A “conversion” in marketing terms is any action a consumer does as a result of receiving your message. So if your message fails to generate conversions, your target audience may as well be you and your dog. And if your dog, like most, hasn’t the ability to make purchases, you’re out of business!

You could reach a thousand or a million members of your primary target audience and still fail to generate a single sale if your message isn’t clear and relevant. Your message must have value in it; a reward associated with taking a converting action like clicking a link, sending a text or picking up the phone. The value can be as little as satisfying a curiosity or as big as finding hidden treasure.

In sales, put the cart before the horse!

Who says a horse can’t be harnessed to push a cart full of goods instead of pull it? Before you spend too much money and time on developing the best media execution plan (the horse), make sure that the message delivered to your audience is deliciously enticing (the cart – full of perceived value). Push the cart yourself if you need to. It’s your message that converts people into believing they should “buy now, download or learn more.” Focus on what’s in the cart while you continually push, steer and course correct your trusted media workhorses.

What’s My Message?

Find out from every good customer what brought them to you. What first made them tune in and think, “I think this is the right fit?” What tipped the scale in your favor? What is it about your performance and delivery that keeps them with you? Do you enjoy doing your best work? Why?

The Media of Neighborhood

I was struck by the story of one business owner’s largest sale which catapulted him to “set-for-life” success. He received a call from the uncle of a teenage boy who used to wash his car. The kid happened to ask him what he did for work and the man took the time to engage the youth in a careful explanation of the exact nature of his business, even though he was running a bit late for an appointment. Thinking nothing of it, a few days later he got a call from the boy’s uncle who explained how his nephew described this man’s business as exactly the kind of service he had been searching for and couldn’t find until now. There was no media involved here, just a brief conversation with the car wash kid for the biggest sale ever!

Internalize Your Message to Externalize It

What about your company is truly world-class, i.e. best-in-class? Understand this deeply! Ours happens to be brand-directed content writing and creative production. Every sale I’ve made resulted from my message being understood by one person at a time. A few of my best clients are referrals from non-clients; people who read or heard my message and recommended me without knowing much about me or my background. They just liked what they heard and how it was presented, so they told someone.

Take the time to get your message straight and great! A great business message has the power to convert complete strangers into your best customers.

When ready, ramp up the horsepower!

When you have great messages that are proven to convert, by all means, develop a solid media plan to make a few good prospects aware of your value. And if some kid happens to be curious about your work, fully satisfy that curiosity and thank him for being interested.

The post Media channels don’t convert. Messages do! appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Seth Godin is one of the most brilliant and prolific business thinkers of our time. He understands human motivation and behavior. That’s why I go to him for ideas. You might say I’m in his “tribe.” I choose to follow him because his ideas are valuable to me. And I’m a customer, having purchased one of his books and patronized his advertisers. I’m sure that Seth would be glad to know that I’m a follower and consumer.

On the other hand, let’s take the CEO of say, Proctor & Gamble. Right now I have no idea who that is, although I can find out in a snap. He or she might care about me as a consumer though, and really want my business for multiple products. Should I be loyal to their brands, I would spend hundreds of thousands, potentially a million on P&G products throughout the course of my lifetime. Multiply me and the numbers are staggering. I know I’ve used their products but I’m indifferent to them and most of their competitors’ as well. I’m bombarded with messages from them delivered through mass media every day and it hasn’t made a bit of difference in how I feel about their brands.

Now, I’m sure Mr. Alan G. Lafley (I just went to Google because I wanted his name.) would be concerned to know that most consumers feel as I do about P&G brands – indifferent to them vs the competition (product parity and no attractive differentiation). P&G broadcasts its messages at me and Seth Godin simply gives away his specialized “product” on the Internet, and somehow I find it because I seek it. He knows what I’m looking for because he specializes in understanding my professional needs. When I need something of his that he isn’t offering free, I go to Amazon and buy his book to be edified. In essence, I’m a micro market to Mr. Godin.

