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[00:00:39] Whether you’re operating a small business with just a few employees or you’re a freelancer or solopreneur, your ability to effectively market your products and services to your customers is vital. And, to effectively market your products and services, you first must get back to the basics and align your marketing goals with your business strategy.
[00:01:01] Once you have accomplished this, your next step is to develop a well-thought-out strategy to convey the right messages, deliver them on the right channels, and monitor your metrics to achieve your marketing goals. You may be wondering how do I do that?
[00:01:19] Well, you start by asking yourself these five insanely simple but crucial marketing questions. You answer them from your target customer’s perspective. I want to say that again. You answer the questions based on how your target customers would answer the questions, not how you feel they should answer the questions.
[00:01:44] So that’s going to require that you do some research, talking with your current customers, as well as your ideal customers to get a better understanding of their perspective and their behaviors when they’re trying to identify products and services that you sell.
[00:02:02] Now, the first question is what primary challenge does your product and service solve or opportunity does it create for your customers?
[00:02:14] I know this is an obvious question, but it’s one that most small business owners, solopreneurs and freelancers often overlook when developing their marketing strategies, their messages, as well as their campaigns. This is an extremely powerful consideration for your marketing efforts and provides tremendous insights for your marketing communications.
[00:02:38] Again, we’re going to answer this from your customer’s perspective, not how you feel they should answer the question. As you prepare for your next marketing campaign, you should really think about the reason you developed the product or service for your specific target customers. And the benefits of your particular product or service provides for them?
[00:03:03] While many business owners can clearly articulate their personal reasons for starting their businesses, including wanting to be their own boss or finding more satisfaction in their personal life or even creating wealth, oftentimes, they find it challenging to express why their business helps their customers. Whether your new product or service disrupted the marketplace, or you provide a product or service in a well-defined and mature market, focusing on why your business provides value to your customers is a major component of successful brand and marketing strategies.
[00:04:01] The second question to ask is what unique experience do you provide for your customers? Now, I know this is extraordinarily difficult because a lot of business owners feel that they’re not doing anything unique. They’re providing good customer service. They’re providing a quality product or service and that’s the end of the story. Actually, that’s where your story begins. Every business is unique.
[00:04:35] The experiences that you create for your customers are unique. And while your products or services may already exist in the marketplace, how you deliver them and how you care for your customers is unique. No two businesses do it the same. And therein lies the opportunity for you to begin differentiating your products and services in the marketplace. But to do that, you absolutely have to drill down to what is unique about how you deliver your products and services for your customers. Then, you need to make sure that your brand is reflective of those unique characteristics that you provide, whether its exceptional customer service, value added opportunities for your customers.
[00:05:31] I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about why your brand is so crucially important to your marketing efforts. Strong brands convey the value that you provide to your customers and the promise that you make to them. It’s extremely important to know that your brand is built from the inside-out and that there are absolutely no shortcuts to creating a positive, recognizable and profitable brand.
[00:06:28] Here’s why you’re a small business brand is so important to your marketing efforts. Without a consistent, proactive and purposeful brand strategy. You are diffusing your ability to successfully position yourself in the marketplace and confusing your customers. You’re essentially adding additional complexity and unnecessary time to your sales cycle and you’re reducing your ability to cross sale and up sale your customers. But by far, most importantly, without a strong brand strategy, you are significantly weakening your value proposition, diminishing your ability to command premium pricing and creating more of a challenge for your marketing messages to resonate with your target customer base.
[00:07:24] If you would like more information on this topic, check out podcast number one, Branding Matters: Unlock Competitive Advantages for Faster Growth.
[00:08:19] The third question to ask is when your ideal customer is searching for your product or service what search terms will they use? You can exponentially strengthen your marketing and increase your visibility by thinking like your current and potential customers and use the search terms and keywords they will actually use when searching for your product or service in your marketing efforts.
[00:08:49] This immediately will help you begin the process of connecting with your customers. It will make you more discoverable, and it will also increase the opportunity of your ability to resonate your messages with them and to get them to explore what you have to offer.
