Never Discount the Importance of a Value Proposition and a Call to Action... They Should be Dictated by the Goals and Strategies of your Marketing Plan

Last week we had a great workshop that was a roll-up-your-sleeve session on how to plan an online advertising campaign. Brian Mell and I really got the group thinking about their individual businesses.

At the core of any marketing initiative is “The Plan,” and the plan is only as good as how you think critically about your goals and strategies.

Before we went into the details of execution, I spent a lot of time on defining what is a goal, what is a strategy, and their differences. I then went on to emphasize that every marketing and advertising execution has to have goals and strategies which are connected to the core goal and strategy. Here are my definitions based on my experience and what’s in the text books:

Goal: An objective or target which should be measurable and be achieved within a fixed time frame.

Strategy: A measured, methodical approach which sets out to achieve the goal.

Many times, we confuse a goal from a strategy and the plan goes astray.

If you don’t have a proper plan, with the correct goal(s) and strategy(ies), then you’ll never have the right value proposition and call to action in your execution.

The correct value proposition and call to action should be present in every facet of your marketing and advertising campaign, and should be applied in all of your business portals including your website.

For those of you who attend our workshops, you know that I drum into you my belief that the public today has, “the attention span of a pea.” So, you have to capture their attention with your value proposition immediately. How? By it being COMPELLING. What makes it compelling...the fact that you are stating something of a solution to your public that is of interest to them in a CONVINCING way. I don’t want to hear how great you are in your value proposition...I want to know what you can do for me. That value proposition is part of your strategy in achieving your goal!

What about a call to action? Well, you have to tell people what you want them to do once you have their attention. If you don’t tell them what you want them to do, you are throwing away an opportunity to achieve your goal and are probably wasting money invested in the campaign. Again, that call to action is part of your strategy in achieving your goal.

So...to recap:

Before investing resources in implementing a business-generating initiative, develop a well thought out plan. Define your:

1. Goals
2. Strategies
3. Value propositions
4. Calls to Action

Our students appreciated and applied these principles immediately to their businesses...that’s one of the goals of our Edutainment Learning Series:

As Jim Trueworthy, Partner and Principal of The Hat Company (www.thehatco.com) stated:

“Your programs, as always, are entertaining and more importantly they provide information of immediate value which I can use in my business. Through Course 202, I have learned how to improve my ‘Call to Action’ and ‘Value Proposition’ on my shopping cart website. Pamela both you and Brian are a true ‘Value Proposition.’ Thank you for this program.” Jim at thehatco  

JOIN US FOR OUR NEXT WORKSHOP...WEDNESDAY MARCH 14...

WEBSITE SECURITY: A LAYMAN’S UNDERSTANDING OF DEFENSE
We’ll inform you on how to spot scams and viruses, give you a history of how security breaches started, and provide tips on how to protect your site and your identity. We’ll tell you about the future too...what’s the good, the bad and the downright ugly on conducting business on the Internet!

Best regards,

Pamela Joy Ring