Selfie from Hotel Mercure in Fontainebleau
I was in Fontainebleau, France last week helping with an executive education class. As usual, I read a lot on the plane and thought about topics to share with you.
I read and thoroughly enjoyed “APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur- How to Publish a Book” by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch. This led me to think about my challenges in finding a good book for my Advertising & Social Media Marketing class at Mills. I have used a classic Advertising textbook and supplemented with articles about social media, but it’s not been as good a fit as I would like.
I like to be able to explain things with frameworks because it makes it much easier to apply even if the specifics change over time. The 4Ps, for example, are easy to remember and apply even if they need some tweaking to fit the current context. I have also used POEM (paid, owned, earned media) to help provide a framework for students & clients to think about online & social media marketing. (Un)fortunately, the paid vs. owned isn’t as clear now that almost everything on Facebook (and other social media sites) needs to be boosted to get a decent audience.
In my airplane brainstorming, I came up with my own acronym for a framework! (yes, I’m comfortable with my inner-geek 
)
AMP:Audience, Message, Platform is a good place to start for both my Mills’ students and for my clients. And this can be applied at both more strategic levels as well as with specific tactics.
Who is your audience? Businesses? Consumers? Moms? Men ages 35-55?
What is your message? Why should I buy your stuff? Did you include a call-to-action?
Which platform are you using? Your website, Facebook, Google Ads, Flyers? How will you reach your audience with this message?
And do they all work together? For this one instance? Overall, strategically?
Give AMP a try and let me know if it’s helpful to you.