Before you embark on a marketing campaign, know your
audience and have a clear, consistent message. If not, you will open the door
to a confused audience. If your customized message leaves your target audience
unsure of who you are and what your company does, you will be wasting time,
money and resources on failed efforts.
This notion is a part of brand awareness, which is built by delivering consistent communication of your company’s position each time you make contact.
How can you do this? Create a position statement that clearly defines your company and emphasizes how you differ from the competition. Audit existing marketing materials to ensure there are no inconsistent messages before you spend another dime on marketing activities.
Integrate marketing and sales
This notion is a part of brand awareness, which is built by delivering consistent communication of your company’s position each time you make contact.
How can you do this? Create a position statement that clearly defines your company and emphasizes how you differ from the competition. Audit existing marketing materials to ensure there are no inconsistent messages before you spend another dime on marketing activities.
Integrate marketing and sales
Some companies combine marketing and sales. Others treat them
separately, never linking the two. This
is a huge mistake.
Do not allow your marketing team to spend too much time, effort and money on a new program or product without allowing the sales team to provide input. The sales team could reject the materials and campaign if the most compelling selling points are missing. In turn, they may produce their own presentation or brochure that sends mixed messages to prospective clients.
For example, you might launch a direct mail campaign in hopes of generating sales leads. However, the sales team may refuse to follow-up on leads they do not feel qualify. Those potential targets will not receive a message of continuity, which effectively tells them your company is incapable of handling their needs.
Marketing campaigns will fail when there is no clear integration between marketing and sales. This causes you to lose money in wasted expenses and lost opportunities for generating new revenue. But, you can quickly recover by including the sales team in the marketing planning process. Implement a combined team of marketing and sales representatives on an advisory committee. Allow the sales team members to provide feedback on proposed marketing efforts.
Unless you unite marketing and sales efforts, any strategy will be lacking.
Measure the success or failure of strategies
Do not allow your marketing team to spend too much time, effort and money on a new program or product without allowing the sales team to provide input. The sales team could reject the materials and campaign if the most compelling selling points are missing. In turn, they may produce their own presentation or brochure that sends mixed messages to prospective clients.
For example, you might launch a direct mail campaign in hopes of generating sales leads. However, the sales team may refuse to follow-up on leads they do not feel qualify. Those potential targets will not receive a message of continuity, which effectively tells them your company is incapable of handling their needs.
Marketing campaigns will fail when there is no clear integration between marketing and sales. This causes you to lose money in wasted expenses and lost opportunities for generating new revenue. But, you can quickly recover by including the sales team in the marketing planning process. Implement a combined team of marketing and sales representatives on an advisory committee. Allow the sales team members to provide feedback on proposed marketing efforts.
Unless you unite marketing and sales efforts, any strategy will be lacking.
Measure the success or failure of strategies
The true measure of success is how successful you are in
different marketing strategies. Every strategy will not work the same for every
company, even when both are in the same industry. Therefore, you want to dust
off those metrics tools and find out what you should keep, throw away and
improve.
No matter the size of your business, you should always look for ways to measure success. Doing this helps you evaluate your company’s performance and highlights your marketing goals. There are several simple, inexpensive ways that you can track the return you receive on investing in marketing campaigns. Ultimately, you want to be confident in which strategies are more effective than others, and how each one ties into the goals of your company.
First, define the channels that you want to track in order to measure the success of a campaign. Linked to this is defining a collection of numerical data points. These will help to give you some perspective on how well your marketing campaign is working.
Once you develop a cohesive planning process for how you will measure and track the marketing campaign, the next step is to actually begin tracking once the campaign begins. Not measuring your ROI is simply setting your company up for a marketing mistake.
Focus on needs of potential clients
No matter the size of your business, you should always look for ways to measure success. Doing this helps you evaluate your company’s performance and highlights your marketing goals. There are several simple, inexpensive ways that you can track the return you receive on investing in marketing campaigns. Ultimately, you want to be confident in which strategies are more effective than others, and how each one ties into the goals of your company.
First, define the channels that you want to track in order to measure the success of a campaign. Linked to this is defining a collection of numerical data points. These will help to give you some perspective on how well your marketing campaign is working.
Once you develop a cohesive planning process for how you will measure and track the marketing campaign, the next step is to actually begin tracking once the campaign begins. Not measuring your ROI is simply setting your company up for a marketing mistake.
Focus on needs of potential clients
If you have no idea what potential clients need, how could
you possibly know what they will respond to in an email or snail mail piece?
Every effort you make towards marketing should focus on their needs and wants.
Few businesses have a solid grasp on what clients need. Many have a product-centric view, rather than a client-centric view. You can define your products and/or services from every possible angle. However, this only vaguely describes who might actually need or want those products and/or services. Lost in this translation is the WHY. Why would your prospective customers want to spend their money?
You need to spend valuable time listening to your ideal client. The result of all your marketing campaign dollars go down the drain if the message delivered means nothing to potential clients. Your products and/or services will only count when they satisfy the needs of potential clients.
Moving Onward and Upward
Few businesses have a solid grasp on what clients need. Many have a product-centric view, rather than a client-centric view. You can define your products and/or services from every possible angle. However, this only vaguely describes who might actually need or want those products and/or services. Lost in this translation is the WHY. Why would your prospective customers want to spend their money?
You need to spend valuable time listening to your ideal client. The result of all your marketing campaign dollars go down the drain if the message delivered means nothing to potential clients. Your products and/or services will only count when they satisfy the needs of potential clients.
Moving Onward and Upward
Marketing is one of the most important expenditures that
your company should make. Doing the right things to add to your client base
ensures that your company’s revenue and size will grow. Effective marketing
campaigns are critical to this level of success.
As one of the most important elements of your company’s business strategy, marketing will set you apart from the competition and keep you top-of-mind with current and potential clients. Expanding your base, increasing revenue or brand awareness will not happen without a savvy marketing strategy.
Have you made a marketing mistake? Don’t worry, we can work with you to reverse what has been done and create campaigns that will set your business up for success. From concept to creation to implementation, the experts at SK Consulting are there with you every step of the way!
As one of the most important elements of your company’s business strategy, marketing will set you apart from the competition and keep you top-of-mind with current and potential clients. Expanding your base, increasing revenue or brand awareness will not happen without a savvy marketing strategy.
Have you made a marketing mistake? Don’t worry, we can work with you to reverse what has been done and create campaigns that will set your business up for success. From concept to creation to implementation, the experts at SK Consulting are there with you every step of the way!
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