Often, just as things take off, strategic elements get shoved onto the back burner. For the owner, working on becomes secondary to working in their business. Strategy goes from hero to zero in seconds flat, in spite of the fact it is intrinsic to both getting a business flying and keeping it airborne.
For any enterprise to enjoy long term success, it needs to be managed beyond a purely operational level. Instead of letting strategy slip off the agenda, business owners need to fulfil the role of not only instilling, but frequently reviewing the basic structures at the heart of their enterprise.
Literature on the overall topic of strategy is vast, so we’re going to narrow our focus and take a strategic look at marketing. A feature on, say, your business’s thinking behind pricing, staff management or production and branding would be equally valid, but for now let’s crack on with putting your company’s marketing strategy under the microscope.
- Get regular in your marketing activity
Regularity in marketing helps ensure a steady flow of business, which in turn abbreviates dry spells and enables you and your staff to avoid the stress of a ‘feast or famine’ work environment. It can help, too, to mitigate cash flow problems.
Still, it’s incredibly common for both start-ups and established businesses to struggle with staying regular and consistent in the delivery of their marketing. Most recognise the benefits of having regular procedures in place, but for many good intentions go out the window at the first sign of distraction.
So why is this?
For start-ups, the over zealous pursuit of new customers can result in insufficient attention to what needs to be happening behind the scenes. For the established business, the pressures of servicing existing clients can take its toll on the maintenance of regular marketing actions.
For these organisations, marketing is typically more reactionary than regular. “Customers are a bit thin on the ground,” says the manager “Best do some calling around.” This notorious activity has been dubbed ‘binge marketing’ by solo business expert Robert Gerrish. He defines this as “a glut of ill-conceived advertising and promotional activity driven by an urgent need to drum up business.”
Here, cleaning services provider Thomas describes his business’s painful slip into the world of binge.
Six months ago, work was going gangbusters. Not a day passed without more jobs coming through the door. We’d done a fair bit of marketing to promote our service and it was paying dividends. Now I can see that while our company made hay while the sun shone, that’s all we did.
Looking back, so much was allowed to slip. I was too busy organising my staff, and pitching in with them, to follow up leads or pay any attention to marketing. My BAS was horribly overdue, snail mail sat unread– it was crazy.
Only when the phone stopped ringing did I realise the cost of ignoring all these seemingly ‘little things’. I started to scrabble about like mad for customers. I was so panicked, which is precisely how I would have come across to them. In the nick of time, though, we picked up a new corporate client. Their business tided us over while I dedicated some time to getting some much needed structure in place.
Many learn the need to get organised the same way as Thomas: the hard way.
The key to being regular is to dedicate small amounts of time to keeping your business in order. The secret, as any effective marketeer will tell you, is to sow a seed on a daily basis, i.e. allocate time every day to developing and building relationships with clients, be they new, existing or prospective. Consider the time spent on these activities as an investment: make a daily contribution and you won’t have to spend a week at the end of the month tearing your hair out. It will also help keep a lid on bureaucracy, because as management guru Jim Collins states ‘When you have disciplined action, you don’t need excessive controls.’
Examples of daily actions you could undertake include:
- describe what you do, who you do it for and what the outcomes of your work are to at least one person
- add the name of a potential client to an ongoing prospect list and
- send a letter/email/make a call to new contacts.
Just imagine, in a month’s time, you’d have twenty new contacts! So block out an hour each day and bite the bullet. Starting the engine is the hard bit, but once it’s fired up, it’s relatively easy to keep it ticking over.
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- Be heard by the right people
Of course you can tell people all about your business until you’re blue in the face, but if your marketing message isn’t targeted in its approach, you’re likely to be wasting your breath. Rather than ‘spraying and praying’ your message to the world and his wife, try and structure your offering so that it appeals to a specific audience.
In politics this practise has a name: ‘dog whistling’ i.e. a political message pitched to a precise group of voters that effectively goes unheard by other voters. The Australian Liberal Party’s use of this technique contributed to their success in the last election. Whatever your view of the Howard government, you’d do well to recognise the benefits of communicating in such a way that you are heard well by a handful of people, rather than ignored by a large crowd.
Often, though, instead of tailoring their message SMEs try to punch above their weight, assuming broad-based experience will equate to broad-based appeal. Go to the ‘past clients’ page of such a company’s website and you will read a list as long as your arm of industries it has worked with. A hypothetical example may see an accounting firm laying claim to having ‘expertise in the IT, Government, Insurance, Media, Retail, Manufacturing and Health industries.’ That’s fine if their expertise really is that diverse and in-depth, but if they are listing the health industry because one of the partners did a doctor’s tax return in the 1980s, it’s not going to send medical professionals beating a path to their door.
According to Robert Gerrish, SMEs who try to win over clients by giving the impression they have wide-ranging experience need to think more carefully about their offering. “It is far preferable to prove comprehensive knowledge of a handful of industries, maybe just the one, than try to know a little about a wide range of industries,” he says. ”Customers are rarely attracted to Jack of All Trades – they much prefer to give their business to a Master of One.”