Whatever approach you use to push your message (create and buy advertising) in mass media to reach a mass audience, use the opposite approach on the Internet. Seth Godin gets the fundamental difference between Internet marketing and everything else (mass media; TV, radio and print advertising). Let me sum it up succinctly:

Web = “I seek and want your offering.” All other = “What do you want out of me?”

Seth himself points out, “When someone wants to know how big you can make your audience, your market share, your volume, it might be worth pointing out that it’s better to be important, to be in sync, to be the one that’s hard to be replaced. And the only way to be important is to be relevant, focused and specific.”

Mass media relevance is fading because the messages are mostly phony and manipulative. Seth goes on, “Mass marketers don’t like this and they often don’t even see it. They’re struggling to turn Snapchat and Twitter and other sites into substitutes for TV, but it’s not working, because it’s an astonishing waste of attention [for the consumer].”

Broadcast media exists mostly to enable mass marketers to do their job. Broadcast technology (TV) was essentially invented for that purpose, but the Internet was not invented to enable big brands to reach their audiences. It was first developed for the purpose of sharing information quickly among scientists – highly specialized knowledge.

On the Internet, whether it’s your website & SEO strategy, blog or social media channels, you need to think micro. Appeal genuinely to individuals who would benefit from the use your product or service and develop relationships with each one that connects with you. Since you read this far, we probably have a relationship and I want to thank you wholeheartedly for it! <3

The post The Internet and everything else. Don’t be confused. appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

This is important and serious business. Social Media – Facebook and Twitter in particular, have a bad rap in some business circles. Here’s why you need to consider some combination of Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram, depending on what business you’re in.

The post One salesperson = 2,000 more. Sound good? appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Clients and customers are just like you, me, our friends, neighbors and coworkers. We use social media to stay in touch and be informed about people, groups, organizations and causes that interest us. It’s mostly about the people.

You and I don’t intentionally log on to Facebook to be wooed by a big brand and persuaded to share their self promoting messages with our friends. Neither does your social media audience (if you have one). They are online to socialize and be entertained or informed. Some are there to feed their egos.

Social Media is nothing but a collection of tools that are free for anyone to use. Social Media is not a free advertising medium. It is a good paid advertising opportunity but that’s a topic for another article. We’ll stick to free organic use for today.

Presumptive conventional thinkers continue to treat social media as a place to broadcast without paying for time and space. All they have to show for it is a lack of results and the conclusion that it doesn’t work.

I’m going to let another author take over by way of an article share. Liz Gross writes in Social Media Today about the best current approach to social media use. It’s all about networking, public relations and stakeholder service. READ MORE…

The post Marketing Mistake: Focusing on Social Media appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Has a headline or subject line ever grabbed your attention and then everything else in your world disappeared for several minutes while you voraciously read a good article? Did your current project take a back seat while your mind relentlessly pursued more information in the article? Perhaps you stopped and wrote a note to the author because you just had to offer your timely and relevant feedback!

Best of all, maybe the article struck such a resonant chord that you finally made a decision to take some positive action and invest in yourself or your company.

That, my friends, is what good content is all about. We hear about “inbound marketing” and “content marketing” all the time these days, but what is it? Is it an article that’s trending with what most of the target market is thinking? Maybe. Is it a thought provoking piece about a controversial or potentially game-changing subject? Could be.

These examples tend to be lay ups in the world of content marketing. Simply sharing a good blogger’s materials is fine but it tends to get the recipient thinking more about the blogger than the sharer! Lay ups are okay for staying in the game but it’s the more dramatic half court and 3 point shots that win tournaments.

The Secret of Good Content

When you can hit someone with information that experience tells them is prescient and relevant, your’re doing content marketing right. Real world experience and true stories are what grab attention and move people to take action. It’s often the repeated issues that are right in front of us – the problems we can identify and solve right now that we need to be talking about.

