Your brand is the definition your customers hold in their minds of your company and its offerings. Graphic design is a powerful tool for imprinting that definition. Here’s how our graphic design team can help you send a focused, memorable brand message.

• We keep sound marketing concepts foremost in our minds. Each team member receives ongoing marketing training. This helps us create your design from a marketing perspective. We don’t just create pretty graphics; we create graphics that sell products.
• We create reference documents that identify your unique message. We record your target market, primary value points and promotional channels. Throughout your project, we refer back to these documents to ensure we create graphics that are consistent with your written message.
• We emphasize your product’s special qualities. Consumers receive countless messages throughout the day. To help people remember your product’s advantages, we highlight them repeatedly. And we make it clear what product or service you’re promoting.
• We consider how the communication process really works. Individual consumers interpret information differently. We ask ourselves: For the target consumer to receive the intended message, how does information need to be presented? We carefully plan how to communicate your message visually.

Graphic design can be more influencing than copy. It needs to pair nicely with your content. If consumers receive conflicting messages, they may be confused about what you offer. When you ask us to create graphic design, you receive more than images; you receive good marketing.

If you want to send a strong, consistent brand message, call me at 952-697-5211 or complete our form. I’ll ask you about your product and how you’re currently promoting it. We’ll meet to plan a strategy. Then we’ll put it into action.

Our end goal is to help you raise awareness and drive sales. All of our efforts will be geared towards this.

I’m a graphic designer. And I’m also a marketer. Everyone here at Media Relations Agency is well versed in marketing techniques and philosophies. It’s part of our culture. Each and every staff member, regardless of our title or job duties, has to understand marketing principles. Yes, there’s even a test. This common knowledge is one reason why our clients enjoy working with us. We don’t just create content that sounds pleasing. We make graphics which help tell their stories beautifully.

I’m a fairly new graphic designer, but I already feel miles ahead of my peers because of this continuing education. Let me explain one way this knowledge makes our design team more strategic than your average freelance graphic designer.

Before starting on the project, we consider the communication process.

People’s unique ideas and experiences can affect how they perceive a message. For example, college students may think the word “inexpensive” means “affordable”, while wealthy executives may infer that “inexpensive” means “flimsy”. As designers, we anticipate how the receiver will decode our graphics. To a college student, a child in a graphic may make them think of younger siblings or being a carefree kid again. An older executive may think of grandchildren and leaving a legacy.

A good image helps each viewer decode a message in exactly the way we intend. One example is Checkerboard’s Responsive Web Design page. This page features images of client work on different devices to help demonstrate what responsive design means. We use these rotating images to help the viewer, most likely someone interested in our services, decode the message clearly. The images help the viewer envision their own website improvements. Regardless of their grasp of web design lingo – and whether or not they even read the accompanying text – they now know we create websites that look amazing on any screen.

People process visuals much faster than they process text. It’s critical that graphics get attention and help tell the right story. You can’t afford to have a graphic that detracts from your messaging which is why your next graphic designer needs to have marketing chops.

Try us out on a project. Just give us a call at 952-697-5269 or complete our form. You’ll see that our team delivers graphics that are a cut above the rest.

Your customers are smart. They may know far more about your product, and your competitor’s product, than you think. They’re actively researching your product online. They’re sharing opinions of brands on social media. This information helps them decide to buy – or not to buy – your product. Listening to your customers’ online conversations can help you better market your product, but too few companies take advantage of this critical data. They’re missing out on a goldmine of information and opportunities to boost sales.

We’re all online these days

• We’re a digital society. Nearly 9 in 10 American adults use the internet. About 70 percent seek out reviews before making a purchase.
• We’re social. Nearly two-thirds of American adults use social media sites¹. Facebook is the most popular social media, adding six new profiles every second. But don’t discount Twitter or Instagram. There are 500 million tweets sent each day and over four billion Instagram likes daily.
• Businesses also see the benefit of social media. Ninety-one percent of retail brands use two or more social media channels². And Forbes reports that businesses are spending more of their advertising budget on social media channels than ever before³. Yet many businesses aren’t seeing the impact. Why?

Too many companies do all the talking and not enough listening

Many brands’ Facebook and Twitter feeds are loaded with messages about why you should buy their products. Many consumers’ social feeds are filled with sponsored posts from companies touting their latest sales. What’s missing is the interaction. Too few companies actually engage with their customers on social media.

