about your business that don’t change regularly. 

Tips for “set it and forget it” marketing:

• It should be evergreen, meaning the content is relevant for a long time. Pricing isn’t ideal for this reason.
• It shouldn’t be your sole form of marketing.
• You will still need to check it at some point for relevance and accuracy.

Five Star Meal

This type of marketing takes more than one pan (so to speak).  You’ll need to spend time planning, checking in and giving it lots of attention.  

For example, when you start a “five star meal” marketing campaign, you need to research your audience, create a graphic, construct captivating copy, have a customer journey mapped out and most importantly check how it is doing.  

From analyzing clicks on a Facebook ad to checking data from Google Analytics you need to pay attention to how your efforts are impacting website traffic, revenue and more.

Tips to for “five star meal” marketing:

• Choose one place to start your campaigns. Ideally leverage channels your customers are likely to be. This might be Facebook, Radio, Email Marketing and more. 
• Check your progress.  Schedule time weekly to check in with your campaign to see how they are doing.

Conclusion

Just as with cooking, marketing can feel overwhelming sometimes.  But every good “chef” has to start somewhere.  You don’t need to make yourself into the Gordan Ramsey of marketing overnight to see results.  Start with some simple “set it and forget it” marketing efforts and then take a stab at a “five star meal” marketing campaign. Remember there is no magic bullet to marketing, so take time to try new things, assess the effectiveness and make changes as you go.  

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