Wouldn’t it be terrific if you could fine tune your marketing strategy just right…to make it wildly successful… and provided an outrageous return on your investment?

In today’s marketplace, what it takes is a major shift in attitude to segue from self promotion– to being totally focused on the consumer

For years, we’ve been conditioned to promote our own success and the success of our company, but that focus does not resonate with today’s GenX/and GenY buyers.  For many of us, it is a  challenge to change from our traditional thinking where experience and highly successful histories were once considered valuable and respected to crafting marketing messages that favor the consumer.

What we need to do– right now– is to stop being “self” or company focused and change that focus to be totally all about  the consumer–their wants, needs and THEIR idea of GREAT service!

Today’s consumer is totally different from yesterday’s buyers and sellers – they are empowered with the internet, they have access to what was once proprietary  information and they now demand more control during the buying and selling processes.

Seth Godin in his recent book TRIBES helps us to understand that in order to connect with today’s consumers, selling and marketing as we know if have been replaced with authentic LEADERSHIP and communication strategies that engender trust.

So we need to stop trying to SELL ourselves and start helping the consumer buy into the relationship so that once the bridge of trust has been established, they choose to do business with us.

If your current marketing is not moving the consumer directly and efficiently towards the satisfaction of their wants and needs, then you may be spinning your marketing money and wheels in the wrong direction 

In order to connect with consumers, there are many changes in how the marketing message is delivered. Social mediums can work, but only if they provide a true resource of information to the consumer that is designed to build community and eventually a relationship. Social media is a mindset, not a toolset and should never be used as a “selling” medium and do require an investment of time.

Crafting a true consumer centric strategy requires serious attention to the real wants and needs of our target market.   Here are a few tips to help re-define, re-invent and re-fire your marketing messages:

1) Conduct surveys to find out what your customer is really saying they want and need…not what you think they need. Use www.SurveyMonkey.com for quick, easy and low cost surveys.
2) Initiate a presence on the 3 top social mediums that supports delivery of the type of  information and resources your prospects are seeking
3) Monitor your online reputation by hearing and responding to both positive and negative postings.  It is in the “listening” and responding that you create raving fans
4) Review your current marketing messages and switch the slant of the communication from features to benefits.
5) Add true third party testimonials to your web strategy using tools like YouTube and FaceBook to allow the customer to be heard.  Authentic testimonials beat your raving about your successes at being #1 in the marketplace..let them decide.
6) Initiate a blog site that allows for interaction and participation with your customers and clients. It’s cheap, easy and buried in all that chatter is valuable customer preferences and feedback.

When you differentiate your communication strategies by offering multiple mediums that are driven by customer preferences, and that serve all 4 generational styles you will find that the results provide for profitable communication. 

Terri Murphy, Author of 5 books, her latest with Donald Trump. She is a Speaker & Consultant can be reached by email: Terri@TerriMurphy.com or for more information visit www.TerriMurphy.com

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 9:57 am and is filed under Marketing And Communication, Mortgage Industry, Murphy On Real Estate, Skills To Succeed, Women In Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.