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For some, “marketing” is little more than a flyer extolling the virtues of one’s product or service.  There’s actually some truth to this.  But when the “strategy” behind a marketing piece starts, and ends, with little more than a look in the mirror, it’s more likely than not that your marketing piece isn’t going to be that effective.  Not with today’s prospect.

I’ve written before about the change of user/consumer/customer appetites and habits when it comes to ingesting our well-crafted marketing pieces.  Whether it comes to them in an e-mail, in an ad banner, or even falls out of the publication they’re reading, your message needs to work much harder than  ever  before to break through the clutter of so many products and services screaming for attention on a minute-to-minute basis.  That’s just branding communications in 2010.  If you’re simply blasting your features and benefits to the masses on a volume basis today, you are probably missing a LOT of eyeballs and ears, and even more brains.  The interruption approach is akin to using skywriting or posting Burma Shave-inspired signage along the road.

So here are a few tips to help your message into a new era—and very likely, newfound effectiveness.

 Make it mobile.            We increasingly take our information in by staring down a 3” x 5” smart phone.  Whether that’s Web content or e-mail (or text), the fact is that your prospect or customer is very likely to hear from you or about you via his or her iPhone, Droid or Blackberry.  Can they read it?  Where you can, be sure your Web site is optimized for mobile viewing.  Keep your content marketing clean and easy to read.  And above all, ask if it will make the reader want to keep squinting at the hand-held because the message is worth reading.

Make it valuable to the reader.            We’ve discussed this before.  But, like it or not, it’s not enough to state your specs over and over.  People are savvy enough to know they can go to your Web site for those, and don’t need, or even care to receive them in their in-boxes anymore.  If your message is going to join the hundreds and even thousands of other messages competing for a second of attention, it’s going to need to provide useable information or something valuable to the user beyond just the features of your product.  That’s just the cost of doing business anymore.

Make sure it gets where it needs to be.   If you build it, they won’t necessarily come.  Just writing a news release doesn’t make it news.  And just distributing a marketing piece doesn’t automatically mean your prospects will see it.  People and institutions are working harder than ever before to keep unsolicited e-mails and similar pitches OUT of their in-boxes.  From SPAM filters to ISP black-listing, there are numerous obstacles to your message ever seeing the light of day.  Build good lists, craft good media pitches that go beyond self-serving, and work carefully to ensure that all the work you do on building your message doesn’t fall into a SPAM filter or worse.

Make sure your prospect hears your message:  Even if your marketing piece or PR piece is useful, interesting, readable on a cell phone and survives the obstacle course of deliverability, does the reader say “so what?” after he/she reads it?  Or worse: does he/she fail to associate it with your brand?  If so, you’ve wasted your money and time.  Consistency, key message and clarity are critical.  So is the impact of the message.  Maybe the most important question to ask of any single PR, branding, advertising or marketing piece is this:  will this make my target audience change or continue its behavior in the manner I wish it to?  Will it make them go to a splash page?  Will it reinforce previous messages about my brand?  Will it make them buy?

To be sure, marketing isn’t as easy as it once might have been.  But with a little forethought, and a little attention to the change in customer appetites, you can drag your message (even if it is kicking and screaming) into the 21^st century.