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Understanding the purpose
By Tash Hughes of Word Constructions

An important part of running a business is to market that business. And part of marketing often includes marketing materials, newsletters and blogs, attending trade fairs and expos, website and speaking to people.

Before you rush into preparing any marketing and sales tools, you need to understand the real purpose of the tool.

Isn’t it obvious?

Actually, the purpose of your marketing isn’t always very obvious at all.

Some common marketing purposes are

• Making a sale
• Increasing website traffic
• Getting exposure
• Developing a reputation
• Establishing your brand
• Maintaining customer relationships

Yes, the bottom line may be that you want to make more sales to get more profit, but what is the immediate purpose of a particular action? Sometimes taking the focus off sales can build a strong business that will generate a lifetime of sales rather than just a few immediate sales.

Remember that there can be various steps to a sale – for instance, a letterbox flyer directs people to visit your website where they make a sale. The flyer isn’t selling the product – it’s purpose is getting people to the website.

Does it matter?

Given the bottom line is making sales, you might wonder about the value of knowing your purpose in every piece ofmarketing and communication you prepare.

The reality is that you can’t say everything about your business/product in each marketing document – it just wouldn’t work. So you need to decide what information to include in your content, and knowing your purpose can help determine the best points to make.

For example, if I write a regular blog in order to build relationships with potential clients then I will include useful tips and give reasons for those people to trust me. However, if I was writing the blog to make sales, then I would discuss my products/services and include a call to action as a regualr part of the content.

If you are using any suppliers to prepare your marketing efforts, you can save yourself money, time and misunderstandings by having a clear purpose. Your supplier will be able to aim the marketing and/or content at that purpose rather than going through many drafts if they don’t have a clear goal for you.

Does it work?

When assessing any marketing efforts, knowing the purpose will make the results more meaningful.

Consider spending a lot of money to sponsor an event that will be attended by your target audience. It is unlikely you will be selling products at the event so if you count the success on number of sales you may consider it a waste of money.

However, if the sponsorship was to increase exposure and 500 people attended the event, you may think it a good investment. Monitoring how people heard of you over the next few months will confirm if the sponsorship was effective in increasing the number of people interested in your products.

Careful marketing that doesn’t always have a purpose of making sales can develop trust and earn word of mouth advertising that is worth much more than a single sale.

So next time you are preparing to market your business, pause and plan what you want to achieve from that marketing. Clear communication is critical to the success of any business, but it is often left to care for itself in many businesses. Tash Hughes is a professional and skilled writer who makes technical and otherwise boring information accessible for everyone a business needs to communicate with. Next time you need webcopy, articles, newsletters, reports or any other business content, visit www.wordconstructions.com.au to see how Tash and her team can help your business succeed.