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answers helps you start thinking
about the how’s of getting them
to their destination.
Hopefully, you’re setting goals
regularly in your business. If
not, now is a good time to start.
While marketing is creative, it’s
also a test in analytics. Marketing
is a create-implement-review-
modify discipline. It’s a balance
of art and science. Goals help
you chart your course. You
can set your goals based on a
number of criteria. For instance:
total number of customers?
Or, dollar amount of average
order? Or, maybe, frequency
of orders? Or, number of new
customers? Knowing what you
want to focus on is necessary
for creating a plan. And, here is
where most business owners get
caught: they want to focus on
everything. They want to improve
the numbers everywhere, but
it’s almost impossible to do that
at one time. Pick one area to
start and build from there. And,
pick a timeframe for measuring
your progress.
A clearly defined strategy
. The
strategy is your big picture view
of what you want to see happen.
Think of it as the airstrike versus
the ground war. You can’t reach
a goal without a strategy, and it’s
hard to create a strategy without
a goal. A strategy is singular.
You can use any criteria but it’s
important to start with one. Even
the biggest companies, with the
biggest marketing dollars don’t
implement multiple strategies.
You might decide that you’re
going to create a strategy around
increasing the average order per
customer. Now, howmight this be
accomplished? In our industry,
you might help clients see
price breaks at higher ordering
quantities and encourage them to
stock up. You could offer bundled
solutions to get clients to buy
more at a time. You might see if
multiple departments or locations
want to order at the same time to
increase the order size. You might
decide to focus on companies that
are larger and order more at one
time. The strategy is up to you, but
once you start thinking about it,
you will be thinking about your
business on a more strategic level.
A budget
. It’s important to
allocate a budget for any activity
that you do in your business,
and that budget should include
money, time and effort. With
so many non-cost marketing
opportunities available today
it’s important to consider time
and effort as you budget for
your marketing. Social media,
networking, blogging—these
are all marketing activities and
they need to ultimately provide
a return on your investment,
just like paid media. As a rule
of thumb, consider allocating
10 percent of projected sales
to marketing activities. Then,
outline the types of marketing
activities you could potentially
do. Evaluate which activities are
the best use of your money, time
and effort. Free marketing might
sound like a great option
until
you find out that it’s costing you
time with clients, or time you
would spend billing.
Tactics that are specific and
customer-centric
. You cannot,
and should not, do every activity
you think about. Not every tactic
is right for your business. Not
every tactic will move a prospect
along their decision-making
path. The more specific your
marketing activities, the better
the results. Deciding what to
do can be hard, because there
are a lot of options out there.
Think about your customer.
Think about where they are
toward their goals and what they
need. The more you think about
what your customer needs, and
the less you think about what
you’re trying to tell them, the
better your marketing will be.
Marketing’s sweet spot is where
your activities align with your
strategy and your goals, and
where they connect on brand.
In deciding which types of
marketing activities to pursue,
consider all types, including
advertising, promotion,
merchandising and public
relations. Understand how each
of these areas of marketing
differs. Advertising is paid
media, promotion is using
your own media, and public
relations activities are usually
specific events designed to get
publicity. Every marketing plan
should use a combination of
tactics to maximize reach and
exposure. Here is another area
where business owners often get
tripped up. They focus on one
media. With all the noise today,
it’s important to use multiple
marketing tactics so that you
have more ways to grab your
target audience’s attention.
Find out where your ideal client
is and how they want to learn
more about you, and build your
ground war from there. Consider
targeting your content as you
target your activities. Make sure
your copy and graphics are on
message and on brand.
Marketing should permeate
your business. Never waste an
opportunity to market your
business. Think about every
potential client experience and
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