When you put time or money into any marketing plan, your only objective is to MAKE A SALE. Are you sure your marketing is going to get your customer from their couch to your cash register?

When somebody hears your message or sees your logo from some medium you have created, what does the path from that first touch to your cash register look like?

We call this path the yellow brick road. If your yellow brick road is well built, then your customer will follow a developed path from a recognition point to your cash register. If your road is not well built, there is confusion in your message and because of others more developed avenues, this customer will end up at your competitors cash register. Therefore, your road must stand out, and it must be designed in a way that will lead the customer through a predetermined path with a transaction being the primary goal.

An example of a marketing plan without any such road is one that puts advertising out into the community and does not have a clear actionable next step; or one that has the clear and actionable step, but the step is too big for the customer who is not ready to make an immediate purchase. A person who has been casually contemplating the purchase of your product will not react to a One Day Sale Next Friday advertisement. She may consider dropping by your store next Friday during your advertised sale, but chances are that will be forgotten after five minutes. This customer has no path to follow because the timing and the conditions were not yet right for her.

Your advertising in this case, has been somewhat wasted. A woman who will make a purchase in the next six months received it, but the only option that you gave her was to buy next Friday. You do not know who she is and you have no way of following up with her.

Your own aimless advertising cost yourself a warm lead.

The only way to keep in touch with this person is to continue to run costly advertising, and maybe, just maybe, when she is ready to purchase, she will receive another one of your mailers or hear your radio commercial and she will come right in and buy from you. I would not hold my breath if I were you.

Now well run the same example with a message that clearly has a road for this customer to follow. You run an advertisement in the Sunday paper. The advertisement is designed in a way that creates a clear path: a visit to your website. She will visit your website because you have an offer that both interests and engages her; something that caught her eye and sparked her interest. This could be anything from a product recommendation tool your website offers, to a free book about how to pick the perfect product. You will intrigue her enough that she will take the first step down this path. This is powerful because when she goes to the website or calls you on the phone, you will capture her information.

The minute that you capture her information, you have capitalized on your marketing investment. Information, when it is in the right hands, is as good as cash.

Therefore, instead of positioning your advertising, or any other marketing program, to go right for the sale, you should instead also create a more comfortable step for people to take that will give them something of value in exchange for their information.

When you have their information, this puts them on your road. Once they are on your road, you will have everything choreographed so that you touch these future customers as often as possible in a systematic way. With these frequent touches you will be keeping that top-of-mind awareness and you will be flying a holding pattern until they are ready to buy.

Each piece that you put out into the community will have a specific objective about where you want them to go. You will have to choose the destination (website, phone, or to stop in) based on your chances of success of actually getting them there. This being said, obviously, you want them to come into the store, but this is the hardest objective to achieve.

You must understand the proper objective of marketing. This objective will be one of three things. It will either lead the future customer to click, call, or stop in. It is important that you understand your own path as to deliver a clear message to the customer.

When your path is well structured, it will lead right from the customers couch to your cash register.