Good Marketing Does More than Raise Your Bottom Line
There are many more immeasurable benefits to a well marketed business.
- Your employees feel good about the company they work for and take more pride in their work.
- You can attract better employees with a business having a great and well respected reputation.
- Your current and future customers feel better about the company they support.
- Your business becomes more valuable if you wish to sell it in the future.
- Your sales people will have an easier time selling to warm and cool referrals.
Be Ready to Participate
The most successful organizations have active participants that contribute ongoing information to the marketing team. This goes right along with the Secret below “you cannot just write checks for online ads to be successful”. The prominent members within the organization have the key to critical ongoing information that can help the Marketing efforts. Make time to continue to flow this information to your team.
Create Realistic and Definitive Goals
Examples:
I need 5 more leads per month so I can hire an additional full time employee.
I want the 1st page of search results to be positive results for my business.
I want to create more awareness about the successes of our organization to help with the referrals we are already receiving.
Identify Your Audience
You have to be hyper-focused on who you help. Start with precision on that group before you start making general statements. Make a great positioning statement. Consider basic demographics, geography, and industries in your analysis.
Here’s a simple but helpful fill in the blank to help get you going:
We [verb] [type of people ] who [ list their main issue here ] [ briefly how do you do this ]
We help small businesses create new sales leads by getting them in front of buyers as a reputable and highly rated business.
Writing Checks is Not Enough.
Many marketers may have you believe you can start with creating ads, and spending money to quickly gain attention online. While this is possible, it does not create a predictable pattern of success.
The secret ingredient is Social Proof. Social Proof is a concept published in 1984 by Robert Caldini, retired Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University. The concept is simple: groups of people will typically follow others based on the collective group’s experience or opinion. Online reviews, or an athlete endorsing a product are simple examples of Social Proof.
Progress Over Perfection
There is not a 1 size-fits-all product or solution to help you reach your goals. Consider a slow ramp up in your marketing efforts. Think of putty in your hands as opposed to cement. You need to establish some baseline data, analyze the data, “read between the lines”, and THEN start to make small, incremental changes to see how your results change. Marketing is never perfect. There will always be someone telling you it should be different or what could be better. The next question becomes: what is an acceptable amount of time? A small non-competitive business in a small market should see results within a few months if the campaign is effective. More competitive Industries in more Urban areas will have a larger uphill battle. Don’t expect instant success, but be upfront with what your budget can allow before they see results.
Marketing is an Investment. Not a Sweepstakes Jackpot.
It’s unreasonable to invest $ into Marketing your business and expect quick results. We’ll go back to “if it were easy, everyone would do it”. Think of a financial advisor. 15% is considered modest growth. At 15% return on your investment, it is roughly 5 years to double your money! The right Marketing plan, for the right company, at the right time can yield better results, but it’s not guaranteed.
Raw Data Analyzers Doesn’t Tell You Everything
You can run a website, a social profile or even a newsletter through automated “optimizers”, where raw data is analyzed, but it doesn’t give you the whole story. Your business needs a Marketing expert in their corners, who understands the language and culture of your customer. Cape Cod, Plymouth, and the South Coast is a great example, of how our buying trends and decisions can be different than in other parts of the country or the World.
Efficiency and Experience Speed Up the Process
Have you ever undertaken a project at home? How about a large project at school or work? Was it ever done with significantly less time and money than you expected? Marketing is no different. Timelines at point of sale for a business are often times not realistic. Planning and estimating a project should be a significant part of the process before any work is agreed to or started.
Get Your Internal Team Ready for Action
You could be creating great social proof, get found in search results, have a great social presence, but your sales team just isn’t hitting home runs. This is a relay race, not a home run derby. Your team needs to be ready, trained, and follow a process to handle incoming leads and track them.