We all know that marketing isn’t rocket science. It’s merely telling potential customers about your product, and trying to get them to understand it. It’s just a conversation.

So why do marketers turn to advertising to have this conversation? Not because it’s cheap. I think it’s because it’s obvious. Advertising is everywhere in our society. From billboards and busboards to TV and radio commercials. It’s so inescapable and pervasive, marketers tend to just assume it’s the way to reach their audience. But is it?

Let’s think about it.

Have you ever walked through swampy water and afterward found a leech clinging to your body? Editorial material is almost always surrounded by ads. People who only want to digest the editorial material are often forced to digest the ads at the same time. You buy a magazine to read the articles, but you get the ads as well. You turn on the television to be entertained by programs, but you still see advertisements. You flip on the radio to hear music or talk shows, and you listen to advertising also. You cruise the Internet looking for information, but you get banner ads at the same time.

Ads even attach themselves to the mail and telephone systems. You go to the mailbox and there’s the parasite junk mail. You answer the phone thinking it’s family or a friend and up pops the parasite telemarketer.

Most people don’t want to look at and listen to these ads. People flip the radio dial and the remote control to avoid ads. People rifle through magazines trying to find articles, without even pausing at the pages of advertisements.

In short, people are conditioned to skip ads. They are an interruption as an intrusion on the pleasure of reading an article, listening to music or watching a program.

Because people view advertisements as an intrusion, advertisers have to be extremely clever. They have a lot of obstacles to overcome. They only have a few seconds to get their message through to an audience that doesn’t want to listen. So how do they get attention? The most common way is by using humor. It sort of excuses the interruption. But it’s not always easy to tickle America’s funny bone. It takes a very creative and clever person to come up with the right joke.

Not only do ads have to be clever, they have to be quick. Because advertising is so expensive, ads have to be short. That gives advertisers only a few short lines to talk about their product.

Suddenly marketing through advertising becomes rocket science.

Podcasting tips:

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when creating a podcast:

• Keep it relevant
• Maximum of 5-7 minutes on a teaser type podcast
• Interview type podcasts (two voices) are more engaging than a single voice, especially if you’re planning a longer podcast.
• Remember branding is important. Just as with a visual logo, your clients should consider an “audio logo” - a brief music intro and outro to familiarize the audience with your unique brand
• Use professional equipment or a recording studio to avoid sounding like the DJ wannabes, podcasting from their garages.

Step 5. Combine all of this information into your marketing mix.
Now you craft a variety of marketing pieces that contain your desired messages, and start pushing them into the various channels. Traditionally, the marketing mix has four channels: public relations, advertising, personal selling and promotions.

Everyone knows what the first three channels are, but most people are confused by promotions. At the risk of confusing you further, promotions are anything that the other three aren’t. For example:

• Loyalty programs
• Events
• Lectures/personal appearances
• Coupons
• Sweepstakes
• Sampling
• Point of purchase displays

Two emerging channels are custom publishing/broadcasting (i.e. Podcasting) and the Internet.

To be effective, you must maintain control of your content and hold tight to the messages you determined at the beginning of this process. If you can do this, your messages will be well integrated and consistent across all of your marketing channels. Someone seeing your point of purchase display will take away the same key messages as someone viewing your Web site or talking with a sales person. This layered approach to messaging reinforces your position again and again in the minds of your target audience.

How do you figure out which marketing channels will produce the most revenue for you? Approach your decision from your customers’ perspective. Good salesmanship is about listening to the customers and about telling your customers that you understand their needs. It’s also about reaching them at a time when they are willing to listen. So you must determine where your customers are and when they have time to listen.

What marketing channels appeal most to your customers? Advertising? Probably not. Most people flip past the ads and ignore the commercials. The Internet? Yes. People are spending more time online than ever. Do your customers like watching TV news or reading the newspaper? Yes. Do they enjoy attending events? Yes.

Once you determine which channels to use, you will want to widen those channels as much as possible. Get in there and push your messages as hard as you can. Stay focused.
Follow this logical path, and you stand a far better chance of getting your promotional messages noticed.

Step 3. Define your product’s features and benefits, and establish how they meet your customers’ needs.

It is important to understand the differences between these terms.

A need is an unfulfilled desire for something wanted or required. For example, the desire to lower cholesterol without taking medication.

A feature is a distinctive attribute or aspect. For example, a product that contains aged garlic extract.

A benefit is an advantage gained from something. For example, aged garlic extract may help you lower your cholesterol without using prescription drugs.

The trick to good marketing is not to speak from your company’s perspective (features and benefits), but to speak from your customers’ perspective: their needs.

Step 4. Develop your positioning strategy.

In a perfect world, what key points would customers remember after hearing or reading your message? Where would you have them place your brand relative to competing brands with respect to your features and benefits? Price? Quality?

Sample positioning strategies for three Proctor & Gamble products:

Tide: tough, powerful cleaning
Era: stain treatment and stain removal
Ivory: fabric and skin safety on baby clothes and fine washables

Here’s why staying focused can influence buyers

Every day, we are all bombarded with marketing messages. Why do some have such a powerful influence over our buying decisions while others barely get noticed? Promoting a product should follow a natural flow. To capture buyers’ attention, savvy marketers know they must push their product’s message along a very definite path.

Promotions are probably the most confusing aspect of product marketing. Unless you stay incredibly focused, it’s easy to go off on a tangent and forget your main purpose. The sad (and often expensive) result can be a disjointed promotional campaign that only succeeds in confusing your audience - if they even notice it at all! Here are some steps to help you stay on track.

Step 1. Write down the name of your product.

This sounds simplistic, but for companies with more than one product there’s often a great temptation to throw something else into the mix. Don’t. Stick with one product. If you absolutely feel compelled to market multiple products simultaneously, create a separate promotional plan for each one.

Step 2. Determine your target market.

Identify the characteristics, demographics and geographic locations of the individuals or groups who have the need and means to buy your product. There are three strategies you may want to follow:

1. Undifferentiated Targeting. This is where you treat the entire market as one group and deliver just one message.
2. Concentrated Targeting. You may have multiple target audiences, but you tailor your initial marketing efforts to just one market segment. For example, your product may appeal to seniors and businesswomen. In this scenario, you may choose to focus strictly on businesswomen. Later, you can follow these same steps to build your seniors market.
3. Multi-segmented Targeting. With this strategy, you develop a different message for each target audience. The larger your promotional budget, and the farther down the line you are with your product development, the more likely you’ll use the multi-segmented approach.

My personal recommendation is to take one market segment at a time, which is how most successful new product promotions are planned. Trying to reach too many markets at once is confusing. It’s just too easy to get into trouble.