Unless you’re a vegetarian, everything about bacon drives a person absolutely insane. The color and crispy/chewy texture, the sizzle, the smell, and of course, the flavor. Everything about bacon is perfectly aligned to make you salivate, while your mind fires on all pistons just imagining when you can have your next blissful encounter with that very special and unique palate-teaser. Someone once described the flavor of bacon as“angels frolicking on the tip of your tongue.”

Sounds pretty accurate to me!

Instead of being just another generic business in your industry, your brand could become as desirable and remarkable as bacon. You should do nothing less than to strive to become the bacon of your trade, sending off an irresistibly attractive sizzle that enchants potential clients and customers until they just have to try you, and after they do, they remember your brand as a delightful experience, and not just another replaceable product or service.

Now, insert whatever industry you’re in, right on the blank below, and ask:

“So… how can I promote myself as the BACON of _______?”

I’m glad you asked! After spending almost two decades breaking down some of the most successful digital campaigns in the world, across various continents, languages, and stages of technological development, I’ve come upon five essential characteristics that the most successful digital marketing efforts have in common. Whereas many ineffective online efforts may have embodied one or two of these qualities, and some decent ones get to three or four, the ones that really sizzle apply all five qualities.

The best digital efforts settle for nothing less than BACON.

You see, BACON is not just the perfect metaphor for an irresistibly attractive digital presence, but the letters B-A-C-O-N form the acronym for the five essential qualities of outstanding digital efforts.

This is what I call the Digital BACON Formula.

The best digital campaigns are:

• Based on Reality
• Aimed towards Results
• Creatively Developed
• Organized in Propagation
• Numerically Measured

Let’s explain a bit about each one of these qualities:

• Based on reality. Successful digital campaigns throw out the wishes and whims. Great digital marketing is built on researched facts about the market and other current situations.

In order for your offer to be irresistibly attractive, it is absolutely essential that you have knowledge on what your audience is currently attracted to, and what other options are currently satisfying their need in some measure or another.

• Aimed towards results. Effective online efforts are based on measurable goals. Every initiative is informed by a plan customized to its business’s needs.

This quality is all about strategy, which makes bland communication good, and makes good communication amazing. It amplifies the value of your message until it makes itirresistibly attractive.

• Creatively developed. Cookie-cutter doesn’t cut it anymore. In order to stand out from the crowd, successful digital campaigns manage to be unique and exquisitely produced.

We live in an era in which the most outstanding examples of creativity are accessible from a device the size of our hand, without stepping out of bed nor even brushing our teeth. Your brand will  be compared against the highest standards of quality, whether you want to believe it or not.

• Organized in propagation. The reason they are found by their market is because they distribute their offer correctly.

We often think about distribution only in terms of delivering products to our customers. While this is of great importance, delivering the message about our offer is as crucial, if not more important.

After all, no sales occur when a customer never finds out about your offer.

• Numerically measured. They never measure results in the form of vague adjectives, but rather as numbers. They rely on objective measurements to know whether their efforts are moving their business forward or not.

Successful brands don’t play around when it comes to metrics and analysis on their digital campaigns. Numbers remove the analysis from the realm of subjective interpretation, and into concrete objectivity.

What would happen to your business’s marketing efforts if, instead of spending your budget on random initiatives, you strived to achieve all five qualities in the Digital BACON Formula?

This has been a quick excerpt from my book: Digital BACON: Make Your Online Presence Irresistibly Attractive.