According to scientists, humans have been fishing for over 40,000 years – and they do not appear to be letting up anytime soon. When speaking of the lure (pun intended) of fishing, whether it takes the form of commercial, sporting, or recreational – fishing enthusiasts the world over describe the thrill of the “hunt,” and the euphoria of the “catch.”Interestingly, I have heard nearly the same terminology used in the business world to describe the ever constant cycle of finding and acquiring new customers. If truth be told, I calculate that there is more “fishing” occurring in global business than in all other forms of fishing combined. Moreover, if we can compare business to the sport of fishing, then commercial marketing is the discipline of fishing, and marketing collateral becomes the gear.While not intended to be an exhaustive treatise on the subject, this article will focus on six of the fundamental questions a company should ask before creating new pieces of collateral or creating a new marketing campaign. It will also look at some of the common marketing mistakes companies make as they attempt to land the “big” one.Choosing the Right Gear1. Who is Your Audience?The most important thing to know when buying your fishing gear is what type of fish you want to catch. Are you going after salt water, lake, or river fish? The equipment you will need is dependent upon the answer to that question.One of the largest mistakes I see companies make in their marketing collateral is that they often seem confused as to who their audience is. Your message should be clear and compelling. That is hard to do when you don’t know to whom you are marketing. Are they an end user, a business, a reseller, or perhaps a specifier? The type of collateral and the message it contains should always be a clear reflection of that answer.Some may state that it doesn’t really matter all that much – the product or service remains the same, right? Well, some may also say that a fishing pole is a fishing pole and it doesn’t really matter which type you use. Any professional fisher will tell you that this just isn’t the case. The actual story (your product or service) may remain the same, but how you tell that story and what form that story takes should depend completely on whom you are telling.I spent years working with and making presentations to both architects and engineers. While my central message remained the same, I had to tailor that message to my listener because both groups were interested in different things. The architects were interested in the aesthetics and more of the big picture features. The engineers were much more interested in the details and the mechanics of the product.While some types of collateral may cross over multiple groups, such as a brochure or video, you should try and create multiple versions of the same collateral piece to target the particular type of recipient to whom you are reaching out. If this is too expensive, then you should always tailor the message to your largest, most valuable audience.Learning How to Use Your Gear2. What is your Call-to-Action?There are a lot of different pieces of equipment used in fishing. Before going out to the stream or lake, you should have a clear understanding that every component has a different purpose and not mistake the use of one device for that of another. Individuals often make this type of error. For example, job hunters often mistake the purpose of a resume as a tool to get a job. This is a complete fallacy. The purpose of a resume is to get an interview.Companies often make the same sort of blunders with their collateral. Just as a lure has a different use and objective than a hook, you should develop different kinds of collateral for all the various stages of the sale. Every brochure, ad, or campaign should have a clear and distinct purpose. Is the piece designed to get someone’s attention, build company credibility, provide product or service information, or perhaps a sales call Leave Behind? Sales personnel should also be trained on the various distinctions between the material and know when and where to use what.After you know what the objective of your marketing piece is, it becomes much easier to decide what your Call-to-Action should be. Once you have an individual’s attention, what do you want them to do after they have read, heard, or viewed your material? Do you ask for an appointment? Do you ask for an order? Don’t make them guess – tell them. Don’t get them all excited and then walk away. Every campaign or article should leave them with clear instructions on what they should do next. Perhaps you can’t compel a horse to drink once you’ve led it to water, but you would be remiss if you didn’t at least ask it to drink.Casting Your Line3. How Are You Delivering Your Message?Some novice fishers may wonder how far out they should cast their line; will the larger fish be further out or hidden in a hole closer to shore? In business, it is important to know how and where to deliver your message. The answer to this question largely depends on what your product or service is, and how large your business is.If your product or service is widely used, you may choose to cast your line way out there using global or national press releases, email blasts, and expansive social media campaigns. If your product or service is more of a niche market or industry vertical, you may have more success using a combination of internet, radio, television, email, or direct mailer campaigns that target a particular fishing hole such as specific geographical locations, companies, or individuals. For a standalone retailer, the hole may be as small as a particular town or even distinct neighborhoods. Market research goes a long way to identifying the holes that you should be fishing in.The size of your business is also important when considering how far you should cast your line. It is important to ensure that you can support your product or service in every location you market. You also need to be confident that your company can handle the amount of business you may generate. While it may seem like the whole point of the game is to bring in as much business as possible, you may not have the inside structural support and manufacturing to handle all of the sales. More than one company has