Social listening gives you the information you need to create meaningful and engaging content.

Social listening gives you unparalleled market insight into your customers’ thoughts, feeling and actions. It tells you which messages are being shared and which are being ignored. It’s the catalyst for high-performing content creation which drives engagement. It also keeps you ahead of your competition.

And best of all, it provides peace of mind. When the data shows that your messages are being read and shared, you know you’re on the right marketing track.

Social media listening gives you the insights you need to reach and teach your customers … and convince them to buy from you. Get started by giving me a call at 952-697-5211 or requesting a free consultation. I promise, you’ll be amazed by what my team uncovers. Soon you’ll know what just what to do to catch the attention of your most lucrative customers.

Sources

¹http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/08/social-networking-usage-2005-2015/

²http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/yesmail-retail-brands-social-media-channels/622117

³http://www.forbes.com/sites/christinemoorman/2016/02/16/the-social-media-spend-impact-disconnect/#6f5c0eec417b

So, you’ve made the decision to upgrade your website. Good for you. Now comes the hard part. Building a website takes a lot of expertise – both technical and marketing – and thoughtful consideration. At Checkerboard, we can’t stop thinking about your website. We ask a lot of questions prior to the design and build. And then we continue thinking about your website even after it’s completed. Our continuous analysis process helps make the website-building process easier for you, as well as for us.

Questions we ask you

Every website builder has a list of questions they ask new clients. Checkerboard’s list of questions, however, goes beyond the basics. Here are a few of the questions we may ask:

1. Who is responsible for the content for your website?
2. How does your company make most of your revenue?
3. Which profit areas do you want to grow?
4. Who are your customers, and why do they purchase from you?
5. Who is the main decision maker in this web-build process?
6. How will this website integrate with your other marketing channels?

We also question ourselves

After every build, we get the entire Checkerboard team together to analyze your site and the build process. We question ourselves: What went right? What was a challenge? What did we learn? Some agencies may consider a meeting on a completed project a waste of resources. Others may understand its importance but not consistently follow through. But this step is critical for us. It’s a non-negotiable part of our process. Why? Because it prepares us for the next build.

We want each project to be completed on time, on budget and to be pain-free for our clients and our team. One way I ensure this is by reviewing our list of risks and previous challenges prior to each build. This information (stored in one of my beautiful Excel spreadsheets) prepares our team for any issues that may come up. It also helps us ask the right questions prior to getting started. This saves our clients’ time, resources and stress.

Put our team of thinkers to action. Get started by giving us a call at 952-697-5211 or requesting a free consultation. It’s a great opportunity for us to get to know each other. And chances are, we’ll ask you a few questions you haven’t heard from those other guys.

You’ve got very smart people in your company. They know your product and industry better than anyone! If you could just share some of what’s in their heads with the right prospects, you know sales would increase. That’s why white papers matter. They put high-value content in the right hands, and you capture more quality leads.

Media Relations’ writers can help organize your team’s ideas and get them in writing. Our writers have written for more than 70 different industries. We can write clearly and intelligently about your industry as well.

White papers make ideal gated content

Gated content is anything that requires someone to supply information, such as their name and email address, before they can read, download or interact with it. Gated content is most often created for lead generation. It converts your anonymous web visitors into known contacts.

Our Media-Grade Content^® will start conversations

Think of white papers as ice breakers. You’ll get the reader’s contact information and you’ll know what interests them. To get the most from your white paper:

• Tackle an issue that is common within your primary target market. Provide must-read information by addressing topics that concern decision makers. Our Media-Grade Content will help ensure that you educate readers and prompt a desire to know more. And what exactly is “Media-Grade Content”? “Media-Grade Content” is your assurance that everything we write is interesting, substantive, worthy of your audience’s time, and relevant to their lives.
• Know where your ideal prospects are within the consumer buying process. Do you want to reach people who are just beginning to identify their needs or are you targeting people who are well into evaluating their options? Meet people where they are, and provide factual tipping points in your favor.
• Avoid heavily promotional content. Use your white paper to establish your credibility as a trusted industry expert.

A white paper doesn’t have to be long or complicated. It just needs to be informative, well written and persuasive. It needs to clearly communicate your knowledge on a subject of interest to your primary market. Let’s talk about your next (or first) white paper by calling at 952-697-5211 or requesting a free consultation.

