Fit vs Fat

Obesity is not just a health epidemic; it’s a marketing epidemic as well.

In an attempt to communicate their value, businesses will try and cram as many messages as possible into one marketing piece. Everything gets bolded, underlined and called out. With so many marketing messages, it’s like having too much food on your plate: you can’t possibly consume it all.

This is what I call “Fat Marketing.”

The opposite is “Fit Marketing.” Fit Marketing means you restrict your marketing diet to a few simple messages. Less clutter means more impact.

Fit Marketing moves people through the sales funnel one step at a time. Fat Marketing tries to consummate the deal in one step. Fit marketing is clear and concise. Fat Marketing bogs you down.

Get fit with your marketing and you will move your business to the next level.

How do you get fit? Here are a couple of ways:

• E-newsletters: drive readership with valuable content, but stick with one message at a time. Don’t overload your newsletter with too many articles and too many calls to action. One article, one call to action is perfectly fit.
• Website: a website is mostly a source of information about you and your company. Keep it that way. You can’t do everything with your site, so don’t. Most important, your website will evolve so be prepared to analyze visits so you can optimize it and streamline it.
• Print Ads, Direct Mail: focus on one primary message. Be sure you ask yourself: “What one thing do I want someone to do once they’ve seen my ad/postcard/letter?”

This is just the start. The Fit Marketing concept should be applied to all of your marketing collateral because Fit Marketing is a long term approach to building a customer base.

So put your marketing on a treadmill today and shed some of that clutter!

Turn OK Marketing into KO Marketing

Let’s be honest: your marketing is just okay. It’s not knocking anybody out. It may be getting your message out there but it's not doing much else.

You want knock out marketing. In fact, you need knock out marketing. Okay marketing just doesn’t cut it nowadays. With so many messages and so much competition, your wasting marketing dollars if your collateral is just okay.

So how to you go from okay marketing to knock out marketing? Here are three ways:

1) Simplify Your Message: less is always more. Always. Marketers constantly struggle with optimizing their message. It’s both art and science. But the struggle should never be solved by adding more messages. Instead, take away messages. Cut to the core of what you want your audience to comprehend. Stick with one key, consistent message. You can always change your message if it doesn’t work. But don’t try and fit a bunch of messages into one space. Knock out your marketing with one swift blow.

2) Provide a Specific Call to Action: the reason a lot of marketing is just okay is that there is no call to action. If you don’t have a specific call to action in your marketing then there is no knock out punch. Focus messages on the specific actions that you want your audience to perform. If you want people to stop by your store, then state “visit.” If you want people to call, then state “call.” Unless you push someone to do something, they won’t do it.

3) Focus on Benefits, Not Features: sell the sizzle, not the steak. Right? Hair loss products are my favorite example of this. They rarely sell the features of their product and instead focus on the benefits. Dude swimming in the pool, surrounded by beautiful women…that’s what sells! Not the price, or the color. These are features. Learn from hair loss advertisements: if you want knock out marketing, then focus on the benefits.

Move your business to the next level with knock out marketing. Okay marketing is just, you guessed it, okay. You don’t want okay. You need knock outs. Your small business may depend on it.