collapsed in on itself because they did not have the infrastructure to handle their incoming sales volume. Your business, marketing, and sales should all grow together at a planned, even rate.Using the Right Lure4. What Sort of Impression Do You Want to Make?Different types of lures attract different types of fish. Using the wrong type of lure can make for a very long, fruitless fishing trip. Whether you like it or not, your marketing collateral can wordlessly make an impression that will either attract buyers or send them scurrying into the water’s depths.What sort of impression do you want to make on potential customers? First impressions are important and you need to know beforehand whether you want your product or service to be seen as dependable, fun, exciting, expensive, inexpensive, or whatever. Keep in mind that the images, colors, layout, music, and quality of materials you use will all tell a story – you just need to ensure that it is telling the right story.Besides the typical, “Hey, look at me over here” type of lures, another powerful lure your sales people should carry is the “credibility” lure. This sort of collateral can come in the form of case studies, images of past jobs, testimonials, etc. The use of these devices helps ensure the buyer that you can be trusted to deliver on what you are promising.One last thing to keep in mind, when it comes to marketing, the truth is not always as important to a buyer as their perceived truth. In other words, if it is true in their mind, there isn’t much you can do to change that. The more your marketing materials reflect the truth as they see it, the more success you’ll have. Now, I am not advocating false advertising or unethical practices. I am merely stating that you should use situations and terminology where with they are most familiar. For example, a widget may be called an “ABC Device” in the engineering world, but if your targeted clientele all think of this particular widget as an “XYZ Component,” then you should probably market it as an “XYZ Component” – regardless of what the engineers say. Yes, it may be semantics, but this can make a big difference as to whether someone will be attracted to your product or not.Using the Right Bait5. What Problem Do You Solve?Depending upon the type of fishing you’re doing, you may use cheese, worms, elaborate flies, or even smaller fish as bait. In marketing, it is important to make sure your intended clientele know which of their problems your product or service is going to solve.Too often in marketing, companies are scrupulous about listing all of their product’s incredible features, but then they rely on the potential customer to build the bridge in their own mind as to which of their problems that feature is going to solve. Your marketing materials should build that bridge for them. In other words, Product, Feature, Benefit; “Our product is ‘A,’ therefore you should enjoy ‘B.’”Along these same lines, it may not be enough to share with someone how your product has solved a similar problem in a different market – they want to know how your product is going to solve their problem in their market. This situation is where vertical specific marketing material is hugely beneficial.Hooking Your Fish6. Does It Evoke the Desired Emotion?We have all heard the saying that “People buy emotionally and defend their decisions logically”. Well, it’s true, and if your marketing doesn’t stir any emotion, most of those large fish are going to get away.If we are honest, we must admit that a portion of that excitement is generated by a sales person, but not every company is fishing with live bait; some rely almost entirely on their marketing materials. Even if you do employ sales people, why should they have to do all the work? They should have professional tools at their disposal to assist them in their efforts.One of the pitfalls I see many companies fall into (especially those with technical products) is their marketing materials only show the product. There is a place for this in some pieces such as specification sheets, but people have to understand that most individuals are not moved to emotion by an image of an inanimate object. Your marketing materials should include people either a) Needing your product or service, or b) Enjoying the benefits of your product or service.What if a potential buyer is unable to make a decision at the time of the sales presentation, or perhaps they are not the only decision maker? Your sales professional’s presentation may have generated all the needed emotion for the potential buyer to want to say “yes,” but if they are unable to move forward immediately, you cannot expect that emotion to remain indefinitely. They will settle back down and start thinking about all the reasons why they shouldn’t buy. Alternatively, they will talk to the other decision maker, and because they are not as skilled a presenter or as knowledgeable about the product as your sales person, they will not be able to generate the same level of emotion in their counterpart as they initially experienced themselves and they will decide to pass. This reaction is the reason it is so important to have a good Leave Behind, a video or brochure that can remind the potential buyer of all of the important highlights of the sales presentation. This material will allow them to get excited all over again while remembering all of the relevant facts when sharing the information with others.To conclude this section, just remember – If they feel nothing, they buy nothing.Packing Up and Heading Home With Your CatchConclusion and SummaryOnce again, this article was not meant to be an in-depth discussion on all the salient points of commercial marketing and marketing collateral. Instead, it was designed to focus on some of the fundamental questions a company should ask before creating a new piece of collateral or creating a new marketing campaign. Those questions are:1. Who is Your Audience?2. What is your Call-to-Action?3. How Are You Delivering Your Message?4. What Sort of Impression Do You Want to Make?5. What Problem Do You Solve?6. Does It Evoke the Desired Emotion?Like fishing, commercial marketing can be very challenging. It can also be an exhilarating and rewarding sport. I wish all those who read this article – Sunny Days, and Good Fishing!

