How do you stay top of mind?

The most important result of your marketing efforts is to make sure your prospective buyer knows about you or your company when they decide to buy. How do you accomplish this task? How do you stay top of mind at the time of purchase?

The first task is to make sure your target audience knows what you do, so you need to spend time starting conversations. The goal of this first task is to invite further communication, since you can't have a productive dialog with yourself. Collect email addresses for your e-newsletter, ask for people to follow you on twitter or become a fan on facebook or to read your blog. Communicate that you have several ways that people can benefit by starting a conversation with you.

The second task is to communicate on a regular basis that your product or service can help solve their problems or address their needs. Look through the eyes of the buyer and consider why should they purchase your product. What benefit do they receive by using your company? Why should they do business with you? Spend time continuing the conversation with recommendations from other clients and posting case studies and success stories.

Staying top of mind is one of the hardest things to accomplish since it's not a onetime event. It takes more than one advertisement, more than one email, more than one conversation. It's a dialog that continues so you are top of mind when the buyer is ready to buy. Does your marketing plan include starting dialogs with prospective buyers? If not, maybe it should.