All You Need is a Good Idea!: How to Create Marketing Messages that Actually Get Results

Chapter 4. WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

What do you want with a good idea anyway? You may have been doing fine up to now, so why bother?

Perhaps it is because there is someone out there who is getting the business you know you should be getting. Perhaps he provides better service or gives higher discounts. Or his customers just think he's better. The reason they think that might be because he is letting customers and prospects know about him by using, pardon the expression, good ideas to make his company stand out.

Well, that's one reason you might want to get some good ideas: to give yourself an advantage over the competition. But there are other reasons too. You have to identify them and select the most important reason to answer the question of what you intend to do with your idea, because knowing what you intend to do with your idea will help you determine what your idea should be. What do you hope to accomplish? What do you want the idea to do? If you don't know where you want to go, how will you know if you get there?

Do you want to:

1. Build a specific piece of your business?

2. Expand your market?

3. Increase your market share?

4. Enthuse your salespeople?

5. Sell more Phufkels?

6. Sell an improved Phufkel?

7. Let more people know you exist?

8. Change a customer's perception of your company?

9. Make your business appear bigger?

10. Get your foot (or other body part) in the door?

There are as many reasons as there are businesses. But in no case is the answer: all of the above. The more single-minded and focused the strategy ...