Marketing automation is one of the great processes that help businesses not only to automate their repetitive marketing tasks, but they can also help to track and measure the performance of campaigns. Using this tool, you can also boost productivity as well as improve efficiency by decreasing manual actions. If we talk about marketing automation, it primarily refers to a category of software which helps to automate, measure and streamline the marketing tasks and workflows in an efficient manner. Whether you are owning a big MNC or have just started a new venture, marketing automation is a must for you. Here’s why you should use this software: -Generate Top Quality LeadsIn any business growth, one of the most important steps is lead generation. By using robust marketing automation solutions, you can generate top quality leads. This will give you more detailed and richer picture of prospective customer behavior. What’s more, you can drive wider marketing campaigns such as customized emails, trigger-based marketing messages, Twitter/Facebook messages, etc.Make Informed Decisions with Better DataFew businesses know how to collect/utilize big data. Marketing automation will give you an ultimate platform for analytics and dashboard systems, collecting/storing data, and closed-loop reporting. Such platforms are also the robust solutions that not only help to measure campaigns but also aid to determine consumer behavior with a limited budget.Boost Your Company RevenueInvesting in marketing automation platform can help you to justify the upfront investment if you utilize it in a proper way. This will aid you to increase sales opportunities from top quality leads. You will get good returns on your investments with the automation process.Streamline Your Sales and Marketing ProcessesWith the best solutions, you can streamline your sales and marketing process. In Sales and marketing, communication is the key to make the entire process smoother. Through automation, lead qualifying and nurturing have become easy.Generate Detailed ReportsThis software also helps to monitor and track all the channels in an easy way. Once you get data, you can create insightful reports to save them. The report will help you analyze the graphs and statistics of different campaigns and determine which campaign is performing well.Time SaverIf you are facing problems to automate your regular marketing tasks, then using marketing automation software is the best decision for you. It will aid you not only to automate your marketing tasks but also to save time. Hence, you can do more focus on other marketing strategies. What’s more, you can also make campaigns for sending scheduled-customized emails to the customers, automate messages for different social media channels, and set-up auto-responders for daily follow-ups.Give Excellent Customer ExperienceThe main feature of marketing automation is that you can give a great experience to your customers using this software. When it comes to this technology, it helps to send behaviorally triggered emails without any hassle. Whether you want to browse through certain products, sign up emails or abandon items in the basket, this solution can help.In other words, we can say that marketing automation is a powerful tool that helps entrepreneurs to grow their business. But all you require is to find out the right platform just for you.Top 6 Marketing Automation Software that Every Business Owner Should UseHere, we bring to you an extensive list of top marketing automation tools available that you can choose which fits the best just for you.Hotspot – The Best Ever Marketing Automation SoftwareIn the marketing world, one of the well-known names is Hotspot. Using this inbound marketing software, you can easily automate a large number of tasks at a scale. This will also aid to customize highly targeted and sophisticated workflows with a visual editor. It is also useful to manage complex campaigns or follow-up messages in a simple way using multiple touch-points in the entire customer journey. If you want to automate your mails using drip campaigns, then this is the best software for you. If we talk about the monthly fee, you will find it nominal.Active Campaign – The Ultimate Software for Small BusinessesNumerous businesses prefer to use Active Campaign for marketing automation. Being the best visual automation builder, it comes with drag and drop functionality on the market in today’s date. The best part is that anyone can use it easily. No matter, whatever your skill level is – you can easily set up both simple as well as complex marketing automation. This software has everything ranging from event tracking to site tracking and automation goals to split actions. Coming to its subscription, it comes with eCommerce integrations, lead scoring, and email marketing.GetResponse – Come Equipped with Best FeaturesIf you are looking for the most affordable and powerful marketing automation solutions, then using GetResponse will be the best answer. This software is ideal for large organizations and small businesses. This is the best platform to automate marketing processes. Using this tool, you can enjoy a host of benefits such as get engagement from website traffic, recovering abandoned carts, and boost sales. What’s more, you can easily set up an automated customer journey by applying filters, actions and conditions.OptinMonster – Perfect For Generating Landing Page LeadsIf we talk about OptinMonster software, it is quite different as compared to other platforms. This is an ultimate custom acquisition and lead generation tool that will let you boost sales, minimize cart abandonment and grow your email list. Using this platform, you can easily design website campaigns, pop-ups and high-converting landing pages. Once you sign up, you will get risk-free 14 days. However, if you are not fully satisfied, then you can get a 100% refund without any question asked.Salesforce Pardot – Ideal for B2B MarketingIn today’s date, one of the well known and most reputable CRM solutions is Salesforce. No surprisingly, this software gets the top ranking on the list. It is specially designed for B2B organizations. Some key features include sales integration, email marketing, smart lead generation and smooth lead management. It uses AI power to devise the best sales strategy and improve marketing efforts. With its insightful report, you can easily determine which campaigns are working and what need to be improved. Also, it offers an affordable pricing plan to choose from.ConvertKit – Enhanced Software for NewbiesFor those who are using marketing automation software for the first time, investing in ConvertKit will be the best option. However, it is considered as the best email marketing software; but it has more advanced features. Whether you are selling SaaS, running an e-commerce business or a content site, you can get success using this tool. It offers a free forever plan to up to 500 subscribers. But there are no visual automation funnels.To sum up, finding the right marketing automation tool for businesses is a very daunting task. Mostly, there is no single platform that is perfect for everyone’s solution. So, you have to select the tool according to your specific needs. So, what are you thinking? Just select the right platform today and improve your marketing processes dramatically.