[00:09:10] You really do want to be strategic in understanding how your customers would search for you online. What search terms your customers will use when describing or looking for your product or service, and that should be absolutely essential part of your marketing messages as well as your campaigns.
[00:09:33] The fourth question is where are your customers most likely to search for your product or service?
[00:09:39] Your marketing efforts absolutely should align with your customers’ behavior. You show up where they are, not where you would like them to be. You want to determine where your target customers will most likely search for your product or service and will be the most receptive to your marketing campaigns. If you want to increase your ability to connect with your target audiences and customer base, you absolutely should pay attention to where your customers are most likely to actually search for your product or service and will be most receptive to receiving information regarding your product and service. That’s where you should spend your efforts with respect to marketing.
[00:10:27] For example, if you’re a B2B, business-to-business, and the majority of your products and services are geared toward other business owners or companies, LinkedIn provides a really good opportunity for you to connect with decision makers in various industries who might be interested in your products and services. LinkedIn is a professional network that is a great place for you to invest some effort and time building relationships, doing research about the industry, joining industry groups.
[00:11:04] There are a lot of different ways that you can engage and start to build relationships and build your visibility within your particular industry segment. If you’re more of a business-to-consumer or B2C business. Then, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, those are awesome locations for you to directly engage with a more consumer-based audience. Wherever, your audience is most likely to show up and be receptive is where you want to be.
[00:11:40] And the fifth and final question to ask. If you’re a prospective or current customer isn’t ready to purchase your product or service, what is the next action you’d like them to take in your marketing funnel?
[00:11:52] When your prospective customers or clients are not yet ready to purchase, offer opportunities for them to engage with your brand by signing up for your communications, connecting with you on social media or other actions to discover your products and services. Ultimately you want to begin a relationship with them so that they become more familiar with your offerings and your brand. They’re going to be more inclined to consider you when they are ready to make the purchase.
[00:12:23] It’s really imperative that you have the ability to directly communicate with them. So, finding ways to gather their email addresses, to provide some education or information that is helpful to them. Things that will keep your brand top of mind and help them begin to develop that relationship with you is critically important.
[00:13:18] If you use these five insanely simple questions to guide your marketing efforts, remembering that you’re going to answer these questions from your perspective or current clients perspective, not how you think they should answer the questions, you will absolutely increase your success and create opportunities to secure more leads and more importantly sales.
[00:13:43] Remember your brand also is a valuable asset, no matter how large or small your company. Proactively and consistently managing your company’s brand. Provides unmatched opportunities to improve your marketing results. Increase your market share. Attract purchase ready customers. And retain your top customers. It is vital to the long-term profitability of your small business.
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Marketing is a critical part of every successful business. It’s crucial to take a strategic approach to your marketing efforts to optimize success and maximize your investment. Here are ten knucklehead mistakes that often hinder marketing success for small business owners, solopreneurs and freelancers.
1. Believing “If you sell it, they will buy”
If you want your business to succeed, it is essential that you conduct marketing. Many small businesses and solopreneurs view marketing as an expense rather than as a mission-critical investment. Marketing is a necessary strategic investment, designed to generate leads for your business.
2. Using a One-Size-Fits-All Approach
Being strategic in your marketing efforts will yield better results. Specifically, segmenting your ideal customers into small groups and creating audience-specific marketing is imperative. This approach will optimize your marketing for maximum appeal as it will target the unique requirements of your targeted customer group and will save you money as well.
3. Omitting Research from Your Strategy
Research sets the foundation for every successful marketing campaign. It allows you to understand the needs and desires of your customers, make informed decisions on your marketing efforts and uncover vital insights to achieve your marketing objectives.
4. Confusing the Marketing and Sales Functions
While marketing and sales are often used interchangeably, it’s important to remember that these are very separate but connected functions. While the marketing function produces and nurtures your leads for your products and services, sales transitions your leads into actual customers and creates revenue. Successful marketing strategies focus on creating and cultivating customer leads.
5. Underestimating the Power of Integrated Marketing Campaigns
Integrated marketing, also known as marketing communications, uses multiple marketing tools, mediums and channels—such as earned media, paid media, digital and traditional marketing and social media—to convey, amplify and reinforce your message.
