Some people think of marketing as advertising and promotional specials. Others see marketing as high-level planning and strategy. So, to get started, let's talk briefly about what marketing is.

When I talk about "marketing", I am referring to any and all activities that help you plan and deliver your message to your audience. Marketing is what helps your potential customer understand who you are, what you do, what you might be able to do for them and why they should consider doing business with you.

Marketing is about understanding why you are in business. It's about knowing what your strengths are and how you are better than your competitors. It helps you determine what you can do for people (your customers). Marketing helps you discover who needs and wants what you can do and who will place a high value on what you do. It helps you create a message that these people will respond to so they take the first step toward becoming your customer or client. Finally, marketing helps you deliver your message effectively to your potential customers, within your budget, so you meet or exceed your goals.

Marketing goes to the very heart of your organization because it's all about why your organization exists.

Smart Marketing is based on a simple, yet effective system of marketing. It's easy to understand and implement. Best of all, it works.

The system is a series of five steps that all marketing plans and campaigns should include. It gives you a conceptual framework to help you get better results from all your marketing.

Here is our five-step Smart Marketing System:

A. Understand your GOALS or the objectives you want to accomplish.
B. Know the MARKET you want to reach based on what you can do for them.
C. Create a MESSAGE to deliver to your market that they will respond to.
D. Commit MONEY to spend to deliver your message to your market.
E. Select the MEDIA you will use to deliver your message effectively and within your budget.

By doing this you'll find you are able to get better results from your marketing without necessarily spending more money. You will learn to increase revenue and profits. Your business will become healthier, more valuable and more fun.

You'll become a practitioner of Smart Marketing!