Take the Time to Do It Right.

We’ve all seen the equivalent of fast food marketing. It is the grab-a-marketing-tip-and-go approach. Is this what you have been feeding your customers? You’ve just talked to them; are they satisfied?

Let’s take a few notes from the French attitude to eating and apply it to your marketing. To the French, every meal is a delightful, memorable repast to be lingered over and enjoyed. Every detail is considered. The content is the freshest and best. Presentation makes the mundane an occasion to remember.

Over the remaining days I’ll be giving you the essentials to help you create your own haute cuisine feast of marketing to serve your customers next year. You’ve already assembled the guest list and you know what they want.

Today’s gift is extremely precious; it is the gift of time to strategize and plan. Sit back and visualize your feast. Imagine your customers happy and returning for more. It is going to take resources to achieve this incredible experience. You need the equivalent of a location, entertainment, food, drink and even enough toilets. Take the time to figure out how much you can afford, then add an additional 25 percent. Remember: your time and effort are resources to be allocated too.

A realistic budget and plan will determine the extravagance of your feast for the number of guests you are expecting. The aim is to serve your customers a satisfying experience that is memorable and encourages engagement. With the research you have already completed you know who they are and what they want. Especially for small businesses, it is better to serve something that is appropriate, genuine and precisely targeted to your customer than offer a huge varied menu of quickly thrown together concepts to people who may not return your invitation.

You’re not planning to serve microwaved leftovers, so take the time to do this right. You will be glad you did.