It’s a common problem. A business invests heavily in marketing, but then doesn’t get the results they expect. It leaves many marketers perplexed. Hmmm, my product is great. Why aren’t people buying it?

The sad truth is many marketers are promoting their product all wrong. They place ad after ad, but get little in return. They may end up wasting a bunch of money and looking like failures. They may blame the economy, or the product itself. But that’s not really the problem.

The issue: Their simple ads don’t fulfill the needs of the consumer.

Smart marketers need to address each stage in the consumer buying process. Here are the process steps:

1. Needs recognition.
2. Information search. Today’s consumers crave information, and they have easy access to it via their smartphones, tablets and laptops.
3. Evaluation of alternatives. Now the consumer narrows down their list and weighs the pro’s and con’s of each.
4. Purchase decision. The moment of truth. The consumer makes a choice.
5. Post-purchase behavior. Call this the “aftermath”. Is the consumer happy with their decision, or do they regret not getting a different model?

Let me give you an example. Let’s say a consumer’s toaster is working fine until the power cord shorts out. They now need a different toaster to toast their bagels! Many companies make toasters. The consumer goes online and checks toaster ratings, options, and reviews. Would the four-slot toaster be preferable to the two-slot toaster? Which brand? How about toaster ovens? The consumer decides to go with a two-slot toaster with a five-star consumer rating. Is the consumer happy with this two-slot toaster, or do they regret not being able to toast twice as much?

A good marketer considers all stages of the consumer buying process. They use solid search strategy, smart content, and strategic advertising to engage and attract prospects and drive sales. It’s integrated marketing that leads the consumer through the buying process, from needs recognition to purchase to satisfied and ready to buy again.

Hungry for more? Check out my guide to integrated marketing, and be sure to subscribe to our marketing letter for tips you can put to use immediately.

Here’s something I hear all the time: My new product is great. If only people knew about it, they would buy it.

That’s often true.

What else is often true is that many marketers are promoting their new products all wrong.

They act as if they’re marketing an established product and not an up-and-coming one. They use the same tactics as those iconic brands, such as Coca-Cola or McDonalds, but then they come up short.

What do I tell them? You have to consider the product’s lifecycle stage when you create your promotions.

The Product Lifecycle is the period of time a product exists in the marketplace, from its introduction to its discontinuation. It consists of four stages:

1. Introductory
2. Growth
3. Maturity
4. Declining

Not all products go through each stage. Some decline soon after introduction. Some remain in the maturity phase for long periods. The period of time in each phase can vary greatly.

But what doesn’t vary is HOW you should promote a product when it’s in those early stages. The first two stages need heavy promotion. You must use Reach and Teach marketing. Use Reach and Remind in the latter phases, but today, we’re focusing on NEW products.

Your focus should be on educating consumers about the product:

• How it solves a problem
• What it can do and, most importantly
• Why they need it

The key is to obtain enough exposure to adequately explain the product and to share your message in a format that consumers will actually listen to and trust. This will create the desire to buy!

So how do you do that?

You need articles in magazines and newspapers, interviews on television and radio as well as plenty of content online. This publicity can provide enough bandwidth for an adequate explanation about your product. Best of all, today’s consumers are very receptive to hearing your messaging delivered through these channels. In fact, they’re craving it.

What shouldn’t you do?

You can’t depend on traditional advertising to sell your product. First of all, buying enough ads to explain all but the most basic product will probably bust your budget. And second, today’s consumers tend to be “ad-blind”. We all simply dismiss ads without reading them. We just don’t trust them. But read about a new product in the newspaper ... See it on the morning news ... Hear an expert discuss its benefits on the radio … then see it mentioned in an online article. Now you peaked the consumer’s interest … and opened their wallet.

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Having a great product can go a long way, but unless you’re an established company or have an unlimited marketing budget, you may find it a challenge to get your product into people’s hands. I’ve helped hundreds of companies boost their product sales through strategic marketing.

My secret: Sending the right message to the right people at the right time.

Let me tell you a story:

In the 1930s, Everett Rogers was just a young boy on his father’s Iowa farm. At the time, the surrounding farms were all adopting a new drought-resistant seed corn. His father, however, resisted this technology.

When a drought came, his father’s crops died. But his neighbor’s crops all stood tall. It was then that Roger’s father decided he should start using these new seeds.

