Does your current marketing strategy achieve your revenue objectives?

Do you know how to set the right goals to get ‘there’?

Without enquiries from customers that you can convert into sales you will fail – FACT. So do you know precisely where you are going to get your leads from?

Does your current marketing plan really outline your planned steps?
Is it a plan of action to follow to retain and grow your existing customer base?

If you’re not sure about the answers to these questions, think how you could go about these:

• Create a proper marketing strategy for your company
• Get a good handle on how you believe your business should perform in relation to leads and sales
• Know exactly what budget you should be spending and you will be able to plan your time effectively
• See how you can measure the effectiveness of all monies being spent on marketing and precisely on how they will impact your bottom line

Even though there are lots of definitions of various marketing strategies, and some of them might get really complicated, you can take the simple and smart approach – strategy can be basically anything – you just need to define it, take action and measure the outcome so that you can improve it in future.

However, probably the best approach is to pick your target niches, know where to find them, define the best ways to approach them and then have a set of marketing messages ready that will appeal to them.

Sometimes it might be a good idea to outline goals you would like to achieve in marketing. By answering the following questions, you will start seeing your your company from a slightly different perspective – and this will help you focus on the right things.

This exercise is meant to bring you to the planning mode – so that based on the past, you can plan for future. However, only if you take action in present, will you be able to see successful results.

So make sure you answer the questions below honestly.

1.       What was your dream when you started (to work for) your your company?

2.       Your key successes to date:

3.       Your key challenges:

4.       What one thing, looking back do you wish you had done differently?

5.       What would be the ideal outcome of sales and marketing in the next year for you?

6.       If you were able to wave a magic wand and everything was perfect, what would your company look like now in terms of ~

• Sales:
• Profit:
• Employees:
• Locations:
• Partners:

7.       What has prevented you from getting this?

8.       When do you want to start seeing real results from your marketing?

9.       How would you define success for your your company?

10.     If you knew how to get this success, what makes you believe that it is realistic?

11.     What could stop you from getting the results?

Knowing answers to these questions will make it easier for you to create a winning marketing strategy.

Click here for a free marketing planning consultation

Your marketing plan is a document that clearly states why you are in business, what you have to offer your customers, how to retain existing customers, how to price your products competitively and profitably and provides a plan of action to follow to retain and grow your existing customer base.

Bearing in mind that you are a small business, the strategies outlined here are practical and take into account the importance of obtaining a measurable return on effort and money expended on any marketing activities.

Today the marketplace is very competitive and changes constantly; that is why you need to update your marketing plan regularly, at least once a year.

It does not have to be specifically Ireland, but whatever country you are marketing your product in, it is vital that you identify your customers’

• Desires – what do they really want, because a lot of purchases are based on wants not needs – I mean who NEEDS a Porsche?
• Problems – what pain do they currently have that your offering will ease or cure?

Because when you know these, then you know WHY they will buy, and subsequently, it will be easier to ensure you have more customers. So let’s have a look at what customers’ problems and desires are in general, and then you will define them for each of your own customer groups.

Classify customers’ Desires

In reality, over 90% of purchase decisions are based on people’s desires, not only on “what we need.” I mean, how many of us grew up drinking tap water, yet we all still pay huge sums of money for water in bottles. Yes, we do need liquid to stay alive, but do we really need designer label water?

Classify customers’ Problems

People visit the doctor or dentist either because they have a pain, or to prevent pain. Why would people talk to your company – which problems would make them call you?

But this is just the beginning of the exciting marketing strategy creation. Next you need to look at the product you market and whether it really responds to the problems and desires of your customers.

You should have a general idea of how many leads you need to generate from individual marketing campaigns, where to get them and how much money you can spend to get these leads next year. However, when setting up a marketing budget, it is crucial that we allocate it to the most profitable customer groups – and that’s what this post is all about.

Look back at your marketing strategy and divide this total number of leads between individual customer groups and ways to approach them. Then assign a monthly budget to the individual customer groups, based on the total value the individual marketing campaigns are meant to generate.

If you want to learn more on how to set your marketing budget, you might want to click here now.

Click here for a unique definition of marketing mix known as ADSPORT, developed by Irish marketing consultants

Would you like to find an easy way to explain marketing to people who haven’t heard about 4P’s? How to define marketing mix to students so that they not only understand it, but also are able to use it in future for their businesses?

