The 5 R´s of Marketing

By Edward DiMingo

Success never gets easier. Companies still operate in the pressure-cooker environment of having to constantly hone the strategic edge that keeps you ahead of competitors in the endless battle to win and keep customers.

Building the reputation of your company or brand is one key way to strengthen that competitive advantage. It’s how jldcreative helps clients improve their market position, and it’s the singlemost important thing we do.

We devised five messaging principles that can help you shape every marketing communications project, campaign or program you undertake:

1. Relevance. The identity or message you create must be relevant to the target audience so the audience can readily see the link between what your company offers and what they need. This is tougher than it seems, requiring you to walk in your customers' shoes and understand—really understand—their business values, goals and priorities.
2. Receptivity. It takes time—but it's vital—to learn which communications media, vehicles and forums work best with your target audience (publication advertising, website, trade show, etc.). Knowing the media your market prefers enables you to reach buyers at a time when, or at a place where, they're most receptive to hearing what your company has to say.
3. Recognition. Create a clear, compelling identity and message which enable the audience to separate your company or brand from competitors in some meaningful way. The audience remembers and recognizes the name—and what it stands for.
4. Response. Make it easy for the audience to respond to your call-to-action and get in touch with your company. Don’t waste dollars on things that don’t work. Whatever the medium, vehicle or point of contact, know what works best to generate optimum response from a particular group.
5. Relationships. If buyers don’t know your company, they can’t buy what the company makes. And if buyers don’t trust your company, they won’t buy what it makes. Your company needs to communicate with constituent groups on an ongoing basis, sustaining and building relationships with key customers, editors, analysts, employees and other stakeholders to pave the way for its next transaction with the individuals who make up your stakeholder groups.

These five principles can ensure the strategic focus of your marketing communications, breathing life into every project and enabling you to squeeze every dollar's worth of value out of your company's promotional budget.