Fast forward 30 years and Rogers is now a Sociology professor of at Ohio State University. This experience on his father’s farm inspires him to develop the innovation adoption curve. This is the theory that describes how and when the public adopts new products. It’s critical information that every marketer needs to consider when promoting their new product.

Rogers split consumers into five groups based on their tendency to try a new product. Here’s the gist:

1. The Innovators – These are the people that camp outside electronic stores to get the latest tech products. This group wants the newest thing and they want it now -- and they don’t mind paying extra for this opportunity.
2. The Early adopters – This group closely watches the innovators and picks up new trends from them. Like the innovators, they constantly seek new innovations and experiences. But unlike the innovators, they don’t try every innovation that comes their way.
3. The Early majority – This group also watches the group before them. They think, “I see a lot of people using this, maybe I should give it a try.” But, they are also more loyal to the products they use.
4. Late majority – This group will only adopt a product once they see it being used by everyone else. They’re slow to adapt to change, but they are very loyal to the products they use.
5. Laggards – This is that friend who still reaches for the phone book when they want to find a phone number. This group resists change at all costs.

So what does this mean for marketers? Quite simply, you can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to your marketing. You need to have a rich understanding of who you should be trying to reach, as well as which messages will resonate with them, and when and where to use them. A “new” product may be appealing to some, but it was a turn-off to Roger’s father. He’d prefer a product “trusted by thousands”, but that term would not appeal to innovators. Good marketers know how to adjust their sales content to target the right audience for their product.

Writing marketing content isn't easy. There's a lot to consider, from the Innovation Adoption Curve to the Product Lifecycle. Our Marketing-to-Go series can be a lot of help, but if you want more assistance promoting your product contact me, I'm here to help!

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Your website can make or break your business. Eighty percent of people look at a business’ website at some point in the buying process. I consider it your most important salesperson. So it’s critically important that your website has what it takes to bring people through your sales funnel, from discovery to information-gathering to action. I’ll explain what you need to include on your website. Truth be told, this piece has potential to make or break your business.

Let’s get started.

1. A smart website is easy to use.

Your customers need to easily navigate through your website, regardless of the device they are using. Make it obvious where your visitors should go to find information. And, don’t bury your most valuable and requested information! It should be one simple click away from your homepage.

Help your customers take the next step in the buying process, whether that is signing up for your newsletter or making a purchase. Provide multiple conversion opportunities. For example, include a newsletter sign-up form or a link to your online store on every page.

A website needs to be easy for you to use, too. At Checkerboard, we build our websites on WordPress engines because they are powerful, flexible and so user friendly. Plus WordPress integrates with other marketing tools, such as email and social media. This saves our customers time, effort and money.

2. A smart website contains the right content.

This is where some websites miss the mark. In addition to the basics about your product — what is where, where to buy it, etc — a smart website needs to clearly identify your product positioning.

Positioning refers to developing the difference between your product and the competition’s product in the thoughts of consumers.

Chances are, you don’t have a one-of-a-kind product. So why should customers choose your product over your competitor’s? That’s where positioning comes in. Positioning tells your consumers where your product fits into the market. Is it the highest quality? Lowest price? Closest to the beach? What makes it unique?

Some factors that you may want to consider include:

• Price
• Quality
• Speed of delivery
• Convenience
• Location

What’s important is that you clearly communicate your positioning through written content and design.

That brings us to number 3.

3. A smart website must be well-designed

Some business owners and web designers focus too much on the visuals. They give the website all kinds of bells and whistles to dazzle the viewer. Don’t fall into this trap. While design is critical, what’s more important is that your website actually drives sales.

But don’t ignore design either! Poor design detracts from your message, and can even turn away a customer. Remember, you have just seconds to catch a visitor’s attention. Make them count!

Good designers use your positioning statement to develop your design. This way, their visuals add to the user experience. This helps your customers better understand your story and take action. The best designers combine technical skills with marketing know-how to create a website that functions as well as it looks.

When you build smart — your website helps visitors take action. And isn’t that what you want from a website?

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Websites are only valuable if they are current. Today’s consumers go online to find answers. If your website is filled with outdated information, doesn’t answer their questions or worse – can’t be found – it won’t solve their problem. And you won’t make the sale.

Keep your website working for you by making sure it fills your customers’ desires.

