Your audience drowns in 20,000 message and brand exposures each day. Not surprisingly, of those only an average of 86 ads per day hit consumers’ awareness. A mere 7% of ads consumers are aware of actually make an impression.

No wonder businesses find marketing frustrating, especially when they consider their return on their investment (ROI). By changing your approach when it comes to marketing impressions, your audience can’t help but notice you in a way that matters.

When deciding on how to spend your marketing dollars look beyond just how many impressions you get from an ad buy. Impressions means how many people are exposed to your ad. Getting impressions of course means nothing to your business if you are not making an impression. An impression is forming an opinion or feel about something.

To make an impact you focus your marketing efforts not only on getting impressions but on making a good impression. This is how you get into the minds and hearts of your audience.

Look at your marketing through this psychology study, 5 Ways to Make a Great First Impression:

1. Be Enthusiastic. If you don’t have passion for what you do, how can your market? Your love for your business needs to come through clearly to engage others.
2. Be Respectful. Have respect for your audience. Don’t spam. Don’t bombard people. Don’t harass for business. Their time is valuable so use it wisely by giving them something of value.
3. Be Open. As a business that is open minded, you are more likely to attract customers who are open to trying you out. Also think of this as being open to trying new ways to market to your audience. Listen to them intently to discover these.
4. Be Positive. “You get more bees with honey.” You want your customers to associate positive thoughts with your brand. Why not make it easier for them to make the connection creating positive messaging?
5. Be Altruistic. Make sure your marketing is all about the customer not all about you. Narcissism in marketing gets you no where. Today people quickly pick up on unauthentic marketing approaches. And they will choose to do business with someone how cares about them.

Looking as these ways to leave your customers with a positive impression of your business, begins to open up how you view both your strategic marketing plan and how you execute that plan.

How to Make a Real Marketing Impression Count

Before you worry about how many marketing impressions you want, think about the impression you want to make. Begin by getting to know your audience well. The devil is in the details. Use this article on market segmentation can help you get there.

Once you know who you are talking to it is time to understand what pain they have that your business solves. Love this customer pain statement from Inc. Magazine, “First, they readily spend money to combat pain. Second, they spend money to pursue pleasure.” This is the anchor to your message.

Next, think about how you can tie together what you now know to make a marketing plan with teeth. Can your marketing be incorporated into their lives in a real meaning non-evasive way?

Example. The way Facebook is doing it today is having real impact. Based on a users activities. Check out this great article by Social Media Examiner on 6 Ways to Target your Facebook Ads. What is wonderful about this way of marketing is ads that are targeted to users interests naturally show up in their feed. They don’t disrupt the users experience they not only become part of it but add value.

All marketing you do needs to have a point to it. This information on how to make a marketing impression should give you direction in your efforts to help you achieve your objectives.