Marketing Briefs

"Remodel" Your Small Business Marketing

If you are small business owner or work for one, then you probably are responsible for wearing many hats. Trying to keep the dayto-day operation going, putting out fires, and focusing on delivering superior customer service is consuming.

 

You can take a few steps that will allow you to DOUBLE the value you are generating from your existing marketing investment. Are you interested?

 

I call this “remodeling” your marketing versus continuing to launch new programs that don’t capitalize on the momentum you have built in your existing efforts. It’s human nature to keep trying new approaches to marketing and jumping from one great idea to the next. I am not suggesting that you should never change your marketing. However, investing the time to really figure out what is working pays bigger and faster dividends than starting a program, running it awhile and then starting another.

 

Conduct a Marketing Audit

 

Make a list of all the marketing programs you have executed for the last 6-9 months. If you don’t have a formal marketing plan, list out all of the activities that could be considered marketing that consumed either dollar resources or time resources. Assign the amount of revenue or leads that you generated to each program. If you don’t have this information, you can either assign these values using your best judgment or if this isn’t possible your first step will be to track your programs going forward for 3-4 months before beginning your audit.

 

Measure, Analyze and Re-Direct Resources

 

Take these measurements of results against the resources expended to figure out which programs are doing the heaviest lifting against your business goals. Sort your list of programs from “best performers” to “worst performers” and stop doing the bottom half of your list. Re-direct the resources from the programs you cut by taking half of what you cut and applying it to the higher performing programs and the other half of what you cut to try new initiatives.

 

Remodel Your Marketing Twice a Year

 

Performing this analysis and re-direction twice a year should yield you about twice as much value out of your existing investment versus what you are generating now. Every business or non-profit will experience varied results, but this analytical approach to your marketing will allow you to use facts and figures to cut favorite projects that just aren’t helping you achieve your business goals and to focus your time and money on the superstar marketing activities that drive revenue and results.

 

Leave me a comment to share your “marketing remodeling” tips and successes.

 

Market Throughout The Customer Journey

Your business delivers world-class products or services and your customers experience your business through multiple steps of their “customer journey” with your company. Use every “touchpoint” your customers experience in their “journey” with your company to provide a tangible standard in how you deliver your products or services. This will delight your customers.

Five Stages Form The Customer Journey

Break the sales cycle and delivery process of your products and services into a five-stage “customer journey” including:

· Contract Delivery

· Delivery of Your Product or Service

· Customer Welcome

· Getting Started With Your Business

· Salesperson Recognition

Mapping out a “customer journey” system for your business will reinforce your brand attributes and product/service benefits. You will enhance your customers’ experience via a world-class process of packaging and delivering what you sell.

Stage 1: Contract Delivery. Don’t just drop off the contract in a plain folder or envelope. Create a simple, professional, customizable and consistent way to deliver your contract while closing a sale. This could be a well-designed contract that incorporates your brand messaging and that is delivered in a folder branded to your business. Too many businesses miss this point to start reinforcing your unique identity versus the competition. This is your first chance to build a strong “brand bond” with your new customer.

Stage 2: Delivery of Your Product or Service. Ensure that your products or services are delivered in the appropriate packaging that is branded to your business. This is the difference between delivering your product in a plain, cardboard box or some packaging that incorporates your brand, corporate colors and key messaging.

Stages 3 and 4: Customer Welcome and Getting Started. At this stage, you should welcome your customer and the key members of their team who will interact with your staff to the new relationship. Create a standard “welcome kit” that may include a thank you letter for the business and a binder or folder of materials that outlines the benefits of the relationship and how to “get started” using the product or service you are providing. You may also want to include a small appreciation gift – something low-cost with your business name on it like a polo shirt or a pen set – to reinforce your brand and your appreciation for the new business in a memorable way.

Stage 5: Salesperson Recognition. Finally, you should award your sales person for their effort and dedication in closing the new sale. You may want to create an internal recognition reward – a plaque or certificate – to acknowledge and celebrate their success.

Pump Up Your Brand Volume!

Business of all sizes must contend with a myriad of messages encountered by their customers. It’s not only messages from competitors you must overcome. You have to contend with the broader market in general. Whether you are marketing to business buyers or end-user consumers, they are being hit with mass media, e-mails, voicemails, interactive ads and content on websites they visit just to name a few.