Well, here’s my little story on how we did it.

Once I was giving a class on marketing - it was aimed at people thinking about starting their own businesses – I was saying our usual stuff about leads, sales and relationships with clients. Basically, that if you want to market your products, go to your potential customers first. No complicated science, just ask them, let them try the product and ask them for feedback. This will tell you an awfully lot about how to promote yourself. If you are interested in reading more about ‘what we preach‘ in marketing, read this article.

Students were giving examples of their own clients, saying about the vision for their businesses, they were taking notes – not of what I said, but they were scribbling their own thoughts that had been provoked by my questions.

The class was very interactive and people wrote parts of their future marketing plans on the spot.

Anyway, after my ‘lecture’ there was another one scheduled and it was given by a guy who seemed to be more teacher-like – skilled in how to educate people and how to explain marketing…

And he carried on defining marketing mix as 4 P’s – product, price, place and promotion. Giving a short description of every one of them and the students were vigorously recording every single word of the brilliant definitions.

The atmosphere became quite dull and harsh. With a sigh of release when the bell came, people left the class with books of marketing scribbled by their own hands.

I was just wondering – what did they get from the second part, what was in it? What is the use of knowing a definition of promotion by heart when they don’t have a clue how to apply it for their own business? People who were there don’t really need to understand marketing mix as a set of rigid definitions. What they are really looking for, is the know-how, so that they know what to do next.

This is the way we teach marketing when we run sales and marketing workshops for companies and business owners in Ireland. We give them a road map they can follow – a step-by-step action plan they can follow, starting the next day.

Click here for a unique definition of marketing mix known as ADSPORT, developed by Irish marketing consultants

First of all, you should find out what is the status quo of your prospects. In other words, what are customers likely to have in place right now, instead of using your products.

When you are aware of these, it will make it easier to communicate with your prospects, since you will be able to show them where they could get the value from using your product.

1. What can you learn from your competitors and start using it today in your day-to-day operations?
2. Are there any low cost solutions that add massive value to customers?
3. Do you think it would be useful if you checked your competitors in this way on a regular basis?

When creating your marketing strategy, remember that the status quo is your biggest competitor.

So you are in marketing. Well done. Since you might even be a marketing expert, and know the marketing industry outside out, we won’t bother you too much with basics. However, we found it important to point out on the major aspects of choosing the right target market, so that you are fully aware of the potential you now have in front of you.

How to Define Your Target Market?

So now you probably know who your ideal customers are and what they want. But how can you find more of these customers, eager to buy your products?

There are many ways of finding out your target market, indeed books have been written on it. The best way is to use data that is available to you, such as who influences, decides on and pays for your products. You need to target your marketing message specifically to the right people.

And keep in mind that different people within the decision process will want different things!

When talking to a man, you might want to keep in mind that they will probably discuss their decision with their wife. When selling a product to a purchasing manager, they might need to talk to the managing director before they make the final ‘go’ or ‘no-go’ decision.

When you understand who influences your customers, you will be able to create marketing messages that appeal to the influencers’ problems and desires as well.

Now it’s much clearer what you want to achieve, isn’t it? From defining your target market, you will be able to easily create your marketing strategy, set realistic goals, and approach the right people with the right marketing messages.

If you want your marketing strategy to prove effective, at the end of the year we need to check whether you stuck with the plan and how well you did with the individual campaigns.

Here is a clear description of what you should measure:

• Campaign Start – When did the campaign start?
• Expected # Leads – How many potential customers do you expect to contact you after the campaign?
• Actual # Leads – How many leads did you actually get so far?
• Expected # Sales – How many customers do you expect to buy from you after the campaign?
• Actual # Sales – How many sales did you actually get so far?
• Expected Sales Value – How much sales will the campaign generate?
• Actual Sales Value – How much sales did the campaign generate so far?
• Expected Budget – What is your budget for the campaign? How much will you spend?
• Actual Budget – How much did you spend so far on the campaign?
• Return on Investment – How much sales did $1 of actual budget generate?

If you manage to measure these indicators regularly, you’ll be able to soon evaluate your marketing strategy, even by comparing the results on a monthly basis.