PointOne http://www.pointone.co.za Where marketing starts Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:05:05 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Marketing is easy! %$#@ the message… http://www.pointone.co.za/marketing/marketing-is-easy-the-message%e2%80%a6 http://www.pointone.co.za/marketing/marketing-is-easy-the-message%e2%80%a6#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:54:06 +0000 Jako Voges http://www.pointone.co.za/?p=352 Continue Reading]]> Technology makes everyone a marketer. Right? Today there is a marketing solution somewhere on the web for every marketing process. Designed to automate, cut costs and is simple enough for even the most junior of staff to implement and manage – well sort of. Nowhere is this more obvious than with email marketing, social media and search or online advertising – but it cuts through most of the disciplines in the marketing mix. So how do companies approach these new opportunities to get their message to market?

OPPORTUNITY       APPROACH           MESSAGE

Email marketing is cheap and easy to do. Let’s get our own designer and bang out as many messages as possible. Who cares? Slap a picture of a girl onto the mailer and the largely male audience – who is stupid enough to fall for this – will open, click and buy.
Social media is the next big thing (well it used to be). We must be there as our competitors are doing it. A page on Facebook, a Twitter profile and a LinkedIn company  profile will do the trick. Spelling, grammar and substance is so last century. Keeping customers engaged is feeding them: “Have a Happy Hump Day!” or: “We support the Bokke”. Customers lap it up and eat out of the palm of your hand. Right!
Google is the answer to cheap branding that can be tracked. Reduce the company’s products and services to some key words. String an ad together. Load it onto Google. Presto! What message? Who cares? For R50 a day we get millions of impressions and some clicks. It is great value at that price.

There you have it. Marketing done well. On a shoestring and with a small budget, nogal! What more can anyone ask for? No wonder the average consumer is confronted with thousands of marketing messages every day. Most of it mere wallpaper as we navigate through the corridors of what to get and where to buy it.

Marketing is an investment that works only when based on a carefully crafted strategy, messaged with care and measured and adjusted over time. Efficient and cost-effective tools are just that. And anyone can use them – even your competitors. Never has it been more necessary to develop true differentiation. To shape the message you are sending. With easy and cheap tools, even the smallest of businesses now contribute to the layers of messages we, as consumers, receive every day. To stand out, to be consistent over time, the challenge is crafting and tuning the message. Now all you need is a message creator – available online and at a rock bottom price to produce messaging that is on strategy, articulate your objectives and deliver customers.

So next time you invest some of your own hard-earned cash, give it to the receptionist at your office. With an Internet connection and some easy-to-use tools available on the Internet, she too can provide for your retirement.

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