4 Mandatory Marketing Concepts You Must Master to Succeed In Business.

By: Jeremy McCluggage

Marketing your business is different than it used to be. In fact I believe we are at a crossroads, wondering which way to turn long term. Do we get our logo stamped on a cup and give to our clients or do we spend the same capital in a pay per click marketing campaign online?

To help you answer that question lets get a bit high level and deal with the fundamentals. That's right like in football or anything else in life when you are at a crossroads or having a challenge get back to the fundamentals. There are four fundamentals you must have for your marketing to be successful.
First your client must know you. These days, to marketing your business, that may be clicking on your web page and getting a first impression of who you are or it may be at an after hours business networking event giving your well rehearsed elevator speech or unique selling proposition to as many people as will listen to you.

The second is that they must like you. Now business marketing gets more complicated, because online you have eight seconds for this to happen, and in real life you have about two seconds to make a first impression. If you pass that test then you normally get people to like you by finding out what their needs are and listening not talking.

The third is they must trust you. Marketing and building trust is even tougher online so we have verisign and other organizations that tell visitors to your website that you are who you say you are and their money will not be headed back to Nigeria. In the real world again, it is really hard not to trust someone who is listening and smiling at you. It is normally when you start talking and sounding all slick that you loose much of your clients.

Finally and most importantly today more than ever people are looking for value. People see the previous three as a given, now what you going to do for me? So how do you build value? I am sure you have gone to the websites where they offer you free reports or a 30-day free trial if you order today. Because of the competition businesses marketing to the same clients are having to offer more and more to even get the attention of potential clients.

What does this mean for you? What it comes down to is that your job is to do what you say your will do or more than what your client expects every time. You have to bring your "A" Game to the table every time. You have to take care of your clients the way you would like to be taken care of and you will do well. It will get tougher so either learn the phrase, "Would you like fries with that," or get out there and play to win.