• Does it function well on mobile phones, tablets and desktops? Many businesses have found that visits from tablet and smart phone users have nearly doubled over the past year.
• Does the content fill your customers’ needs? Do you know which content is most read? What pages get skipped over quickly? This data helps you keep your website current.
• Are new customers finding you on search engines and through digital ads? Your website can’t produce sales if customers can’t find it. Savvy marketers follow current SEO strategies and make smart, cost-effective use of digital ads.

This may seem overwhelming. Many areas of your business need your attention. How do you find the time to stay up to date on digital best practices and monitor your website analytics? This is why a professional digital marketing assistant is so valuable.

A digital marketing assistant keeps your website current and customer-focused. If you sell jewelry at a retail store, you notice when your customers begin crowding around the chunky necklaces display and walking past the charm bracelets. You probably make adjustments, such as moving the trendy necklaces to a prominent store location.

Digital marketing assistants are just as attuned with your website and can make similar changes. They know what content results in sales and make sure it’s easy to find. They also know what’s not working, and provide advice to make it better.

An employee doing double-duty updating your website is definitely helpful, but they probably don’t have the experience of our digital marketing assistants. Our team lives and breathes websites. They know industry best practices. They stay informed of trends and search engine algorithm changes. They’re also experts at digital advertising and can use this tactic to cost-effectively bring customers to your door, whether it’s virtual or brick-and-mortar.

Put our team to work for you by calling at 952-697-5211 or requesting a free consultation. Our support is scalable to your needs. You’ll rest easy knowing that your website is being monitored by an industry professional with the skills needed to keep it current and working for you.

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Your digital marketing strategy needs to include video. It’s more than just a trend. It’s just may be the future of marketing. If you’re not already using video on your website and social media channels, it’s time to get started. Here’s why:

1. Video can get you in front of a massive audience

   According to Pew Research Center, 78 percent of adults watch or download online video¹. That figure has more than doubled over the past 10 years. And it’s projected to keep growing. You need to tell your story the way your customers want to consume it. For many products, that means a video posted on YouTube (the internet’s second largest search engine) and shared through other channels.

2. Video keeps consumers glued to your website

   When a potential customer arrives at your website, the right video can grab and hold their attention. This study found that video can double the amount of time users spend on a site². Couple this “stickiness” with well-written website content and strong design, and you may gain a boost in your search engine ranking, better informed customers and ultimately more sales.

3. Videos build credibility

   Today’s consumers want to know who they’re buying from. A video can share your company’s story as well as the people in it. This builds consumers’ trust in your business and product. One caveat: Videos only build credibility when they look professional. That’s why we produce our videos in our professional facility with high-quality equipment.

4. Videos receive more interaction on social media

   There’s a reason why all the top publishers on Facebook are posting more videos: It works³. The average amount of shares of video posts has doubled between August 2015 and July 2016. This makes videos even more likely than still images to appear on more people’s newsfeeds.

We make it easy to include video in digital marketing. Give us a call at 952-697-5211 or requesting a free consultation. You’ll be surprised how simple it is add video to your integrated marketing campaign.

Sources

¹http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/10/10/main-findings/

²http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/how-to/videos-attract-300-more-traffic/

³http://buzzsumo.com/blog/facebook-share-data-every-publisher-needs-know/

Imagine this: It’s Saturday morning and your neighbor stops by with their dog. The neighbor begins to talk about the new dog food they just bought. The neighbor says: I bought this new dog food and my dog just loves it. He was always a picky eater but not anymore. XYZ company came up with flavors based on the popular meals people eat — like leftover turkey dinner and day old lasagna. Another thing I like about it is the food comes packaged in individual serving sizes based on the dog’s weight. You should try it for your dog.

This is what you would call a brand statement.

A brand statement is a short paragraph written in the words a customer would use if you overheard them describing your product to another person, and they got it exactly right.

Every marketer needs to construct a brand statement for their product. It will help you create the messages you need to accomplish your goal. Remember, the goal of marketing is to create an audience that thinks of, and describes your product exactly how you would wish.

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You’re a marketing pro. You’re on top of seasonal trends and upcoming challenges as well as your competition. And of course you understand your products better than anyone else. With all that swimming around in your head, I realize you may not be following the latest social media trends. Thankfully, we have a team here that does!

Here’s what you need to know to make the most of this ever-changing promotional platform.

Number One: It’s all about stories.

