About the author
Steve Cone has worked for Key Corp, CitiBank, American Express. Currently, he is the Managing Director of Brand Management and Marketing for Citigroup Investment Banking and Asset Management.
Over 30 years of experience, Steve Cone has created a prestigious foothold in the field of marketing management.
Main content:
The author has gathered the best and unique tips on marketing for everyone.
1. Three secrets determine the success of a marketing campaign
A successful marketing campaign meets three important factors: charisma, novel content, and motivation to motivate customers to take action.
A successful advertisement must achieve the following objectives: motivating your army means creating excitement among employees; remind existing customers of their importance and create new customers; attract talent from competitors; enhance the positive promotional image for the company and build the brand.
2. What is a brand? What makes a brand successful? How is brand management?
A brand is a recognizable person, place, or object. The key issue in branding is specificity and differentiation.
Famous brands are often described with just one or two words, incorporating their logo or a simple tagline. If your logo is so unique that it needs no further explanation, then you've succeeded in marketing.
Brand management consists of only four elements: persuasive unique product advantages, attention-grabbing brand images, highly reliable and novel products, and total promotional activities. suitable and easy to remember.
3. How to Create a Unique Product Advantage (USP)
Any company needs a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) that can be expressed in the form of a concise business motto or an impressive slogan, or a visual presentation. about the product or service.
Usually, everything revolves around one big idea, sometimes the ideas are so clear that you hardly realize its potential power. But the best USP is often created by accident, there are times when observing how competitors position their products, you come up with a new idea that is completely different, it is important for you to grasp. The ideas popped up all of a sudden. Rum advertisement of Meyer's company: “Old and Not improved” (Old and never improved). Completely different and truly unique!
4. Three ways to build an outstanding and memorable avatar for your business
A special character will have a significant impact in the advertising strategy. This avatar can be from the company or hire famous people. The person really loves and understands the product or service that they are promoting, they feel comfortable in all communication situations, including press interviews and staff meetings. beautiful and inspiring voice appeals to all ages and accepts media promotion.
Can use imaginary characters played by actors, can use cartoon characters, of course it must be suitable for your product or service.
Dead characters can still be used as avatars. IBM used Charlie Chaplin to advertise its line of personal computers in the 1980s.
5. You need to be able to see it to be able to read it
You have to make sure that your company's advertisement is read and responded to by people. To do that you have to pay attention to fonts, layout, printing and design.
The color of the ad is also very important. You must avoid any colors that you see in the bathroom like beige, light green or blue. Contrasting color schemes work best for easy readability, as Western Union cleverly combines black text on a gold background.
6. The importance and effectiveness of the brochure
On the cover of the brochure can print an image of a certain character such as a representative, boss, or a customer, an expert will be prominently featured in the brochure along with impressive points. The inner cover summarizes the main content in an easy to read manner. Inside pages, you instruct readers what to do with hotlines, website addresses, etc. The content is presented in the form of questions and answers, causing curiosity and excitement. You have to think and present it like a magazine, that is, use pictures of real people, real things, always have notes under the pictures, write concisely. On the back cover write the contact person's name and company address clearly.
7. Advertising slogans that live forever with time
A successful slogan is always specific, reflecting the company's characteristics, brand image and industry. The guest element of the slogan is to be impressive, create excitement, have an easy-to-remember tone so that it will live forever with time. The decision to change the slogan needs to be considered carefully and seriously.
When the company has many different industries, we can use the same slogan and let's assume that your company's reach extends beyond national borders even though it is not. If you introduce the slogan on television, to make it more vivid, run it 3 times on the screen and flash the words in order, then melt and turn into the company's logo, which will leave an impression in the audience's mind. long-term, positive and optimistic.
8. Overall thinking and specific action…into one point
Wherever you are, your company, your product or service needs to have the same positioning characteristics, the same image elements. However, the marketing program needs to be adjusted according to the language of each country. It is also appropriate to use famous characters of each country as a representative image. However, using the same marketing program that speaks to the overall sales message, in a synchronized and attractive way, still proves to be effective.
9. The comprehensive combination will win the market wars as well as in the customer's mind
In marketing, all media need to coordinate in sync. From television, newspapers, radio, outdoor activities, the internet, direct mail – all the common goal is to get a certain response from the customer.
If the company doesn't have a major competitor yet, you need to assume that you have. Your "team" needs to be well-trained and motivated, they also need to believe in the company's product that makes their work more meaningful. You need to act first to win customers away from your competitors, before they can do it to you.
10. Choose the optimal location to make the most of advertising costs in the media
The media advertising planning is 70% art related and 30% science related. There are 3 important factors that affect the effectiveness of advertising: image impact, location and frequency.
