The following is a guest post by Erica Mills. She created a low cost tool called the Marketing Tree that forces you through a strategy process. I thought it was pretty cool, and asked her to blog about it.
Please welcome her. Bonus miles, the three best comments will get a Marketing Tree process mailed to them.
Since we don’t really know each other, it’s probably rude of me to say that your marketing stinks. Fair enough.
The thing is, I’ve taught thousands of organizations and businesses how to do effective marketing and here’s what I can say: your marketing might not stink, but you’ve probably got some Extreme Marketing Mayhem going on.
Why the mayhem? Because if you’re like most people, you head straight for the latest, greatest shiny objects and skip over all that boring planning and strategy stuff.
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest might be awesome marketing tools for you…or they might suck. Either way, if you’re not clear on your goals and your audience, you’re chasing shiny objects, not doing effective marketing. Period.
I created the 1, 2, 3 Marketing Tree to eradicate Extreme Marketing Mayhem and help you make the most of your marketing (read: no more chasing of shiny objects). It’s a deceptively simple tool that is freakishly good at delivering results.
The 1, 2, 3 Marketing Tree boils all this marketing business down to a series of simple questions-questions to which you know the answers, but likely haven’t taken the time to ask. (I know, I know, low blow.) Questions like:
WHAT does marketing success look like?
WHO do you need to be successful?
HOW will you reach them?
Simple, right? Okay, fair warning. There are a few other questions and some of them can be zingers. And the order in which you answer the questions matters. No skipping around.
But you know the answers AND if you take the time to answer them, you’ll go from Marketing Mayhem to Awesome Marketing Machine. It’s totally worth your time. Trust me.
[NOTE: This tool was designed with seriously resource-constrained organizations in mind-namely, nonprofits. If it works for them (and it does), it’ll work for you. If you’re a business, swap out ‘supporter’ for ‘customer’ and you’ll be set.]
About Erica Mills
Erica Mills heads up Claxon
Erica is an internationally recognized expert on brand, messaging and marketing strategy. Her clients have included the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Group Health Research Institute, and Microsoft, among many others. She likes a good bottle of wine almost as much as she likes a good, long run.