6. Focusing Your Efforts in the Wrong Places
A narrow focus is a big problem when it comes to marketing. Oftentimes, marketing efforts are focused on large marquee target customers or the wrong market altogether. The most successful marketing efforts should focus on target markets and customers that are within your reach to build your customer base and experience to compete for marquee customers.
7. Going All in on Digital and Social Media Marketing
Digital and social media marketing is powerful and should be in your marketing strategy. However, it’s definitely not where you should invest your entire marketing budget and resources. Using traditional marketing and earned media will amplify your digital and social media efforts. Digital and social marketing typically require higher financial investments and more time to achieve results, so incorporate traditional and earned media to have greater success.
8. Avoiding Social Media
While it’s important not to spend your entire budget on social media, its marketing power shouldn’t be discounted or ignored. Finding a balance between social, digital and traditional marketing strategies will maximize your opportunity for success.
9. Mirroring Other Marketing Campaigns
Your marketing campaigns should be unique to your company, products and services. Mirroring your competitors or peers marketing campaigns isn’t likely to help you in the long run. Even, when marketing to the same or similar target customers, what works for one company might not work for yours. Displaying and uniquely differentiating your products, services and brand are vital to achieving marketing success.
10. Undervaluing Metrics and Evaluation
Setting attainable goals for your campaigns is a crucial part of strategic marketing campaigns to optimize success. Use metrics to monitor your marketing efforts and make adjustments to your campaigns wherever necessary to achieve your goals.
Avoiding these common marketing mistakes will exponentially increase your opportunity for success. Remember, marketing is a mission-critical investment. So, make sure you understand these common mistakes, and familiarize yourself with other growth strategies before you market your small business.
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Whether you're operating a small business with a few employees or you're a freelancer or solopreneur to effectively market your products and services, first get back to basics and align your marketing goals with your business strategy.
Marketing is a critical part of every successful business. It’s crucial to take a strategic approach to your marketing efforts to optimize success and maximize your investment. Here are ten knucklehead mistakes that often hinder marketing success for small business owners, solopreneurs and freelancers.
Marketing is a critical part of every successful business. It’s crucial to take a strategic approach to your marketing efforts to optimize success and maximize your investment. Here are ten knucklehead mistakes that often hinder marketing success for small business owners, solopreneurs and freelancers.
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Welcome to this episode of Ensightium podcast. Today, we will discuss the 10 Knucklehead Marketing Mistakes to Avoid for Better Results. I’m delighted you joined me today. This is by far one of my favorite topics to discuss, because it has so much potential to help small business owners, solopreneurs, and freelancers improve your marketing results and strengthen the growth and health of your company.
[00:00:28] So let’s get right to it. The number one mistake to avoid is believing that if you sell it, they will buy it. Many business owners believe that marketing is more of an expense rather than a strategic investment to help them attract their ideal customers and expand their businesses. If you are not actively engaging in marketing from a strategic perspective, you’re missing a huge opportunity to build a strong, healthy company and also to expand and grow it as well. Now, I know if you’ve recently launched or whether you’re even a veteran when it comes to business ownership, there are not enough hours or minutes in any day to actually get through your to-do list.
[00:02:12] The second mistake to avoid is using a one -size -fits- all approach to your marketing. If you’re marketing but aren’t using segmentation or creating opportunities to broaden your reach and resonance. Then you’re missing yet another opportunity to improve the health of your company, grow your sales as well as potentially set yourself up for further growth in the future. So, what do I mean by that? Essentially many business owners who are engaged in marketing have a one size fits all approach, meaning that they don’t look at the nuances of their ideal customer base or segment. They’re essentially saying here’s how I’m going to market. Take it or leave it. And then they believe they’re good to go.
[00:04:21] The third mistake to avoid is omitting research from your strategy. When you’re creating your marketing strategies, research is extraordinarily important as it helps you not only better understand the needs and desires of your prospective customers it also helps to uncover vital insights that will assist you in achieving your marketing objectives.
