If your marketing plan was created through conversations beginning with "Let's try this," or "Why don't we...," this could be the most important information you will read all year.
Marketing -- your advertising, public relations, promotions, customer and community relations -- is your lifeline to profits. Could the other end of that lifeline held by your customers be slipping away?
If your formal marketing plan [you do have a written plan, don't you?] is not anchored firmly in the psychology of your customers' buying behavior, you are vulnerable. Why are you vulnerable? Because your competitors who understand Psychological Marketing will use it to take market share away from you! Every day they are enticing your customers to "let go" of your lifeline.
To understand Psychological Marketing, you must first understand this axiom: "People do not want your product or service." They do want answers to problems, solutions to needs, pathways to wants, or a secret door to their heart's desires. But they don't want to give you their money to get it.
So WHY Do Buyers Pay You?
That answer is inside the buyer's mind. The more precisely you know their REAL reasons for buying, the more precisely you can focus your marketing plan, and the more sales you will make. That is the fundamental value of Psychological Marketing.
Mere demographics cannot give you that answer. Statistics give you a "photograph" of your buyers, but tell you nothing about what they are thinking or feeling as they look into the camera. You can't market to a photo!	The company that understands the most about the true buying motivations of its customers can dominate its industry -- with a good product and a focused marketing strategy!
What is a focused Psychological Marketing Plan? Do you remember as a kid using a glass lens to focus sunlight on a paper? While the unfocused rays of the sun merely made the paper warm, the focused rays made the paper burst into flames. That's the power which a focused Psychological Marketing Plan can give you -- when every marketing element is focused on your buyers' true motivations.
How does a Psychological Marketing Plan work? A psychological profile of the targeted potential customer base and the product or service [Yes, what you sell has a "psychological" profile, too!] forms the foundation of an effective marketing plan. Every marketing decision flows naturally from the customer psychological profile -- your advertising, promotions, public relations, packaging, and all the rest.
Your Psychological Marketing Plan focuses on your buyer's mind. You look out through his/her eyes at your product or service. Your Plan details the best product image to create, effective advertising and promotion strategy, even ad copy. It lays out the strongest focus for your public relations and the design of your promotional materials. It describes the most effective product packaging and display, the most useful community relations events, even the most powerful pricing strategies. Everything is integrated into a long-range, well-planned timetable to create the maximum impact for your product and the maximum "buzz" about your company.
See Part 2 of this blog for details on crafting your psychological message. Click here.
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