Back to basics marketing
I recently prepared these 3 top tips marketing tips for a presentation to small business owners. They’re simple but all too often overlooked when you’re busy running your company.
TIP 1 - Review your current marketing from the point of view of your customers
Harley Davidson doesn’t sell motorbikes. It sells the concept of freedom to middle-aged men. Wonderbra doesn’t sell bras. It sells confidence to women.
What is it that your business really sells? What is the value that your customers get from your products or services? Start thinking about these questions.
Your marketing should focus on explaining these benefits to the customer and finding new ways to provide that value.
There are a lot of other companies out there doing what you’re doing. Customers are only interested in what you can do for them – so tell them!
TIP 2 - Plan your marketing activities
This may sound logical but there are a lot of businesses don’t have a marketing plan.
A marketing plan is a plan for winning and keeping profitable customers. Creating a marketing plan and a marketing budget will help you be more effective and focused.
Set out your key goals – the blue-sky stuff. Then decide what strategies you are going to use to achieve them and what resources you need to make this happen.
Keep it simple, break it down in to manageable chunks – 3 months, 6 months and 12 months – and refer to it regularly to keep up the momentum.
TIP 3 - Measure it
How often do you get to the end of the year and think how disappointed you are with your marketing. You don’t know where the money has gone.
How many incoming calls are enquiries? How many do you convert to appointments? Orders? How many leads did you get from that advert or do you just renew it each quarter without thinking?
Keep a record of the results your marketing achieves each month will give you a better idea of what your marketing return on investment is. Again it doesn’t have to be complicated – some simple tallies of where your leads are coming from and which ones you convert is a start. And there’s lots of free tools, like Google Analytics, that can give you instant snapshots of what activity your website is creating.
Do this on a monthly basis and you’ll soon start getting some really valuable insights that you can feed back into improving your marketing plan.