[00:05:54] The fourth mistake to avoid is confusing the marketing and sales functions. Now, oftentimes marketing and sales are used interchangeably. However, they are actually two very distinct functions that are connected. The purpose of marketing is to generate leads for your products and services.
[00:06:58] The fifth mistake to avoid is underestimating the power of integrated marketing campaigns. Integrated marketing is also known as marketing communications. It uses multiple marketing tools, mediums, channels, and strategies such as earned media or PR, paid media also known as advertising, digital, traditional as well as social media marketing to deliver, amplify and reinforce your marketing message. Many times, business owners simply focus on one strategy or they focus on one or maybe two marketing channels and they miss the opportunity to fully reinforce their marketing campaign and give it more visibility as well as a greater opportunity to resonate with your targeted audiences.
[00:09:14] The sixth mistake to avoid is focusing your marketing efforts in the wrong places. When you narrowly focus your marketing efforts on landing a large contract or a marquee customer, or even use the wrong marketing message or channel, your marketing efforts are more than likely not going to yield the results you’re looking for.
[00:11:10] The seventh marketing mistake to avoid is going all in on digital and social media marketing. Now, digital and social media marketing are absolutely powerful tools and they should be included in your marketing strategy. No doubt. However, solely focusing on digital and social media marketing limits your ability to effectively increase your reach as well as your return on your marketing investment.
[00:13:57] The eighth marketing mistake to avoid is not using social media. Now, as noted, social media is an extraordinarily powerful marketing tool that you should be engaging with your prospective and current customers on. That being said, it’s important that you find a balance between social, digital and traditional marketing to ensure that you maximize your ultimate opportunity for success.
[00:15:50] The ninth marketing mistake to avoid is mirroring other marketing campaigns. Now, we’ve all noticed highly successful marketing campaigns. And at times probably even wondered if that campaign would work for us. However, when you mirror a marketing campaign, even if that campaign is targeted to the same or similar target audiences that you might have, it isn’t likely to be as successful for you.
[00:16:57] The 10th marketing mistake to avoid is undervaluing metrics and evaluation. Setting attainable goals for your campaign is critically important and a key component of a strategic marketing campaign. It’s how you can optimize your success.
[00:18:45] If you want to increase your marketing success, avoiding these common marketing mistakes will absolutely help you. Remember marketing is a mission critical investment rather than an expense. So, be sure you understand these common mistakes and familiarize yourself with other growth strategies before you market your small business.
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Whether you're operating a small business with a few employees or you're a freelancer or solopreneur to effectively market your products and services, first get back to basics and align your marketing goals with your business strategy.
Marketing is a critical part of every successful business. It’s crucial to take a strategic approach to your marketing efforts to optimize success and maximize your investment. Here are ten knucklehead mistakes that often hinder marketing success for small business owners, solopreneurs and freelancers.
Marketing is a critical part of every successful business. It’s crucial to take a strategic approach to your marketing efforts to optimize success and maximize your investment. Here are ten knucklehead mistakes that often hinder marketing success for small business owners, solopreneurs and freelancers.
This article was originally published on behalf of the Detroit Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program for the Sterling Heghts Regional Chamber of Commerce.
As a business owner, solopreneur, sales or marketing executive, having a well-thought-out and integrated marketing and sales strategy is extremely important to achieve and exceed your targeted revenue goals.
Oftentimes, the marketing and sales functions are “mashed up” into a single effort that increases expenses, lost customer opportunities and results in lower revenue. Worse yet, the marketing function is nonexistent and increases the sales cycle.
There are five incredibly simple and powerful strategies that will transform your revenue generating opportunities and help you achieve your revenue target.
1. Make the investment. Marketing can be a daunting challenge. And, the landscape seems to evolve daily with new digital and social media platforms. If that’s not enough, there are the issues of what to say, how to say it, where to say it, and who should hear it. Marketing is and should be viewed as a critical investment for the financial success of your business. Yet, many business owners and executives view marketing as an expense rather than an important component of a solid sales strategy. Marketing is not optional. It’s imperative.
2. Understand the difference. While marketing and sales is usually used interchangeably, each function has a unique and important role that contribute to producing revenue for your business. Marketing generates and nurtures leads for your sales efforts to convert purchase-ready and qualified leads into customers.