This onslaught of content that is competing for the attention of your business customers and prospects is tough for any business to deal with but even more tricky for a small business.

Use Sharper Nails, Not Bigger Hammers. I don’t know who originally coined the term “use sharper nails, not bigger hammers” but it is an appropriate mantra to use in shaping your go-to-market programs to allow your message to be heard above the noise. Better creativity and execution, not big budgets and staff, will allow you to succeed in breaking through. Focus on a limited number of programs and don’t spread your budget too thin trying to emulate your competitors. Do what you can afford to do and do it well.

Define Your Brand Essence. It’s not just about the features and functions of your product or the specifics of the services you offer. Have you ever evaluated several competing products or services only to forget which one offered the feature you wanted since they were both similar? Instead, you need to evaluate the brand essence of your business. What is the underlying difference you offer over your competitors? It could be a verbal identity like your business stands for superior

customer service (the “we answer on one ring or the service is free” company) or a visual identity (like a specific color that is out of the ordinary).

Deliver Brand Relevance To Customer Interests. Of course your website, for example, must look good, fit your brand and be consistent in how you present your company. However, it’s not about more features or even more content. It’s about having the right content. It’s usually more difficult to say what you need to say in one paragraph instead of one page. The same is true for your website. Streamline your navigation. Put your most important content within two clicks of your customers’ and prospects’ mouse. How do you know what content is most important to your customers? All you need to do is ask them!

Focus, brand essence and delivering relevance will all help you pump up your brand volume to breakthrough to your customers and prospects.

 

Back to the Marketing Basics is Hot

In the last couple of years, the economic climate has forced most companies to return to the basics. Marketing is no exception. Marketers at companies of all sizes are benefiting from focusing on 10 marketing basics to drive revenue and profit.

1. Smaller budgets drive better marketing. Marketing today must be efficient with smaller budgets and head count to deliver profitable revenue. This is great news for smaller firms, as it doesn’t cost a lot to concentrate on programs that will truly sway customers’ buying decisions.
2. Leads are key. Today’s hot marketing programs encompass database-driven tactics that include e-messaging, personal Websites, Web seminars, social media and in-account/virtual selling. These programs are measurable, inexpensive and require minimal staff.
3. Back to basics means back to the customer base. Successful companies are harnessing their community of customers to drive increased sales from existing accounts and to expand prospect market share by having customers tell their stories. Social media is more important than ever in cost-effectively developing and maintaining an on-going “conversation” with your users. These users become your best advocates with prospects.
4. Multi-channel integration is still hot. Integrating corporate messages, positioning and value propositions across already existing touch points—the Web, e-mail, social media, virtual events—are the new marketing secret weapon.
5. Straight to the desktop isn’t sexy but it works. Use a targeted database of e-mail addresses to drive key messages, promotions and other information straight to the desktops of your customers, partners and prospects. Better yet, ASK your customers and other key audiences HOW they want to you to interact with them. Include not only options for the “old school” marketing touch points of mail, email or phone but the “new marketing” touch points that should include options to connect through any number of the social media platforms.
6. Customer conversations are the best research. If you want to know a customer’s pain points, ask directly. Talking directly to current customers and users provides the easiest and best feedback on how marketing investments can deliver faster revenue. Social media interactions and polls are a new, fast and relevant way to learn what’s on the minds of your customers.
7. Capture “free marketing” real estate. With today’s bare-bones budgets, learn to leverage free corporate real estate to deliver messages to key audiences. Tactics include appending e-mail footers to all company email communications, leveraging wall space with internal billboards, providing shirts with logos to employees—effectively making every interaction a marketing opportunity.
8. In-Account and Virtual Seminars are hot. With restricted budgets, companies are focusing on setting up seminars at customer and prospect locations to drive faster sales or are leveraging virtual event platforms to interact with communities of customers and prospects in an entertaining and cost-effective fashion.
9. Measurement is cool. Astute marketers plan all activities with the end in mind to ensure that dollars can be extracted from various data such as how many people attending a seminar actually generated revenue. The focus for 2010 should include more detailed measures of effectiveness in your marketing programs.
10. Marketing must produce long-term results. Whether you are a “business of one” or are in a more established company with a marketing department, you must generate both short term gain and long-term sustainability.

Sounds like a return to basics…