Marketing Tip - Practice RMRAC

by Rickey Gold
Rickey Gold & Associates

This simple little acronym can help you stay on track as you develop your marketing materials.

RM - The Right Message
RA - The Right Audience
C - Consistently

Want to see your marketing efforts pay off? Then make sure you're sending the right message to the right audience, consistently.

The Message
Most of your customers or potential customers are looking for solutions

• to problems that are impeding work flow, productivity, profit or morale
• to increased competition on all sides
• to limited marketing dollars and big marketing gaps

So what's the message? Solutions. OK, it may sound too simple, and you've been hearing the term bandied all over in the past 12 months -- but there's a reason for it. It's what's missing in most company's marketing efforts.

As a savvy marketer, your goal should be to provide your clients with the solutions they need. Fix their problems. Make them more productive. Increase their profits. Do that -- or convince them that you can -- and your client base will grow. Because happy clients are the best references you can get.

Give your clients products, tools, services to help them work better, faster, more efficiently. Then watch your own business grow.

The Audience
If you don't know your target market, you may as well stop right now. Because unless you've defined your prospects, you're shooting blind.

Define your target market. It may help to see where your competitors are marketing, so watch your competitors. Is your service designed for 25 - 54 year olds, teens, seniors, men, women, single men, single women, men and women, men who own Jeep Cherokees, men who take taxis, suburban men, married dads, single moms… you get the picture. Define your market(s) as tightly as possible. Only then can you narrow down where to find them. Do that, and you'll be ready for the next step -- to select the marketing tools you're going to use to reach them.

Consistency
Little word, big meaning. Ignore it and you may as well throw your marketing dollars out the window. Unless you market on some sort of an ongoing schedule, you're wasting time and money.

For example, suppose you've opened a new floral shop in Lincoln Park. You decide to run an ad in Chicago Magazine because your research has indicated that your target market reads Chicago Magazine. You don't want anything too small, so you run a 1/3 page color ad in the May issue to coincide with your shop opening. Because you've spent more than you should, you don't run anything else till November -- which means you're counting on Chicago Magazine readers reading both May and November, seeing your ad both times, and remembering it over six months and two seasons. Long shot!

A better approach would be to run a series of smaller black and white ads over a six month period. Run every other month or three months in a row (called a flight). Or find another publication with lower ad rates. Or do some highly targeted direct mail -- very cost effective.

The goal is visibility. It's hard to achieve without a consistent message.

So, keep RMRAC in mind when you're working on your marketing. And don't get frustrated. Successful marketing requires persistence, tenacity and patience.

Send the right message --to the right audience -- consistently. And watch your business grow.

Rickey Gold specializes in designing compelling, cost effective marketing solutions to grow your business and impact your bottom line. She can be reached at 773.348.4973 or rg@rickeygold.com