Image: must be lively, attractive, and attract the audience's attention.
Position: "land" on the magazine to get the most readers, that is cover 2, cover 3, cover 4, horizontal to the table of contents, opposite the popular column. In newspapers, it's at the top of page 3, or at the top of the last page, the part that has little or no competitor advertising. Television commercials often make many viewers uncomfortable, so it must be chosen at the beginning of the advertising program. It is clear that news and sports programming is the choice of advertisers. Radio advertising is an effective and low-cost advertising medium, most people listen to the radio while driving.
Frequency: try to maximize the number of times your ad appears. Appearing continuously even in few newspapers is always more effective than appearing in many newspapers but sparsely.
11. Advertisement letter
To capture the reader's attention, a letter is needed. The opening part of the letter advertised as a headline in a newspaper. Avoid “…dear” phrases. The body of the letter should be enough to get the most out of it, but keep the promotional letter as short as possible. Because no one remembers all the content of a letter. The form of the letter should be formal to make the customer feel special the more they care about the message of the letter.
12. The Three Most Important Lessons About Customer Service
Lesson One: Customers will continue to shop the way they are used to
The fast food industry is a prime example of this, customers return because they have had the same eating habits from previous times. This rule also applies to other categories and products.
Lesson two: The decisive moment for establishing a relationship with a new customer is the first week they make a purchase.
Your job is to remove anxiety and make customers feel comfortable when they buy an item, you do this immediately. Sending an email or a thank-you letter to a customer removes the hesitation to make a second purchase.
Lesson three: Forget the complicated jargon of customer taxonomy
In my opinion, there are five groups of customers:
Group 1: Loyal customers
They love your product, they deserve the incentives, this group of customers usually generates 90% of your profits.
Group 2: Customers are hesitant
Once they buy your product, you have to make the difference in quality and price for them to see.
Group 3: Detailed customers
They only buy the product once during the special sale.
Group 4: Extreme customers
They have experienced something bad when buying your product. Please send an apology letter to this object when you receive a complaint.
Group 5: Customers don't know anything
See them as other potential customers, they are not real customers.
Don't accidentally be cold to customers. Your most important thing is to take care of them regularly.
13. The Art of Building Effective Loyalty Programs
Pan American asked customers to pay a fee to join their frequent flyer program. The value received by the program must be more than the cost to the customer. Customers showed enthusiasm and the program was successful.
Barneys New York offers customers a free gift card with a value depending on the total amount of their purchases during the year.
Neiman Marcus runs a point-for-purchase program, with points earned which can be exchanged for the corresponding item.
Other companies use a simple calculation that the more you trade, the cheaper the cost.
In the marketing program, you only need to present a few very attractive and specific reasons, do not list long reasons, and at the same time ensure the practicality and rationality of implementation.
14. We are all getting old. Generation gap – the real and the imaginary
The important issue is that the aging world population will affect marketing strategy. That is, as customers age, consumer demand tends to decrease.
Future marketing strategy to pay attention to:
Children are getting older before their time, integrating into the adult world earlier. Safety, security, reliability, ease of use are the basic characteristics of products for customers to choose to buy or not. Television is still the most appropriate form of rest and entertainment, and at the same time, the audience will skip TV commercials, so direct mail can be used again.
Gender characteristics are also important, men are often impulsive while women require more information and they often consider it when buying food and goods. Men are often loyal to the brands they have chosen while women only need quality and impeccable customer service. The difference between the sexes affects their attitudes and is decisive for each product or service.
15. Where do big breakthrough ideas come from?
Big ideas often come from people who aren't tied down by day-to-day responsibilities and have time to think. It is very effective to practice the following rules: Limit the discussion group to only five or six people. Only bring up a specific issue for discussion. Limit discussion time. Separate the discussion group from the day-to-day work environment.
At first, Disneyland was only available in California. Walt Disney decided to open another Disney park in Orlando but did not have enough capital. Walt Disney was strongly against bank loans, afraid to go deep into debt. He called six directors under his command, their task is to find a way to earn money to carry out this project. He separates them from their daily routine, giving them only two weeks and insisting that they don't let them down. Two weeks later, they met again at Walt's office and came up with a plan: to open Disneyland up to midnight, instead of closing at 6 p.m. every day.
Evening is the ideal time for the park to operate. The proceeds help Walt build a larger, more monumental Disneyworld park.
The big ideas that deliver outstanding results are rewarded: each person receives a brand new red Corvette convertible and an envelope containing the car keys with a thank you card written by Walt himself.
16. The Internet: Hype and Hope
Your company's website is one of the core elements. If you satisfy this particular customer, good word of mouth will help the company gain more prestige and revenue.
