Charlie Brown Associates

1.  Define your target audience

• Identify your target audience and target your marketing at that audience
• Trying to appeal to everyone does not work
• Untargeted and unfocused marketing is wasteful and counterproductive

2.  Have clear marketing messages

• Marketing messages that are obscure, contrived, vague or confusing will be lost on your target market
• The best and cleverest marketing is wasted if nobody understands your message

3.  Plan and schedule

• Link campaigns to new products, services, seasonal events or occasions that will attract business
• This means planning in advance and giving yourself time to execute your plans well in advance

4.  Be credible

• If something sounds too good to be true it probably is. Too much hype will turn people away
• Be credible. 
• Deliver your promises

5.  Channel tunnel vision

• Using media advertising, television, dm etc on their own will reach only a portion of your prospects
• Use a cross-section of media so that customers become familiar with your brand and products at

            different times and places

6.  Don’t use stop start marketing

• If you blow your entire marketing budget on one campaign in one month. What are you going to do for the

            next eleven? 

• Sensible marketing is building awareness and credibility over time through regular and consistent exposure

7.  Be consistent in your marketing materials

• You need to have the same look, tone and feel across all of your advertising, direct marketing, websites

             and marketing materials

• Prospects and customers will identify your brand more easily

8.  A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

• Look after your existing customers and they will produce repeat business at a fraction of the cost of recruiting

            new ones 

• Repeat business can account for up to 80% of sales in many businesses
• Too often marketing activities focus on winning new customers and not building relationships with existing ones

9.  Use feedback and measurability

• Test your marketing ideas.  Use focus groups 
• Remember the man who didn’t know which half of his advertising budget worked?  It doesn’t have to be like that 
• Put in place procedures to capture and record feedback and performance

10.  Don’t make changes for changes sake

• Just because you are tired of your marketing and it has been around for a while doesn't mean it has stopped

            being effective

• Many marketers make changes because they think they have to ring the changes
• If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  Just test new ideas against what you know works

11.  Focus on your benefits

• You will sell more when you focus on what is important to your targets
• Customers are interested in only one thing – what’s in it for them

12.  Give your customers a compelling reason to act immediately

• You’ve created a need for what you’re selling.  Now motivate your targets to take immediate action, while

            they’re still excited 

• Wait too long and the average buyer will forget about your messages and move on to the next offer

13.  Use testimonials

• Build up your credibility 
• Whenever you receive any positive feedback from a customer ask them if you can quote them 
• Use these quotes the next time you create a marketing campaign

14.  Give a guarantee of satisfaction

• Offer a guarantee of satisfaction and you will sell more of your products and services
• Because your guarantee will imply faith in your product or service by your company

15.  K.I.S.S.

• The best marketing in the world will be useless if buying your product is not easy to do
• Include 0800 numbers, Freepost, and simple to pay procedures