3. Align marketing and sales.If you are a small business owner or a solopreneur, then you may perform both the sales and marketing functions. It is important that these functions are performed separately as they contribute differently to your revenue generation endeavors and can yield immeasurable benefits for your company. If your company has both sales and marketing teams, collaboration and integration are imperative. Without alignment and collaboration, your bottom-line can be adversely impacted.
Why is sales and marketing alignment important to achieving higher revenue? Simply put, harmony and coordination between these equally important functions will lower your costs and increase your revenue. Here are several alignment benefits. According to a 2015 Act-On Sales and Marketing Alignment Survey, 56 percent of aligned organizations met their revenue goals, and 19 percent beat their goals.In comparison with misaligned organizations, just 37 percent met their revenue goals, and just 7 percent beat them.
The Act-On study also found that sales and marketing alignment delivers, on average, a 36 percent improvement in customer retention and 38 percent higher sales-win rates — and it accomplishes this feat by improving only half of the end-to-end customer lifecycle.
Your marketing and sales funnels should be jointly created. Employing a six- phase funnel approach, the marketing team owns the first three phases, including prospect attraction, lead generation and lead cultivation.
Once the lead achieves qualified status, a transition or handoff occurs to the sales team that is then responsible for lead conversion, proposal development, negotiation and finally closing the sale.
Following the sale, both teams should work together to cultivate loyal customers and brand ambassadors.
4. Segment your marketing efforts. Oftentimes, a one-size-fits-all marketing approach is used. This approach diminishes your ability to effectively attract, engage and cultivate prospective customers for your products or services. In fact, the one-size-fits-all approach actually trains your sales targets to ignore your communications as they are not relevant and do not resonate with your prospective customers. By segmenting your marketing communications, your messages are more attractive and will increase your visibility and credibility with your target customers.
5. Optimize your Brand. Taking the required time to proactively and consistently manage your company’s brand provides unmatched opportunities to increase your market share, attract purchase-ready customers, retain your top customers and achieve your revenue target. A strong business brand is vital to the long-term profitability of your business and enables your customers and prospects to more quickly understand why your products or services will fulfill their needs and why they must make the effort to move to a buying decision.
Both sales and marketing are two very different, yet equally important functions that must be aligned for your company’s long-term success. Aligning your sales and marketing strategies can yield tremendous financial opportunities, including achieving and likely beating your revenue goals.
With alignment, your actual marketing and sales expenses will be reduced as collaboration significantly enhances productivity and profitability. For companies, create a culture that rewards of respect, collaboration and accountability because what gets rewarded gets done. For solopreneurs, work with an accountability partner.
Always, use a dashboard that equally sets goals and evaluates both the marketing and sales teams, individually and collectively to monitor progress. Good luck!
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Whether you're operating a small business with a few employees or you're a freelancer or solopreneur to effectively market your products and services, first get back to basics and align your marketing goals with your business strategy.
Marketing is a critical part of every successful business. It’s crucial to take a strategic approach to your marketing efforts to optimize success and maximize your investment. Here are ten knucklehead mistakes that often hinder marketing success for small business owners, solopreneurs and freelancers.
Marketing is a critical part of every successful business. It’s crucial to take a strategic approach to your marketing efforts to optimize success and maximize your investment. Here are ten knucklehead mistakes that often hinder marketing success for small business owners, solopreneurs and freelancers.
This article was originally published on the Business 2 Community Business Blog.
For business owners and entrepreneurs, every day presents a myriad of new business challenges. Chief among them is the constant and relentless pressure to grow your business in an increasingly competitive and noisy marketplace
As most businesses and consumers are risk-averse, avoiding an expensive mistake is the top priority in their purchase decision process. Having a solid brand strategy will allow your company to be perceived as less risky and as a more reliable choice. Here are the top eight reasons to manage your brand as a key business growth strategy
1. Customer acquisition. Building a brand that consistently (and without exception) places customers first and ensures a first-class experience with your company is the most critical reason to manage your brand. Delivering an exceptional customer experience when things are going well is usually easy. The more important customer experience is when there is a real or perceived complaint that requires delicate negotiation to successfully resolve the concern. Here’s where your brand must excel by living up to your customer promise of quality and service.
