Sometimes too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the soup.

You know the old saying: "Too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the soup". Well that can be true in marketing too, especially in the information age as we are bombarded from every angle available to todays' marketing professionals


Here are a few thoughts on focusing your marketing...


It is vitally important to customize your marketing using ideas' from co-workers and partners but, too many opinions seem to 'water-down' the flavor of your marketing soup. The point here is that, as it has been for years, the key to successful marketing is targeted or focused marketing.


I mention this because if you want to add significant impact to a your marketing efforts in a short period of time, with limited resources, a "focused marketing" effort is advisable.


In focused marketing, the specific targets for the campaign are pre-selected. A list of potential new or existing clients is compiled and a systematic approach to engaging these individuals is pursued. Unfortunately, focused marketing is an organized based of on-going cultivation in a way that few businesses pursue.


The first step in creating a focused marketing effort is to develop a list of targets. Each organization must decide how many prospects it can properly service. The initial list of prospects should be long enough to have an impact while short enough to be manageable. Clearly, preference/priority should be given to those businesses known personally however, as the focused marketing campaign is successful, additional prospects can always be added.

The goal, of course, is to encourage people to become more involved with your business. To build involvement means that one has to do more than just send a series of newsletters and other mailings. These will invariably go unread unless they are connected to events that are more engaging.

There are a number of more sophisticated cultivation tools available. For example, invitations to tour the offices and meet people, or to an event can be very enticing. Most people appreciate unusual experiences. Sometimes bringing a powerful prospect to a behind-the-scenes look can be more exciting than inviting them to try the service for free. As a guideline, prospects never need to know that they have been targeted in this manner. In fact, most will only become subtly aware that they are more involved than other prospects.

A dinner or cocktail reception is an ideal forum for educating prospects about a business too. These need not be "hard-sell" events, but rather enjoyable activities that introduce the prospects to other clients of the business. Inviting one or more celebrities (from the corporate, political, entertainment or arts world) will only help to encourage participation.

Remember, however, that one is hoping to find those individuals who will be interested in providing substantial usage of services from your business; this will usually only be successful if the meet & greet matters to the prospects on some level. For this reason, these social events should be linked to a product releases, special events, or other program designed to bring people together.

Prospects should also receive systematic mailings of newsletters, articles and reviews of upcoming programming, and should be marketed with special attention given to major events (such as product releases). The goal of this consistent infusion of information is to create the feeling that the organization is incredibly productive, successful and important.

A tracking system should be developed. Over time, a profile of key interests and contacts will emerge. This information can only help in strengthening any future large account solicitations.

Prospects who show absolutely no interest in any activities over an entire year can be removed from the list. But be careful to not remove a prospect too quickly; someone may not show personal interest but may have the power to affect a corporate, foundation or government
decision that could affect you. Your campaign to involve that person may be working without your even knowing it!

Pursued properly and in an organized fashion, focused marketing can have a major impact on the fiscal health of a business without a significant investment of scarce resources.

Now go have some fun & market your butt off!



William S. Dickinson (william.dickinson@momentumconferencing.com) is a marketing professional who works for Momentum Conferencing with offices in Vancouver BC and Toronto, ON. You can find Momentum Conferencing on the web @ www.momentumconferencing.com.