The 7 Rules of Marketing Online or Offline Business

I want to talk about Marketing today. You may have a website or an office. You may have a product that is the best available in your chosen industry or niche market.
However, if no one has heard about your business or your product, and there is no traffic to your door, be it office or internet you have NOTHING!

Marketing is the key to success with any business,

Lat’s go back to basics. What is Marketing? Marketing is everything you do to promote yourself and your business. Without marketing effort, your website is just one of EIGHT BILLION listed on Google and the other search engines. Without marketing, you better be next to Macca’s or Woolies, or Macy’s and pray for their overflow. You need to stand out and be noticed.

I have seven rules for marketing; If you follow these rules you will be well on the way to being a marketing powerhouse.

But remember, there is only one way to gauge the effectiveness of your marketing activity – SALES!

Rule No. 1 .Segment – identify your market clearly - Use a marksmans pistol NOT a Scattergun. Hit where you aim. Scatterguns throw pellets shot all over the place. Most failed marketing efforts are scattered marketing messages aimed at nobody in particular.

Let’s say you were trying to sell a bicycle. To market a bicycle to a 23 year old triathlete is entirely different to marketing a similar item to his 45 year old father. Therefore, Rule No.1 directs us to segment prospects into different groups who share common interests and concerns. If your product could be sold to a fifteen year old or a 40 year old, you need to discover who to focus your on for the greatest chance of a successful outcome.

Rule No.2. KNOW Your prospect.

Following Rule No.1, we target people for our marketing. Now, we MUST understand that target market as well as we know ourselves. We must use their mindset. We must understand what they think of our product, what they want, and the alternatives they have to our product.  Customers buy for their reasons, not ours. To market effectively, you MUST market to their concerns. Every piece of marketing must FOCUS on them. If you can’t relate to your market, understand the way they think, you won’t sell your product to them.

Rule No.3. . Be PASSIONATE About Your offer

Attitude is contagious. If we are around positive passionate and excited people, we begin to take on that attitude. If we are with negative people, the same phenomenon occurs. Most people like to associate with happy enthusiastic people. If you’re not passionate about your product, why would anyone else be? Speak and write with enthusiasm about how the benefits of your product can help people get what they want. If you can’t work up enthusiasm for your own product or business, find another business or product.

Rule No.4. Market Benefits, not Features

Even if your product or business is the BEST in the universe, your prospect is only interested in what your product or business can do for them – how will it make them feel – remember always, people buy on emotion. A feature will let them know what a product does – a benefit should let them know how they will feel. If they get a positive feeling from your marketing message they are more inclined to make a positive buying decision.

Rule No.5. Be DIFFERENT!

The cheapest marketing is free advertising. How do you get it? Do something OUTRAGEOUS or odd! Become news worthy, or extraordinary How? In your marketing on free social media, make your messages stand out – don’t just quote someone – make it different, so it relates to the market you are aiming for.
In order to differentiate yourself from the crowd of competitors, you MUST be DIFFERENT! If you have to make a clown of yourself, go for it!

Rule No. 6. NEVER Give Up!

In previous articles, I have lauded the benefits of Persistence and Perseverance. Many failures occur because people don’t realize how close they are to success when they quit. In marketing, if one campaign fails, you are closer to the one that will succeed. Learn from mistakes. BUT DO NOT GIVE UP!

Rule No. 7. Always Call for Action

“Close, close and close again” is known as the ABC of sales, but it also applies to marketing. You market to increase sales. Your outcome is not to provide entertainment or advice. The objective of marketing is to increase sales. However, if you can do that in and informative and entertaining way, that would be a bonus.

Information that moves a prospective customer to a sale is allowed in our copy. What should stay and what should go in our marketing? Imagine the customer asking “So? Why should I care?”

We’ve been in business since before Mao was a boy. “So? Why should I care?” Our product is technically brilliant. “So? Why should I care?” We’re a family business. “So? Why should I care?”

Again, market the benefits: “We have been in business since Mao was a boy, so you’ll always know where to find us. Since we are a family-owned business, you’re talking to an owner who can answer your questions and solve any problem. Our product is techically brilliant and will be up-to-date for years with out needing maintenance.” 


Talk about  benefits for the customer.


There you have my seven Rules of marketing If you keep in mind and put into practice these rules, you will go a long way to turn your annual income into a monthly income

Whenever you think of a new marketing approach, remember, the worst that can happen is they say
“no”.

“It is not the strongest survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” - Darwin