Our $2billion marketing secret

I’m going to give away all our secrets in this article and it won’t cost you a thing. I won’t sell you anything. But you will have to execute and work hard at the solution. This is a not a get rich quick idea.

First, let’s talk about $2billion. That’s a lot of coin, even in Aussie dollars.

And it is a real figure. We have helped over 500 clients in the last twenty years achieve this much revenue growth in that time.

And we did it applying one singularly focussed marketing model that we developed in our marketing practice here in Australia.

Whenever we’ve strayed from this model, we have met with patchy results.

But properly applied and done in sequence, this model will work. It is a strategic, self correcting model.

We have given it an acronym — R.A.P.I.D.

I did say I wasn’t going to sell you anything, but if you want more detail than I can provide in this article, I have published two books — Marketing has no off switch and Get your Marketing Cooking — both available on AMAZON — for less than $10. I won’t be getting rich selling the books anytime soon, but feel free to check them out if you wish.

Now back to R.A.P.I.D.

We have surveyed over 1500 businesses and found that almost without fail, most of them start at the 4th step in this model and fail to do enough on the first 3 steps — this is your first hint — do the five steps in order, do them well.

What are the five steps of the model?

Well, the first letter stands for RESEARCH. You must understand the needs, wants, behaviours and attitudes of your customers. You need to understand the dynamics of the market in which you are operating and you need to know who your competition are and what position in the market place they are targeting.

The second step is ANALYSE — it is taking all the information and data you find in your research and then analysing it for the best and most important information as it relates to your business and the market position you want to fill.

The third step is decision time — it is PLAN — this is taking all you’ve learning, deciding on a market position. And backing this up by setting yourself some goals and applying some resources — in time and money to your upcoming marketing effort.

IMPLEMENT is the fourth step. This is where you start communicating with customers via whatever channels you have decided on. Social Media, emails, brochures, promotions, advertising and whatever other alternatives you’ve chosen.

DETECT — this is the final step(well almost) when you measure the marketing programs you’ve done and decide which is working the best to generate the new leads and customers you are seeking.

I say almost final step, because RAPID is meant to be a live model that works in a circular fashion. What you learn in DETECT, is used to then repeat the cycle in your next planning period. Feeding data back into your marketing model so you can make it even better next time.

And that my dear reader is the 5 steps to a far more successful marketing program in your business. Stop making the mistakes of most businesses trying to ‘promote’ or ‘implement’ a marketing or advertising program without understanding who you are talking to, how you compare with others, the needs and wants of customers, where your competitors are focussed and a range of other critical intelligence.

Be smart and follow the RAPID model, and you will start reaching your growth and expansion goals for your business.