In order to attract the attention of customers, on brochures, company signs, business cards, website addresses should be placed in a particularly conspicuous place.
When customers visit the website, they will be attracted by the animations with human elements, not just some ads. They are looking for a form of connection with characters that can help them decide whether to buy a product or service. So there should be a picture and brief greeting from the CEO, founder or face of the company.
Through the internet, services will be resolved quickly, creating countless creative opportunities for marketing professionals.
17. The Power of PR and Sponsorship
PR and advertising are two activities that complement and support each other. PR is not a reaction to special situations, but PR is always promoted as an optimal power and shows its initiative. PR is carried out in three basic forms: internal relations, external relations and investors.
Staff in charge of PR must be equipped with extensive knowledge and understanding of everything about the company, considered by employees as an important person of the company.
The second most important audience is journalists, treat them with respect and keep a proper attitude.
To investors, always recognize their contributions; making shareholders always feel they are special because they share the same interest in the development of the company.
It is almost impossible to specifically assess the effectiveness of funding. But if you want to consider other aspects such as the positive impact on employees and their families, improving the company's image to customers and society, then you will find sponsorship is really worth doing.
Apparently, funding to build a basketball court in Seattle helped KeyBank jump from 8% to 50% share in the Seattle market.
18. Political affiliation and promotion
Political party campaigns use the same elements as marketing campaigns.
Voters don't care much about the candidates, but they still appreciate democratic rights. In business, customers are not loyal customers of the company, does not mean they are indifferent to your service or product. Like election campaigns, in business, letters, advertisements, and brochures must have a specific deadline for customers to recognize and respond to. In order for your message to clearly convey your superior product, you must maintain your customer contact and remove any worries from customers when they buy from you.
The role of television also plays an important role. The candidate's appearance on the screen is also one of the deciding factors. If your company's representative is on television, you should do everything in your power to help them take care of their appearance, encouraging them to work with a professional guide from time to time to help them become more natural in their appearance. company photo.
19. The center of attention
It is difficult to be an effective marketer without the ability to present your ideas to a group of audiences. To practice your presentation skills, you must first master the material you will present. The content presented can be summarized on small cards of size 7.5x10cm. You can stand at the podium or walk around the stage with cards in hand. During the training process, you can practice small group discussions around a round table, when you get used to it, you can stand up in a corner of the table, when you have confidence you can speak on the stage.
For an impressive presentation, slow down and increase your chances of connecting with your audience. Create excitement and vibrancy to capture and maintain their attention.
Responding to interviews is similar to giving presentations. But the interview takes you by surprise, you have to listen to the question and think about how to answer it. You should answer briefly, straight to the point, as if you were sitting in the witness chair at the trial. It is important to focus on the person interviewing you and forget about the cameras or the lights on you.
20. Confucius and wisdom
“Busy people often don't have talent. Talented people are rarely busy.” It is believed that this is a saying of Confucius. Indeed, if you don't invest time to reflect, to reflect and to dream, it will be difficult for you to shine in the marketing field. If you want to think creatively, experiment, brood to find new ways to make customers stick with your company and buy more products. A marketing professional must find a competent assistant to do the management, so that he or she can think creatively in the direction necessary to put the company ahead of the competition. And the last thing you need to remember: being busy all the time – important for both you and the company.
21. Make the most of advertising agencies
To maintain and develop relationships with advertising agencies, the first and most important thing is to create a connection and trust. How to know if there is a relationship between the two parties? That is, you like to talk to them about your ideas, concerns, hopes and dreams, you enjoy communicating, talking with them. Trust them to keep important information about your business. You should not be too detailed with them to expect them to devote all their creative thinking efforts to your company, because valuable ideas come only when their minds are not bound by trifles. Make them feel appreciated, they'll work even harder to please you and create something truly special for you.
22. Ten marketing secrets you should steal now!
The following ten tips are equally important:
– Three key elements of a marketing campaign: creating visual excitement, creating novel events and motivating customers to take action.
The strength of a brand lies in creating an impressive visual connection.
– Do not listen to the art director of the advertising company because they only pay attention to the presentation and design but forget whether the content is easy to read or not.
– Compete with People magazine, mimic it to create impressive marketing materials.
– The power of avatars.
Only a few customers are really important contributing 90% of the revenue.
The most important customer service lesson.
Great marketers must be good presenters.
– The perceived value from the loyalty program must be more than the cost to the customer.
– Six reasons you should advertise: motivate employees, remind existing customers, create a new generation of leaders, attract competitor talent, build brands.
23. Be all you can be
Products, prices, features or trends, technology will all change. But human nature will not change. Therefore, this book is a reference guide and guide that will never go out of date.
For a professional marketer, nothing is more important than getting the right product to the right audience and minimizing cost and time.
