5 Steps to Shortcut Marketing

Have you been searching for a guaranteed way to increase sales with little or no effort? Do you want an incredibly fast and inexpensive solution to effectively market your company? Are you looking for a 100% free, no commitment media outlet to promote your goods or services?

Well, good luck with that.

The following process isn’t easy and it’s not free.  But if you commit to following it step by step, you will get results and you will build a lasting brand.

With the multitude of choices we have in our society now, people are looking for more ways to minimize their decision making process.  In the absence of tangible and significant criteria (e.g. pricing differences, availability, feature requirements), we use “shortcuts” or preconceptions about brands, to make it easier for us to decide on buying one product or another.  This process will help you to better establish a positive “shortcut” for your brand.

1. Survey your target audience to determine your competitors’ positioning
Ideally, you’d commission a formal study with a market research company to survey a representative sample of your identified target audience. But let’s face it, most small and even many medium sized businesses are not going to invest those dollars, regardless of the value.  So at the very least, create an online survey with a company like Survey Monkeyand send it out to your email list (if you have one), Facebook fans, or even in your retail outlet.

You can include additional questions that you’re interested in learning.  But for the purposes of this, you should ask them:

When you think of (competitor), what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?  

Try to list about 3-5 competitors.  Depending on how well you know your competitive set, you can either list this as a multiple choice or open-ended question.

What you’re trying to discover are the perception “boxes” people place your competitors in.  Common boxes are: cheap, best in class, great customer service, fun, respected, crappy.

2. List all the things you’d want people to think about you
Try to keep it to 1-3 words each.  A snap of the finger response.  The first exercise can help to tell you how people are thinking about your industry to give you some ideas.

3. Identify your “shortcut”
Based on your list and the things people think about your competitors, determine a single “perception” you can own.  It’s unlikely you can try to own a position that a lot of people already associate with another company.  So identify one (and only one) that really represents you and is important to your target market.

4. Incorporate your “shortcut” into all of your marketing
This is harder than it looks.  If your shortcut is “superior customer service,” you can’t just add that phrase to all of your marketing and expect it to bring more customers, even if you actually do have superior customer service.  You need to find ways to communicate it creatively and believably.  That subject is pretty much what this entire blog is about.  So keep reading for new ideas.

5. Survey customers periodically if they actually do associate your “shortcut” with your company
It’s essential to continuously check to see if your “shortcut” is working to attract customers.  If they’re not associating it with you, then you should determine why they’re not thinking about you in that way or maybe they just don’t care about it.  In order to gain new customers you need to build a “shortcut” that really represents your company and that is a driver for customers.

Remember, there are shortcuts that may seem faster at first but actually take you on a far too dangerous path and there are true shortcuts that get you where you need to go, more efficiently.