The Industry-First Six-Step Process That Will Help Make Them the Smartest Marketers in the Room
Imagine asking your accounting staff the difference between a balance sheet and an income statement, and finding out you stumped them. Now, ask your marketing team the difference between the marketing mix and the promotional mix. “It’s a basic question but surprisingly most marketers don’t know the answer,” says Lonny Kocina, CEO of Media Relations Agency, a leading performance-based marketing agency. “Someone in your company should know about marketing or you’re going to get bamboozled.”
Based on his agency’s 30 years of helping companies of all sizes to successfully market their products, Kocina notes that, “Most people in marketing, from the top on down, know a lot less about marketing than they let on. Many don’t even know the basics of marketing. It’s unfortunate how much money is being wasted and sales missed over something that is relatively easy to solve.”
He adds, “Marketing is about the shortest, fastest, least expensive and most direct route to a lead, a sale and a brand. You can maybe ring another 20 percent in sales out of your current customers, but that’s offset by the hole in your customer bucket. Real growth comes from new business development and you’ve entrusted a good share of that to a marketing team that can’t define a basic marketing term. Not good.”
Offsetting the hole in your customer bucket with a new six-step Strategically Aimed Marketing process  Â
In his new book, “The CEO’s Guide to Marketing”, Kocina outlines a six-step process designed to dramatically increase your marketing results. “I call it Strategically Aimed Marketing, or SAM 6 for short. This process will assure creative people stay focused, on track and doing their best work.”
The six steps are fully illustrated in the book. Kocina explains why each is needed, and gives examples, all in easy-to-read detail. The SAM 6 steps are:
1. Gain competence in marketing terms. “Wouldn’t it be great if we all spoke the same marketing language? Dentists know bicuspids from incisors. Lawyers know affidavits from briefs. Architects know cornices from parapets. A competent marketer has a clear understanding of the broad concept of marketing as well as a working knowledge of specific marketing terms.”
2. Developing code sheets. “Code sheets are compiled into a Brand Playbook which helps direct and control your creative staff. They are a means of gathering and documenting important information about your company and the products it promotes.”
3. Select channels. “The promotional mix channels you choose to employ depend on many variables including your message, the market and your resources. On any given day, we are helping clients tell their stories through publicity, websites, social media and advertising, as well as providing support content for their personal sales team.”
4. Schedule calendar. “Your marketing calendar is a trusted guide to ensure you cycle through each product and its primary value points. Its purpose is to assure that you are delivering a constant and maximum flow of on-point promotional messages. You need to figure out which products and messages should get the most attention. Scheduling will keep your promotions organized and help with budgeting.”
5. Develop a control template. “Your control template provides the guidelines for your writers, designers and other creative staff to follow. It allows these imaginative professionals to create attention-getting content without losing site of the marketing necessities”
6. Assemble your creative team. “You need to assemble the right people for the job, and then let these creative souls work their magic within the parameters you set. The composition of your creative team will depend on your calendar.”
Kocina acknowledges that a lot of work goes into implementing each of these steps, but CEOs who understand the basics by reading this book will have more assurance that their marketing is being done with utmost professionalism.
Learn from someone with 30 years of practical working knowledge
Kocina also says those who follow these steps will feel more empowered by their marketing. “SAM 6 brings a clarity and process to this tension-filled field. I’ve been CEO of Media Relations Agency for three decades. I’ve worked with hundreds of clients across the country. I get to see what’s behind the scenes. I can tell you, the companies that follow a logical process are the ones getting the most bang for their marketing dollars.”
He outlines those who might benefit most from SAM 6 include:
- Marketing managers will discover how to get their whole team to work together efficiently. They’ll learn how to produce the most effective content, with the fewest rewrites and redesigns. They’ll also discover where to share it to get the best return on their investment. “With SAM 6, marketing will be fun again.”
- CEOs will appreciate this academic-based process. When you understand SAM 6 you can quickly determine what types of marketing your company needs and what it doesn’t. You can also use SAM 6 to assess the competence of your marketing team.
- Industry professionals such as graphic designers, writers, and web designers will discover marketing secrets that will put them miles ahead of their peers. “SAM 6 will help them use their talents to create content that gets results. It can add rocket fuel to their marketing career.”
Kocina predicts that following these six steps will bring order and clarity to your marketing. “It will lead to more leads, higher sales and a stronger brand.” To order your copy of “The CEO’s Guide to Marketing”, available for $29.95, go to Amazon.com.
About Media Relations Agency
Media Relations Agency is a full-service, hybrid agency that specializes in helping businesses tell their stories. Founded in 1987, the agency is recognized for its performance-based Pay Per Interview Publicity® pricing model. Media Relations specializes in integrating marketing across all promotional mix channels including publicity, websites, social media, advertising and personal selling.
Biography: Lonny Kocina, Chief Executive Officer, Media Relations Agency
Lonny is a visionary who is passionate about marketing. He believes that to be a truly great agency, our professional advice and deliverables must be based on a solid marketing foundation. He has made it his mission to ensure that everyone on our team knows and understands the basic marketing concepts and the SAM 6 process.
Lonny pioneered the concept of our nationally trademarked Pay Per Interview Publicity® business model which enables clients to purchase publicity by the story. “It’s a familiar concept. If you pay for a pizza, you get a pizza; if pay for a car, you get a car; and with us, if you pay for media coverage, you get media coverage,” he explains. “Clients come to us because they are tired of paying hourly retainers and getting little tangible return.”
When the Internet was in its infancy, Lonny also had the business foresight to quickly reserve portal web addresses such as publicity, media relations and checkerboard, and advised clients to do the same.
Nearly 30 years since launching this agency, Lonny’s greatest joy still comes from thinking about, talking about and writing about product promotion. He thrives on expanding our ability to help clients tell their stories to the masses.
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