Highly effective marketing is accomplished when your marketing materials and marketing strategy work together to reliably move your prospects through your sales process.

Have you ever caught a whiff of a tantalizing aroma wafting through the air as you walked down the street? With your senses suddenly alerted to something tasty nearby you notice the bakery on the corner. As you draw closer you see the storekeeper handing out free samples of the cake you smell. You happily try the sample and before you know it your standing on line waiting to buy a whole cake.

How did this happen? How did you go from going about your business to buying a cake you had no intention of buying when you left your house? The fact that you ended up waiting on a line to buy a cake is no accident. The proprietor of the bakery from which you bought your cake knows something about highly effective marketing.

Just what does he know?

He knows that he first needs to get his prospects attention to draw them to his shop. He accomplishes this step with particularly strong exhaust fans he uses to permeate the local air with the tantalizing aromas of his pastries. Once he has his prospects' attention he demonstrates the value of his goods by giving away yummy free samples and offering a buy one get one free deal. It's no wonder unsuspecting people wind up on line waiting to buy from him.

You can enjoy the same success marketing your business even if your product or service doesn't have a wonderful odor you can use to generate interest in what you do. Instead, you can use your own version of the "smell, taste, buy" sales process to get the results you want.

Attract Your Prospects' Attention (Smell)
If you sell motorcycles or provide legal services chances are you're not going to attract too much attention to yourself with any particularly pleasing odor. Instead you can use an outstanding marketing message to get yourself noticed. A well written marketing message delivered to an appropriate target audience will help your business stand out in a crowd and draw your prospects to you.

A great marketing message will speak directly to your target market and identify the problems you solve and the results you provide. You can use your marketing message anywhere you advertise, including: search engines, newspapers, magazines, Ezines and newsletters.

When you use your marketing message make sure you include along with it a call to action. Once you have your prospects' attention you want to be sure you tell them what you want them to do: visit your web site, stop by your store or request your catalog, for instance.

Remember, you don't need a great smelling product or service to get noticed by those most likely to buy from you. You need a compelling marketing message.

Demonstrate Value
If your product or service doesn't have a wonderful smell it probably doesn't taste too good either so you'd be well advised not to have your prospects take a bite of your top selling motorcycle or the latest legal brief you've written.

Instead, you can demonstrate value to your prospects by offering a test ride or providing a helpful and informative guide about a specific topic of particular interest to your target market. By giving something away for free you demonstrate the quality of your product or the usefulness of your service. Be sure to get your prospects' contact information in exchange for anything you may give away as your goal is to consistently demonstrate your expertise to your prospects over time, with their permission, of course. In so doing, you will win their trust and position yourself in their minds in such a way that they will think of you when they decide it is time to solve an ongoing or newly created problem.

Make a Remarkable Offer
Once you've grabbed your prospects' attention and have demonstrated your value to them you want to make a remarkable offer. The decision to buy from you should be a no-brainer. Your offer should include benefits that far supercede the cost of your product or service. Your offer should be a knock-out punch.

In order to make a remarkable offer you must truly understand your prospects wants or needs.

What are some questions you can ask your prospects to better understand their needs?

Once you have these answers you can use them to custom mold your offer to any prospect.

Move Your Marketing Forward?
It doesn't matter if you are the most talented person in your field or you have the best product in the world if nobody knows you can help them. The sales process described above begins by attracting attention with an outstanding marketing message. If you are not effectively using an outstanding marketing message you can improve your ability to generate interest in what you do by developing one and broadly incorporating it into your marketing strategy.

Making the decision to improve or use a marketing message is one of the strongest moves you can make as a small business owner to improve your ability to market yourself. Bake your cake and buy some fans.

The author, Jeremy Cohen, helps small business owners be more successful with his coaching service and free marketing guide, Jumpstart Marketing: More Prospects, Clients and Success. Get the guide at: http://www.bettermarketingresults.com