Facebook recently introduced Facebook Stories for its mobile users. It’s nearly identical to Instagram Stories which debuted last August. Both use the format made famous by Snapchat: personal videos or photos (and of course, filters) which disappear after 24 hours. Similar to Instagram, Facebook stories appear on the top of your news feed. Keep in mind that Facebook has a much broader audience, so many of its users may be unfamiliar with this communication style. That doesn’t mean you should ignore this trend. It’s a smart way to share a limited-time offer on your personal account (Stories aren’t available for business pages yet) without overpopulating your page with promotional posts.

Number Two: Social posts have a small window of opportunity.

The lifespan of a social post is probably shorter than you think. The majority of Facebook engagement occurs within the first few hours after your post. And a Tweet gets cold in less than 20 minutes. Chances are, you’re not posting enough. We suggest most businesses increase their number of weekly posts to reach a greater percentage of their audiences. According to LinkedIn¹, you need 20 posts per month to reach 60 percent of your audience.

Number Three: Personal sharing is down.

Your Facebook page looks different than it did a few years ago. Fewer people are posting personal updates². Instead, Facebook users are sharing links and stories they find on other websites. While this makes it harder to stay connected with your high school friends, it makes it easier to market your business. Make sure you are creating plenty of content that can be shared by your followers. Pro tip: The lifespan of these blogs, graphics or videos is much longer than a simple post – think months rather than minutes – so invest in quality content that has a viral bent.

Number Four: Mobile is driving the bus.

It’s clear that most consumers are using their mobile phones to access social media. We see it in our clients’ analytics and in every data nugget revealed, such as Facebook announcing it now has more than one billion mobile users³. Some data indicate that nearly 80 percent of all social media time is spent on mobile devices. So what does that mean for marketers? You better make sure that the action you want your followers to take is mobile-friendly. Nix any long forms and make sure your website is device-agnostic.

Keeping up with social media can be a challenge. You may not have the time to give it the attention it deserves. You also may not be willing to hand it over to someone else. I have a suggestion. Meet with me and my social media team. We’ll work together to develop a no-nonsense strategy and implementation plan. We’ll take care of those tasks that cause you headaches – such as creating quality content or managing digital ad campaigns – while you can keep doing what brings you joy.

Consider us your social media helping hand. Let’s talk. Call us at 952-697-5269 or requesting a free consultation.

Sources

¹https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/blog

²https://www.theinformation.com/facebook-struggles-to-stop-decline-in-original-sharing?shared=5dd15d

³https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2016/Facebook-Reports-Second-Quarter-2016-Results/default.aspx

The product mix is a table that categorizes a company’s products into “product lines.” Large companies with many products may have groups of lines called silos or platforms. If a company doesn’t categorize its products and consider its product mix, confusion can result. Having a methodical system of organizing products is much more efficient and easier to work with. In addition, once a company has organized its product mix and come up with a written system of categorization for its products, this categorization can be used across the company.

A product mix table can provide a nice overview and also identify opportunities as well as problems. For example, a chain of trendy women’s clothing stores may offer a huge variety of merchandise to its customers. The people who manage the chain’s new offerings need to keep track of all the merchandise by category, to make sure that each season they offer casual clothing, professional clothing, activewear and accessories. If management assembles a product mix table for the new season and notices that there are no new activewear styles, they can put more effort into that area.

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Conceptualizing and building a profile of a target customer can help you more effectively market to them. Market Segmentation Variables are characteristics you can use to build that customer profile or persona. Begin by thinking of your customer as a stick person. From there, add characteristics until you build a comprehensive individual.

Here are some of elements you can use:

Demographics
These include age, gender, income, ethnicity, or family life cycle.

Geographics
These can include a geographic location such as a city, state or region.

Psychographics
These are how people think, such as rock stars thinking differently than librarians.

Geodemographics
This category combines the psychographic and geographic categories. For example, New York business people think differently than Montana ranchers.

Benefit Sought
Such as low price, high quality, quick delivery or best color.

Usage Rate
Is your consumer a frequent buyer, one-time buyer, sporadic buyer, or possibly a moderate buyer?

You can also use Market Segmentation Variables to create compelling examples in your marketing. For example, if you determine the average age of your typical customer and know whether your product appeals more to a male or female, you can research common names for people of that age and gender. Using those names will help you build believable characters with whom your customers in that market segment can more easily identify. Moms who were born in the late 1970s may identify with other women named Amy or Jennifer, whereas their grandmothers may relate to women named Estelle or Dorothy.

