“Noise” isn’t just sound, it is anything that interferes with your communication. If you imagine trying to shout your marketing message in a crowded room where everyone is talking loudly, you’ll get the idea.

That happens with all communication media, whether its magazine ads, online search, bus ads, TV commercials, sky writing, direct mail, or any other.

The very FIRST thing any marketing has to accomplish is getting noticed. If no one knows you are even communicating, you certainly have no opportunity to get your message across or sell anything.

You have to know who you are trying to reach, and where you can find them. Then it becomes a matter of budget and deciding what marketing channel you are going to use, where you can realistically get noticed.

Sometimes a marketer gets clever and invents an entirely new marketing channel – like the guy who thought up putting ads on the floor in grocery stores. Instant billionaire.

More often than not, you and I are stuck with the same old marketing channels, increasingly crowded in the noisiest marketing environment in the history of the world – the U.S.A. It’s been claimed the average person sees 3000 ads a day. I don’t know if that is true – I haven’t tried counting – but it is definitely a lot. People tune out. It’s why TV commercials are usually louder than the shows.

So we have to get clever in other ways. There are four steps to cutting through the noise:

1. Find a channel you can afford that isn’t too overcrowded with messages similar to yours. Maybe companies trying to sell to dentists don’t use direct mail. So if you use direct mail, it will be easier to get noticed.
2. You have to do something “eye catching” (ear-catching for radio). Use dramatic images that catch the eye. Your audience is instinctually attracted to bright colors, images of other people, and motion. That’s why companies at trade shows bring cheerleaders to their booths.
3. You have to do something different but not TOO different. If you’re a lawyer and your website home page looks like every other attorney website out there (attorney looking tough standing on the courthouse steps) – well, why would your site stand out in the crowd? How will anyone even remember it? If you are doing rack cards and everyone else’s are blue and yellow, make yours red. (If you are too different, you’ll just look weird).
4. Finally, you have to repeat your communication. Over and over. And over. And over. Have you ever noticed a new TV commercial and realized that was the 8th time you’d seen it? That is a normal experience.

Don’t forget, you still have to have a message that people will respond to. But, like a kid that stubbed his toe, whose mother is talking on the phone, you have to keep tapping on their shoulder until they notice that you’re trying to get their attention.

It’ll work. And you won’t wonder why your marketing isn’t working. You’ll wonder when you should take your dream vacation.