If your business doesn’t already have one, it can help to create a written profile of your ideal customer, or perfect partner. This exercise encourages you to demonstrate a commitment to a particular path, thus preventing your business from developing in the wrong direction. To master the concept of ideal customer and to have it work for your business, write down the answers to the following:
- What do our ideal customers do?
- What characteristics do our ideal customers have?
- What characteristics do we want to avoid?
- How do they respond to us?
- How do they treat us?
- How does working with them bring out the best in our business?
Get clear on the above and not only can you can start nurturing relationships which suit you, you can also feel more confident about turning down non-ideal customers.
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- Offer what your customers need
If you’re happy for your customers to come to you from any-old where, you’ve got very little hope of making your offering relevant to them. Know who they are and what makes them tick, however, and you will soon have them eating from the palm of your hand. Plus, of course, you get to save your energy for targeted marketing, rather than expending effort flogging your product or service to a disinterested audience.
Knowing what your customer wants and tailoring your offering accordingly is certain to delivers results. Sydney’s Nova 969 breakfast show presenters Merrick Watts and Tim Ross (better known as Merrick & Rosso) learnt the ‘relevance halved equals generosity squared’ lesson following a ratings slide in 2002. They polled their listeners to find out where they were going wrong and discovered what they had thought to be their prime offering, a daily, expensively-produced comedy skit called ‘Choice Bros Caravan Park’ was boring their audience. Instead, they wanted more interaction with the presenters in the form of phone-ins and competitions. Far from being the jewel in their crown, ‘Choice Bros’ turned out to be the thorn in their side. Out it went, freeing up the show’s budget and the boys’ energies for more of what their listeners wanted. The result? Ratings went up overnight.
Of course, few industries have such instant access to their audience as the media, but there are steps you can take to help you see the world from your ideal customer’s perspective. Try this nifty exercise: imagine you are in a café and at the next table are a group of people. From their conversation, you quickly determine they are perfect recipients of your product or service. What comments would you need to overhear to elicit an ’I can help with that!’ response from you? How can your business help to relieve their frustrations? Understand this and you will be able to formulate marketing material that’s sure to elicit a positive response from your ideal customer.
Don’t be frightened to ask your perceived market a multitude of questions if it will deepen your understanding. Such research can be the best promotion you’ll ever do. After all, what could be more attractive than proving to your ideal customer that you are really interested in what they are up to?
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- Talk powerfully about your business
Whenever you meet someone, whether it is at a professional networking function or a Sunday barbecue, you are likely to be asked “What do you do?” Every time the question is raised, you are presented with an opportunity to talk powerfully about your business.
But what exactly does ‘talking powerfully’ mean? At the heart of the concept are two principles: being heard and being understood. Yet for many, talking powerfully means launching into a lengthy monologue in a bid to reveal how much they know about their business. In fact, a better approach is to explain what you do using straightforward language and spare your audience the technical jargon. It’s your best shot at making it meaningful to people who otherwise have little or no concept of your business.
Let’s take the owner of a landscape design company as an example. If, when asked about his business by someone he has never met, he claims ‘we are environmental specialists concerned with horticultural planning and its impact on global sustainability’ he can expect to draw a blank look from the befuddled stranger. If, however, he states ‘We help people make the most of their gardens by using plants and outdoor furniture’ he is infinitely more likely to draw a response of ‘That sounds interesting. How do you do that?’ His straightforward explanation has earned him the interest of his audience. At their invitation, he is then able get a bit more technical. He has been heard and understood.
Don’t mistake this approach as over-simplified. Dumbing down is super smart because it is more likely to resonate with people with little or no understanding of your field of expertise.
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- Behave consistently
It’s no coincidence that the world’s biggest businesses insist on uniformity; whether you sip on a Starbucks espresso in Sydney or London, it will taste identical because Starbucks know putting consistency at the top of their menu is seriously good for business. Lots of small businesses don’t realise this, but it only takes one or two interactions with a customer before their expectations of them become firmly set.
To get repeat business, you must show customers that they can rely on the integrity of your product or service. If they are to come back to you, they need to be totally confident that the excellence you demonstrate will be consistent. Even minor inconsistencies in your processes can put people off.
Here’s what happened to society hairdresser Jo:
When I started my salon, we used to give customers a thorough scalp massage as part of the shampooing process. As we got busier I told the girls to stop the massage. It never occurred to me that this was, in fact, a major appeal to the clientele and a real point of difference to our competitors. Only later did I realise it’s what people spoke about.
Before long, I noticed appointments were dropping off. I was very worried. It wasn’t until I quizzed a couple of former regulars that I found out what was going on. The next week, I got on the phone to my entire database and talked about my ‘new and improved superb and sensuous shampoo process’. Luckily things got back on track immediately.
What a lesson! Today I constantly review my processes and ensure I know what my customers think of what I do.
It can be tempting to cut corners when you become busy. But as Jo’s experience shows, you could end up taking away the very thing your clients come to you for. The moment something slips, you risk undermining all the good faith you’ve built.
Maybe this article has inspired you to overhaul your marketing procedures or perhaps it has simply provided food for thought. Either way, you will find reawakening your inner tactician does your business the world of good. Even if only occasionally, you need to feel justified in taking a break from what needs doing and spend time focusing on how to do it.