You need not always be concerned with innovation or cutting edge technology or the latest best practices to get your target audience’s attention. What you need is authentic value communicated in way that your customers and prospects will benefit from.

If you’re an architect or interior designer, offer easy space planning or simple energy saving ideas. If you’re an attorney, provide ways people can stay informed of changing laws. If you’re a mortgage officer, write about how to manage an escrow account to avoid surprise recalculations. If you’re a manufacturer, share your supply chain expertise in ways that would save customers money. If you’re a printer, show off a direct mail piece with an unusually high rate of return.

These are just the first ideas off the top of my head. I’m sure you can come up with better content ideas for your clients. Perhaps someone like me can help you better develop your content and consistently distribute it.

Keep thinking about things that your audience would like to know more about. Chances are, if something interests you, it will interest them too.  Listen closely to your customers and provide content that answers the questions they’re asking. Keep a file of ideas. Always write down your ideas or you will forget them!

When you see a great article you want share, instead of just slapping up a link, take some time and write down your own thoughts on the same topic. Make it relate even more specifically to your customers.

Clear away the clutter of information overload by serving up content your audience wants to consume and can actually use. You’ll become known as an authentic value provider. You’ll be trusted and called first when it’s time for doing business.

The post Good Content Clears away Clutter appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

By Chuck Sink                                       Subscribe to my newsletter by clicking here

A young professional posted a question for The Brand Strategy Discussion Group on LinkedIn. She’s a Lifestyle and Brand Communications Intern at Daimler (Mercedes Benz). She asks: “Does positioning still matter in today’s fast growing market environment? Are the alternative communication methods slowly taking over a good positioning strategy?”

At first I balked, thinking the question made no sense; that it was like asking if a brand is still a brand. Then I started thinking about how many companies don’t bother with positioning exercises and why that is a major reason they don’t lead their categories. So I decided to read the comments and was pleased to see that this LinkedIn group understands the importance of positioning very well. The comments in the thread were excellent and very informed. The young lady is probably better educated now – more so than her years of college taught her about branding. Why else would she ask the question?

I can understand why young people starting a marketing career may question such old-fashioned marketing fundamentals as positioning. After all it’s a concept expounded upon by Al Ries and Jack Trout during the stone ages of 1980s in their bestselling book so named. The new media technologies and communication channels have some novice marketing professionals dazzled by mere tools and that’s where they focus their energies. They concentrate on where and how to advertise rather than why customers should pay attention to real value. They confuse tactics with good strategy.

The speed with which tech changes have been occurring is quite dazzling but principles of human nature and the mind remain constant. The battle for the mind is still raging. It will always be vitally important for brand marketers to occupy a position in customers’ and prospects’ minds. That’s what positioning is all about and it’s more important today than ever. Short attention spans and message clutter challenge us to hold a consumer’s mind captive for even a few seconds. Therefore, the brand that is positioned best in the mind (and heart) will always be the winner in the market.

Think of some examples. Does Apple position its brand? What about BMW? Of course, they both do. These are two companies that do a superb job of it in my opinion. They occupy dominant positions in consumers’ minds that are communicated with consistency. When asked about these brands, consumers know what they stand for.

Some brands use taglines effectively while others don’t even need them. Apple’s brand positioning is communicated so well at the product level they don’t use tag lines. Mac, iPhone, iPad, iTunes, Apple Store – you get the picture. BMW’s “The Ultimate Driving Machine” states clearly that no other automobile can be a BMW. “Ultimate” is an exclusive word so BMW must authentically live up to that standard, and they do. Note well, if they start making less than thrilling-performance cars, their brand value will drop and their positioning will be meaningless. The lesson here is you can’t fake it. When positioning a brand, “truth well told” is our highest ideal.

In summary, positioning is what helps your customers and prospects understand why your products and services are valuable to them. So by all means, invest time and effort in a strong positioning strategy and then start using the myriad communication channels available to you to win the battle for the mind!

The post Only Winning Brands Do This appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.