Target: The TRACK method starts by identifying your target(s). More than a few campaigns have come up empty because no one clearly focused on and articulated the target goals and the target audience for the marketing effort.
Ultimately, you have a much better chance of success if you understand in advance what success looks like for your organization and for the specific marketing efforts you are about to execute. Target goals will state clearly what you expect the campaign to do for your organization, whether it be increasing sales, growing your business, increasing Web site visits, or a handful of other goals.
Beyond your target goals, the Target stage also includes identifying and defining your prospective targets in the marketplace. Target market segments can be defined by many different variables, e.g., demographic, psychographic, geographic, etc. You may also have more than one target, especially if you have more than one product or service. Once you’ve clearly identified your target prospects you’re in a good position to track the specific people you will be approaching by building and populating a marketing database.
As your marketing campaign proceeds, you can add information to your marketing database to further define your prospects and track their responsiveness to your marketing messages. Continually "mining" your database will enable you to see more connections and better understand your customers and your relationship to them. Reach: Having clearly identified your target goals and target prospects, you’re ready for the Reach step. Your task in the Reach step is to cut through the thousands of messages your target prospects are receiving and get your message or offer to stand out.
You must reach your market on both an emotional and a physical level. You reach your market emotionally by identifying what is important to them and what will motivate them to take some kind of action.
You reach your market physically by getting your message or offer in front of them. The marketing database you built in the Target phase will be put to work identifying what kinds of offers and messages are more likely to be relevant to your target prospects and physically placing your messages where your targets are most likely to notice them.
Action: You reach your target prospects for the purpose of getting them to take some kind of action. Your marketing plan may call for an Action step in which someone buys something.
You could also aim to have your target fill out a survey or click on a hyperlink embedded in an e-mail, especially if you’ve set a target goal of getting more information on your customers or prospects. Whatever kind of action you hope to prompt, your prospects will only take it when they believe you are offering something that is valuable to them. The success of your Action phase will depend on coming up with a compelling offer for your target prospects.
The best Action paths make it as easy as possible for the customer to take action. The action you want your prospects to take should be as clear and obvious as possible. Ideally you should always provide more than one action path so that your company can accommodate a wider range of response preferences, for example, e-mail versus telephone.
Close: After prospects take action, the natural next step is bringing that action to a close. Many times your Close stage will be a sale of some kind. But this step can also be defined as getting your target prospects to take a survey or referring a friend to your business.
It can even be not doing something as with an anti-smoking campaign. The close is clearly defined when you set your target goals.
In some cases the close step may be automatic, or nearly so. This is especially true if the purchasing process is easy. In an online transaction, customers may simply click on the purchase button or for a retail promotion they may bring in a coupon and make a purchase. Either way, the transaction occurs in a single step.
Not uncommonly, however, the Close step will require additional sales efforts on the part of your organization, especially in more complicated or significant purchases. Having skilled and trained sales professionals on hand will greatly increase the success of your Close strategy. Talented sales professionals carry your marketing campaign directly to your target prospects. They continue to "qualify" prospects to insure a good fit between their needs and your company’s offer. Additionally, skilled sales professionals build relationships with customers. Relationships built from personal one-on-one communication not only increase the immediate chance of a close, but they are an important part of the final stage of TRACK—the Keep stage.
Keep: The best marketing efforts are geared not just to getting customers, but to keeping them as well. A flourishing business nearly always includes a high percentage of repeat buyers. New business is hard and expensive to get. The highest return on your marketing dollars can be to turn your one-time customers into continuously returning customers.
Good customer service and good product (or service) development has a lot to do with keeping your customers. Marketing still has a role to play, however. Effective communications with your customer can continue to emphasize the benefits of your company and differentiate your company from competitors. This reinforces to the customer the reason they bought from you in the first place.
Additionally, a well-rounded Keep strategy enables you to gain referrals and make additional sales to your customers. Usually, customers have more than one need. If you’ve already established a good track record with a customer, you have a head start solving other problems for them. In short, Keep is not just about "hanging on" to customers. It’s an active process of developing the relationship and looking to the future.