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Oh hey, you caught me about to eat lunch. Y’know pizza is a pretty cool thing. Not only is it delicious, but it’s also very versatile. For instance, if i’m sharing a pizza with a vegetarian, I can get meat on my section and only veggies on theirs. Or to take it further, I could split up this pizza into many smaller slices each with their own toppings so that each piece would appeal to a smaller set of people. What I’ve described here is actually very similar to a marketing concept called Market Segmentation. Let’s talk about that!

So, marketers sometimes divide their audience into similar groups called submarkets. But how many submarkets should you market to? Three? Eight? Fifty? None at all?

Let’s review the four basic Marketing Segmentation Strategies.

• Undifferentiated
• Concentrated
• Multi-segmented
• Micro-segmented

First, the undifferentiated strategy.

The undifferentiated strategy means that there is no market segmentation. The entire market is treated as one group. Everyone in your market gets the same message, or with the pizza example - the same toppings. Your promotions treat your entire market as one persona.

The Concentrated strategy.

With a concentrated segmentation strategy, you isolate one, two or three primary market segments that have the most potential value. It’s like only offering three types of toppings for your pizza, appealing to three types of people.

Next, the multi-segmented strategy.

A multi-segmented strategy creates separate marketing messages for four or more different market segments. Now we’re adding more toppings to appeal to even more people.

Finally, a micro-segmented.

A micro-segmented strategy targets marketing to a very small group of people, perhaps even all the way down to the individual level. This is like offering so many different slices of pizza that have various topping changes, like anchovies and black olives or blue cheese and hamburger meat, slices that probably only a few people have an appetite for but we want to appeal to them nonetheless.

The market segmentation strategy that is right for you depends entirely on the needs of your organization and product. The best strategy for one company may not be good for another company. Choosing a segmentation strategy, however, will help give you the discipline to commit your resources to the most valuable market segments.

Now that you now about market segmentation, I’m about to segment this pizza into my mouth. Mmm … segmentation…

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Oh, hi. I'm just planning a route for a secret road trip I'm about to take. I've been looking forward to it for a while now. I've never been to this place, but thanks to GPS and smartphones, I can just put in the address and it will guide me right there.

All of this trip planning actually segues quite nicely into Company Vision. Let’s get into it!

All companies should have a plan for where they want to be in the future. A landmark on the horizon to aim towards. This is what is called a "company vision". This is typically created by the company founder or leader and communicated to the rest of the company. That's kind of like the destination for my road trip.

The first thing to keep in mind with a company vision is that it is what the company one day INTENDS TO BE, not what it CURRENTLY IS! It’s purpose after all is to be a goal for the company. Otherwise, that would be like me asking my mapping app for directions to my current location.

(Speaking to smartphone) Give me directions to work.
(Siri) Proceed zero feet. You have already arrived at your destination. Travel time was zero seconds.

Also, you want your company vision statement to be short. That way people will be able to remember, understand, and recall it. If it's too long, it not as valuable. In a similar way, when I tell my GPS my destination, I use an address – which is relatively short and specific, not a long description of the place I want to go.

(Speaking to smartphone) Give me directions to that place I went to last week. You know, the place with the tall green building next to the stop sign?
(Siri) Oh, thank you for that very vague destination. Let me just read your mind to fill in the rest and take you right to the exact location. That was sarcasm. I’m told my voice doesn't express that very well. So I'm telling you.

Finally, reference your company vision periodically to make sure all activities are in line with that vision. At a high level, all company activities should be in line with the course that is set by the company vision. If they’re not, then a refocusing may be in order. Like, if I went off-course during my trip, my GPS would recalculate my route to ensure I arrive at my destination.

(Speaking to smartphone) Hey, isn't the world's largest chocolate waterfall around here? Let’s go there!
(Siri) Recalculating ... Well, the world’s largest chocolate waterfall is in Alaska. That is WAY off course.
(Speaking to smartphone) You’re right Siri. We can’t waste any time getting to my secret destination! After all, it closes at 4:30.

Hopefully this helps you understand "company vision" a bit better. Now of course, once you achieve your vision, it's time to create a new one. That helps you avoid stagnation and keeps your company moving forward.

(From off-camera) Hey Shawn, I hear you are going on a trip. Where are you going?
Oh, nowhere in particular.
(Siri) Route calculated. Leila's Hair Museum in Independence, Missouri is 425 mi away and you will arrive in approximately 6 hrs.

Thanks Siri.

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