So many marketing options to try, so little time to figure out which will work best.    Have no fear - you actually don’t have to try them all. When you’re feeling overwhelmed or excessively bombarded with the number of options in front of you, just go back to basics. Much like technology, just because it’s available, doesn’t mean you HAVE to use it…

Deeply think about who your target audience is. How do they gather information? Where do they turn for answers? Are they conducting the research themselves or will someone most likely do it for them, if so, how will that third party obtain information? In this, you’ll define your “true” target audience. Maybe it isn’t the individual specifically, but an adult child, or another type of point of contact you should be focusing on. If you aren’t familiar with that population, do some research of your own for related demographical data. Find out how they most prefer to communicate; what type of information captures their attention? How much information might they want initially?

Only after this, potentially exhaustive, search and review can you accurately begin weeding through your long list of marketing and advertising mediums. Focus on only those that will be most likely to really grab the attention of your target and bring you the largest return on your marketing dollars.

With your list of good mediums in hand and your target market in mind, you are now ready to formulate your plan.  You never want to begin any type of marketing or advertising without a working plan in place, including a budget. Your plan will be integral in helping you to keep your marketing on track and within budget.  Detail all expenses; list all campaign segments and any deadlines or go-live dates; note your benchmarks; finally, define what a successful campaign will look like once it has completed.

If more than one person will be working on these efforts, you’ll want to utilize a good project sharing tool that will allow you to input and share real time information. An added bonus might be  the ability to monitor your progress using a dashboard reporting function. With your dashboard, if you see one particular medium or process not performing, you can stop it before you lose too much time or money chasing the opportunity.

A good CRM tool should also be integrated if you aren’t already using one. This will help you and your team to keep track of all new or regular inquirers and also make sure each contact receives a follow up of some type based on their request or your processes. This is where associating marketing codes to your campaigns will come in handy. Those codes will help in determining the rate of success of your campaign.

Even if it is an older contact, you will still see that a current campaign brought them back.

Old or new, Never Leave A Contact Untouched.

Certainly this is a quick and nonspecific marketing outline just to keep important items in your mind when you’re preparing for any type of marketing or advertising…A quick refresher never hurt anyone.