DUCT TAPE MARKETING REVISED AND UPDATED summary

Introduction and Marketing Strategy

Duct Tape Marketing Revised and Updated by John Jantsch What's in it for me? Master the easiest, cheapest and most efficient marketing techniques for your small business. If you studied marketing in college or business school, here's some bad news, You're way behind the times. Today's marketing strategies are a far cry from those textbook examples.

In fact, for small businesses, what marketing means has changed completely. Modern strategies are now much more practical and easy to apply in our technological age. The strategy goes like this, Find people who have a problem you can solve, and make sure they know, like and trust you. But the challenge remains, How do you find those people?

As you'll learn in this summary, it starts with a plan. Whether you're in desperate need of a marketing tune up or ready to throw more cash at your successful early strategy, you need to ensure your messaging makes customers stick like duct tape and stay. After reading this summary, you'll know how to talk to your ideal customer and get her to recommend others, how to craft a great marketing purpose statement, and why traditional advertising is far from dead or irrelevant. Chapter one.

A powerful marketing strategy starts with a clear objective, a unique mission and a concrete goal. When thinking of marketing, many small business owners immediately jump to colorful print ads or flashy flyers. But these are just tactics. Before diving into the details, you must step back and build a solid marketing strategy to guide your journey.

Think of it as a roadmap showing how to reach your ultimate destination. This begins by defining three core elements: your objectives, your mission and your goals. For instance, your objective might be to become the top player in your niche. Your mission is the guiding purpose, like serving your community honorably.

And your goal is a specific, measurable target, such as doubling your customer base within a year. Once these are set, you can design the strategy to achieve them. A strong marketing strategy relies on three main steps. First, define exactly who you want to serve.

Instead of trying to appeal to everyone, find your niche and identify your ideal customers. This focus allows you to tailor your services specifically for them. Second, decide how you will stand out from the crowd. What makes your business unique?

Whether it is exceptional service or superior quality, you must give customers a clear reason to choose you. Without a differentiator, you will get stuck in a price war, and if you are not the cheapest, you will lose. Finally, combine these steps to reach your audience. Learn how to bring your unique solution to your ideal market by studying your competitors, understanding customer habits and identifying their unmet needs.

Defining Ideal Customers

Define your ideal customer and seek to solve their problems, they'll stay loyal and refer friends. Marketing used to be based on trying to reach as many customers as possible. Nowadays, that's ineffective.

Instead, you need to appeal to people who will really use your products. This means you need to find your ideal customers. Who are they? What problems are you solving for them?

You want to leave your customers happy and satisfied, so they'll keep buying your product, and when that is true, they'll tell their friends about your products, too. So how do you find these ideal customers? Start by looking at your own business history. Make a list of all your clients and see which are satisfied and which groups bring in the most profit.

The clients who are happy with your services as well as profitable are your ideal client group. They'll be loyal, and they'll refer you to friends. Next, look for other clients in the same demographic. Find out what things attract them, and why they need your services.

Remember, your product needs to solve a problem for them. In the end, you'll have a biographical sketch of your ideal customer. Make sure you can describe them in detail, so your staff knows how to spot them. You can even create some specific characters and give them names, so you have something more tangible to think about when you imagine the ideal client.

Before making any marketing decisions, ask yourself, Would this appeal to Bob? This will keep you on track. You can also visit the places where your ideal clients go. If you're targeting people in the tech world, for example, you can attend some technology related conferences and get to know your ideal customers on a personal level.