The Magic Marketing Formula

I talk a lot about marketing. One day I was meeting with a client and he asked about a marketing formula. I wasn't sure what he meant so he clarified. "Kevin, isn't there some kind of formula I could use to make sure I'm doing the right things?"

My first response was "no" there is no such formula.

But I thought about it after we talked and I decided that there actually was a marketing formula. Even better, it wasn't very complicated and it might be useful for people as they plan and implement their marketing.

So, here is my Magic Marketing Formula:

(T * E * M) = A

Where:

T= time
E= experience of your customer as they interact with your company
M = marketing activities that deliver the right message to the right people

(All variables must be above zero.)

and...

A = awareness of your business.

So, here's how it works.

To increase positive awareness of your business you need to increase any or all of the three factors, T, E and M.

Of course, we want to increase positive awareness of our business. That's what gets people interested in what we can do for them. It moves people from being complete strangers to leads or even prospects. It gives them a reason to start a relationship and a conversation with us.

Then we can build the trust and credibility we need to help them become customers, if that will help them get what they want.

To increase T (time) is easy. Just stick with it. The longer you do it, the more awareness you'll generate.

Increasing E (customer experience) is not necessarily easy. You might not even know what your customer experience is. You think it's very good. But only your customers know for sure. To manage this variable, you need to know what experience you're delivering to your customers and how to improve it.

Boosting M (marketing activities) is not complicated in concept. You want to do more of the things that put an effective message about your company in front of people who are most likely to benefit from your product or service.

This is what people usually think about when they say "marketing". This is where the rubber hits the road. These are all the things you do to get your message out to the right people.

We could talk about this variable forever.

For now though, let's focus on the whole formula. I like it because it shows us the relationships between the three elements. It tells us that the experience our customers have is just as important as the advertising we do. In fact, it has the ability to completely counteract all the marketing activities we invest in.

The formula also tells us that time is a good friend to have. In our hurry up and do it yesterday world, we need to remember, nothing of value happens in a hurry. The more time we can spend building our business, the better business we will have.

I'll talk more about this formula over the next few months because there's much more than can be covered in one post. For now though, I'd like to know what you think. Does this formula make sense? Does it fit? Or is something missing.Please let me know your thoughts.