2. Innovation or reinvention. All businesses—small or large—must continually innovate or reinvent themselves to remain relevant and to consistently meet evolving customers’ needs and marketplace trends. For businesses, this is especially true, and it requires a commitment to forward-thinking and a willingness to adopt strategic and early adjustments to marketplace trends and changes. In this case, a company’s brand must be strong enough to build upon and to evolve with the changing marketplace dynamics without sacrificing brand equity.
3. Reputation. Managing your brand can significantly influence your reputation and enable your company to break through the marketplace noise to attain top-of-mind industry positioning. Additionally, creating a solid and positive reputation can be helpful when addressing a negative or crisis situation and can create opportunities to promote the company.
4. Profitability. A strong, positive and resonant brand will command premium pricing, as the customer value is clearly and consistently articulated through actions and communications. According to McKinsey and Company, business-to-business companies with brands that are perceived as strong generate a higher EBIT margin than others. In 2012, strong brands outperformed weak brands by 20 percent, up from 13 percent in 2011.
5. Talent acquisition. Want to successfully compete for the best talent? With a strong employer brand, business owners can and do recruit high demand talent. This is an area often overlooked, and even ignored, by many business owners. An Employer Brand International study indicated only 41 percent of companies have an employer brand strategy.
6. Disruption. Stagnation is a common challenge for many businesses. While disrupting an industry may be a long shot, becoming a disruptor within an industry niche is often doable for small business owners. Having a brand that enables the company to quickly build credibility in the new marketplace or to launch new offerings is imperative for success.
7. Resilience. Economic downturns happen, and most brands stumble from time to time. During these challenging times, it is important to expand your knowledge, capabilities and opportunities. Another imperative to remain relevant is to continually refresh your products to meet consumer desires and to stay steadfast to your brand values. Consumer responsiveness is a hallmark of great brands and should be a goal for business owners.
8. Engagement. Highly successful companies cultivate innovation and creativity and empower their employees to create a high performing culture. These companies embody their brand promise throughout their touch points and have no fear of failure as they celebrate, embrace and respect calculated risks with both good or bad outcomes.
Whatever your business status, managing your company brand should be strategic, purposeful and consistent to yield endless opportunities and unlimited success. A proactive and well-thought-out brand strategy is the secret to the long-term viability, growth and success of your business.
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Whether you're operating a small business with a few employees or you're a freelancer or solopreneur to effectively market your products and services, first get back to basics and align your marketing goals with your business strategy.
Marketing is a critical part of every successful business. It’s crucial to take a strategic approach to your marketing efforts to optimize success and maximize your investment. Here are ten knucklehead mistakes that often hinder marketing success for small business owners, solopreneurs and freelancers.
Marketing is a critical part of every successful business. It’s crucial to take a strategic approach to your marketing efforts to optimize success and maximize your investment. Here are ten knucklehead mistakes that often hinder marketing success for small business owners, solopreneurs and freelancers.
This article was originally published on the Business 2 Community Business Blog.
Growing a small business is no easy feat and requires a tremendous amount of perseverance, dedication, focus, and even some luck. Knowing how to manage your growth and ensuring your ability to deliver exceptional service to your customers are paramount for long-term success.
While a myriad of strategies can enable a small business to achieve growth, here are several that warrant consideration and implementation.
1. Align Sales and Marketing. The terms sales and marketing are often used interchangeably. However, these vital functions provide very different—and equally important—contributions to the company or organization. They are, in fact, the Yin-Yang that cultivate customers, generate sales, and serve as the fuel for your company. Marketing is, and should be, viewed as a critical investment for the financial success of the organization. Sales without an appropriate marketing function is costlier, less effective and reduces the bottom-line.
2. Establish a formal referral program. Data conclusively demonstrates that customer referrals are a significantly effective but extremely underutilized business strategy. According to Dale Carnegie, 91 percent of customers would give a referral, but only 11 percent are asked. Creating a formal referral program can allow your customers to help you grow by becoming a brand ambassador for your company.
