Its Not What You Say Its How You Say It!

The focus of a great marketing plan is not the product itself but grabbing the attention of your buyers(Scott,2013).Focusing on the needs of the buyer instead of the product itself is often hard for organizations to accomplish. The bottom line is this-people buy experiences, not products! Take Starbucks for example; is it the wi-fi, the fresh ground coffee beans, the social atmosphere? No one knows for sure, but it is the overall experience that Starbuck's provides that keeps it competitive  within the coffee industry. The first step to consider when putting together your company's marketing and PR plan:

1. What are the organization's goals.

The whole let's throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks approach is not usually the best strategy with an organization's marketing and pr department. This strategy creates dysfunction and is not very measurable in terms of gauging success. The lack of strategic approach even effects the ability of the sales force to do their jobs effectively.The important thing when analyzing and measuring what is effective is known where you need to place your advertising to make it most effective(Scott.2013). Your target audience should help an organization reach its goals by building revenue, donations, and followers(Scott,2013). An organizations goals must be clear and concise. The entire organization needs to be playing my the same playbook with one common focus and one main goal. The first step to achieving this is getting an organization's leadership to evaluate and determine what the initial goals are(Scott,2013). Once this is determined, now the marketing and advertising department can begin to solidify a PR plan focused on the tight objectives(Scott,2013). The next step:

2. Identifying Buyer Personas:

The most successful online marketing campaigns start by identifying their target markets. Identifying a certain buyer or type is an essential part in developing the pr and marketing strategy(Scott,2013). With various life groups to consider, NASCAR Dads, Walmart moms, etc., a one size fits all campaign is not the most effective approach to effectively capturing the right audience and generating the best response(Scott, 2013). Understanding and using the buyer persona profile is a useful tool to help organizations get to the core of their target audience. A buyer persona profile provides essential information such as lifestyle, buying habits, household income, etc., in an effort to gain a through understanding of how they think and what are the best means to reaching them(Scott, 2013). The best way to gather this type of information is to interview or survey people. This type of information is tremendously valuable in analyzing and targeting a range of consumers from blue collar to senior executives. Website developers use this type of information not only to attract web traffic, but to build their initial websites based on the needs and interest of their target audience. Which leads to step three:

3. Finding Out What Your Buyers Believe

So your organization has identified its goals, researched its buyers, now what? How a buyer perceives or what they believe about an organization is vitally important to fulfilling and effectively utilizing buyer persona information. Different buyers buy different things, so messaging becomes imperative when putting together a marketing and pr strategy. People choose ideas not just products and the best way to capitalize on this concept is through the law of reciprocity, which is the law of conditioned or controlled response. How an organization positions its message determines how the consumer will respond. The best example or analogy for this would be Pavlov and his dog. Pavlov conditioned the response of the dog based on the dog's need and response to the meat through the ringing of the bell.The same approach can be used in a pr or marketing campaign. Putting together messaging that targets the need or want of the consumer will create a controlled response. This approach allows organizations the ability to develop the most effective content to reach its buyers most effectively(Scott,2013).

Measuring the effectiveness of a marketing campaign becomes a bit tricky. Organizations should have a good understanding of what they should measure. Here are seven things:

1.engagement of online participants
2.How many downloads occur?
3. How often are you blogged about?
4.What do the bloggers say?
5.Where does the organization appear in the search engines?
6.How many people are actively interacting and responding to contact information forms?
7.How are sales?

These are just a few things to consider when managing the effectiveness of a marketing campaign or plan. The key goal to achieving any favorable results in a marketing or pr plan is to stick with it(Scott,2013)!Consistency will always be the key to success in achieving the overall goals set forth by any organization.

Scott, D. (2013).  The new rules of marketing & pr.  Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

I posted this blog post on Wednesday evening, but wanted to add a link, not sure if that will change the publish dtae. BUt original publish date of this blog is 2/12//14 8;59 PM PST

Week 2 Initial Post

I agree with Argenti, Howell, and Beck's (2005) position in regards to characterization of communication within an organization. I feel it's important that senior managers be involved and understand the importance of leveraging communication among their followers(Argenti, Howell & Beck, 2005). Because the CEO is the voice and the face of the company it is imperative that this level of leadership handle the communication activities of the organization most effectively. Because communication is not a separate function, it must be integrated in a manner which captures a company's corporate strategy as a whole(Argenti, Howell & Beck, 2005). And because the a brand means different things to different people, I also feel that an organization must avoid counterproductive moves that compromise the integrity of the brand within the media(Argenti, Howell & Beck, 2005).

How an organization represents it's brand through a marketing and advertising strategy depends heavily on the image of the brand is communicated. Because social media is such an interactive medium, it is important for a organization to strategically place all its messaging in alignment with its overall communication's strategy. In order to achieve strategic positioning an organization must remain consistent with its approach to deliver the most meaningful and collective content to entice and engage the interest of the consumer without compromising or diluting the strength of the brand. Any ideas for putting together a strategic communication plan specific to social media?

Argenti, P. A., Howell, R. A., & Beck, K. (2005). The strategic communication imperative . MIT Sloan Management Review , 46(3), doi: 46315