The thing about marketing is that it can be a ton of fun.  You can be creative; you can experiment with new ideas, and you can build your brand the way you want to build it.

But at the end of the day, marketing isn’t just about crayons and having a good time.  Just like most other facets of business, marketing requires analytics, patience, and proven processes.  And although the way you market might vary from industry to industry and hinges on whether or not you’re pinpointing consumers or other businesses, the 4 T’s will always play a major role in deciding how successful your marketing efforts are.

Oh… what’s that?  You don’t know what the 4 T’s are?  Well, that works out perfectly because we’re about to tell you what they are.

Targeting

If you aren’t marketing to the right people, then your efforts will certainly not pay off on the level that they could pay off on.  Every now and then you might get lucky.  But that’s all that’ll ever be… luck.  And nothing more.

If you’d like to rely on more than just luck, then you’ll need to do a little bit of targeting.  And a great way to figure out who you want or need to be targeting is to take a look at your best customers, patients, clients, etc.  Who are these people and do they have anything in common?

Engage your current clients with these quick tips.

For example, if you’re B2B, what’s the annual revenue of your top clients and how many employees do they have?  What industry do they belong to and how do they operate?  The more you can narrow this down into a specific type of target, the better you can tailor your marketing message to their wants, needs, and desires and the more successful you will be.

Timing

There are a few things you need to keep in mind when it comes to timing.  Timing is incredibly important and can make or break any marketing decisions you make.

For starters, if you’ve narrowed down your target market, what types of activities does this market participate in?  Is there a specific time of the year where they are busier than usual?  If there is and you attempt to market during this time period, your efforts will go unnoticed.  Or worse, they’ll be turned off and annoyed by you.

Another thing to consider is how often you market to your prospects.  Marketing is all about consistency and top of mind awareness, which means you need to constantly be throwing out marketing collateral.  However, if you hit your prospects too much or too little, your efforts will fall flat.  Again, this will vary on the who, but a good rule of thumb is five days between physical mailers and phone calls and ten days between emails.

Touches

If you take a look at any major brand, they’re marketing through a variety of outlets.  Print.  Television.  Social media.  Online content.  Events.  The list goes on and on.  The point is that they’re trying everything they can to hit their target market, and you should do the same.

Plan a better event with these tips.

Just because you send out an email doesn’t mean anyone will actually open it, and if you continue to send out emails to people who may or may not open them, you’re doing nothing for no one.  Send out a postcard.  Throw up a billboard.  Make a few phone calls.  Push out a few creative emails.  Touch your target market in different ways at different times, and people are more likely to pay attention to you and remember you.

Temperature

Not every prospect is created equal.  In other words, even if a prospect is in your target market, this doesn’t mean they’re ready for your services or that they’ll ever want your services.  And not to mention, certain prospects might be very familiar with who you are and what you do, while others may not even know you exist.

This means that you’ll need to tailor your marketing efforts even more.  You have your message tailored by who… now you have to tailor it by how hot or how cold that who is.  For example, if you have a set of prospects that aren’t very familiar with your business, then you’ll need to set them up on a more generic marketing campaign.  This campaign will focus on building up your brand and will work to explain who you are and what you do in more general terms.  If you have a group that does know more about your business, then you can put this group on a targeted campaign that focuses on a specific service or call to action.

Want to learn a little more about marketing for your MSP?  Check out our Definitive Guide to MSP Marketing.