3. Expand your offerings. Your customers and their needs are always evolving. And, so should your product and service offerings. Being aware of your customers’ long-term needs, research and development or industry trends enables you to anticipate their future needs and position your company to service them. This approach also affords your company the opportunity to be first-to-market and a disruptor.
4. Focus on customer relationships. Per Marketing Metrics, increasing customer retention by five percent can increase profits between 25 and 95 percent. Providing exceptional customer service that creates long-term and loyal customers is a sound strategy to grow your business. Upselling or cross selling current customers is significantly more effective and cost-efficient than securing new clients.
5. Develop strategic partnerships. Many small business owners can benefit from strategic partnerships that enable them to service a larger client or business opportunity together. While horror stories abound, careful planning and due diligence can address many issues before they occur. Engaging professional help, including legal, financial and business experts, to form the partnership is the best approach for profitability and long-term success.
6. Become a recognized thought leader and expert. Here’s a surefire way to elevate your reputation, build brand equity and attract ideal customers. Based on your industry and business, creating a blog, podcast, by-lined articles or other content to share your knowledge can be an effective strategy. Even sharing your expertise through speaking engagements, industry panels or other high-profile events provides an excellent opportunity to showcase your company and expertise.
7. Increase your geographic reach. Focusing on a manageable territory is smart. Developing opportunities to expand your customer reach is a significant growth strategy that should be pursued in a phased approach to ensure that additional customer requirements, logistics and costs are addressed.
8. Develop a new client/customer base. Data suggests that selling to new customers is between 5 and 20 percent successful. Notwithstanding this data, a focused effort to attain customers in new sectors, geographies or segments can be prudent. Knowing when to engage in new client acquisition opportunities requires a well-thought-out strategic approach and flawless implementation.
9. Just say no. Here’s a big challenge for many small business owners. The ability to confidently and appropriately address difficult customers, to walk away from an ill-fitting business opportunity or to end a customer relationship requires the self-confidence and fortitude to opt-out. Learning to say “no” when it’s not a good fit or within your wheelhouse is a significant growth strategy.
10. Elevate your brand. When growing a small business, it is extremely important that your brand continues to evolve, as it can unlock competitive advantages for the company. Your brand is a dynamic asset that must always differentiate your company and its products and services. Oftentimes, as a company grows, its brand remains static and becomes ineffective as a new customer segment, geography or service offering is pursued. It is critical to remember that, as the company grows, you must elevate your brand and communications to address the new market requirements.
11. Optimize your memberships. Each year, small business owners expend significant funds to join business, trade or other membership organizations. Yet, they rarely take advantage of these memberships to share their expertise, elevate their executive profile or build mutually beneficial relationships. With the financial investment, consider the additional investment of your time and talent by chairing a committee, serving on the board or supporting an initiative. By engaging, you will showcase your leadership capability, will enable others to take notice of you and your company, and can leverage your engagement to increase awareness for you and your company.
12. Manage your customer acquisition costs. Opportunity cost is the value of a forgone activity or alternative when another option is chosen. Opportunity cost comes into play in any decision that involves a tradeoff between two or more options. The cost associated with the customer acquisition process is an important measure for a business to evaluate in combination with how much value having each customer typically brings to the business. Your customer acquisition cost evaluation should inform your pricing strategy.
Whether your small business is newly launched, is ready to grow or is in a holding pattern, the thoughtful implementation of these growth strategies can help you succeed well into the future.
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Whether you're operating a small business with a few employees or you're a freelancer or solopreneur to effectively market your products and services, first get back to basics and align your marketing goals with your business strategy.
Marketing is a critical part of every successful business. It’s crucial to take a strategic approach to your marketing efforts to optimize success and maximize your investment. Here are ten knucklehead mistakes that often hinder marketing success for small business owners, solopreneurs and freelancers.
Marketing is a critical part of every successful business. It’s crucial to take a strategic approach to your marketing efforts to optimize success and maximize your investment. Here are ten knucklehead mistakes that often hinder marketing success for small business owners, solopreneurs and freelancers.
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