This is a second post in several that I’d promised to devote to rethinking a traditional way of doing marketing (See previous post). WARNING: the post below is loaded with “strategery” and requires some time and thinking on your part. If you are looking for some quick fix or 10 Dos and Don’ts, skip this.
With that disclaimer out of the way let’s continue. Remember I asked you to make a list of all the touch points you company has with its prospective and current clients?
I provided a cheat-sheet which had things like TV, website, press, social networking sites. This is what we need it for – we are going to draw a diagram of your company’s (or brand’s) interaction with the outside world (customers, prospective customers, customers of your competitors, etc.). Think of it as a map of your marketing universe that will help you navigate through the minds of your current and future customers.
Large whiteboard and several dry-erase markers with different colors are best because you are going to erase and move things around. Draw your company in the center, draw your audience/s segments around the perimeter, and then fill in the space around your company with all the touch points/communication channels that you’ve listed.
In the end you might draw a diagram like this one
(note my outstanding graphic abilities):
Marketing Universe Map - touch points between your company and your audience
Notice a few things in the example above. I have connected your company with the audience members though each channel. Double-headed arrows indicate that the information or interaction goes both ways (for instance website can be used to both communicate and listen to your audience). Other channels only allow you to broadcast but not listen, thus the arrows go only in one direction.
Use knowledge of your current situation to map everything out. For instance, if your company has a blog you might have to draw two types of blogs, one – your “Corporate blog” that is connected from your company to the audience and another – call it “Other blogs” and only connect it from the bloggers to the audience.
Note that I had used different color above to indicate level of control you exercise on these various touch points or communications channels. The ones that you have relative control over are shown in blue; the ones that you have only indirect control or no control at all are red.
Once you get the diagram as detailed as possible, step aside and take a moment to ponder. What does it mean for your business? A picture is worth a thousand words.
I guarantee you will start understanding your customers and prospects a little better. This is the universe they live in. These are the different channels they get thousands of messages through every minute of every day.
Finally if you feels like trying to get into their shoes even more, draw other touch points / communication channels, that you think your audience spends time with or pays attention to, even though you might not be actively using them. For instance if they watch TV and you don’t have any TV campaigns, still draw TV on the diagram. If they read e-mail (personal, promotional and newsletters) and you do neither of that still write it down.
Review your beautiful work again. We will pause here as I think this is plenty for one post and I want to give you time to complete this exercise at least as a sketch, before moving to the next step.
BTW: A quick plug, if you want to invite me to facilitate this marketing universe mapping session for your company, I’d be happy to do that and much more..