Quality service! Quality products!
I hear this a lot. So what happens if your competitors also offer quality service and quality products?
This is where marketing comes in.
Marketing is the core of your business. It is what grows your business. It is what makes people choose you over everyone else offering ‘quality service and quality products’ in your industry. Businesses that don’t grow, fail. Business that don’t actively engage in a marketing strategy, fail.
Here are 5 questions that you should be asking yourself about your business to make sure you can deliver effective marketing and grow your business.
(1) What is your specialisation?
It could be a product. It could be a service. It could be a specific market area you focus on. It could be an industry that you have sound experience in. Go narrow and go deep. Find your niche target audience and make sure you understand everything about them. Find out what makes that audience tick. Find out where they hang out, online and offline. Find out what the unique set of challenges and opportunities are that are relevant to this audience. Find out how you can be a guide to the hero in their story.
(2) How do you differentiate from your competitors?
What is your competitive advantage? What is it that you know you do better than your competitors? I know that our competitive advantage is our low overheads and flexible, customised, network based approach to advertising. We are the Anti Marketing Firm. This is our core differentiation. We don’t have in-house staff. We aren’t limited by the same ideas from the same minds who may get tired of their job but continue rocking up for a steady salary. With a network based approach we can be more dynamic, modular instead of linear, more creative and can replace the input from the human element easily for a different perspective. That’s not to say we don’t value loyal staff. We are loyal to our network base and know there are great companies out there that work well on the traditional model! But we are always looking for ways to be more creative, more engaging and more effective in delivering on the measurements we set for success.
(3) Do you know your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)?
I know ours. We don’t pay CEOs. We don’t have a big flashy office. We don’t hire con-artist salespeople who palm you off once the dotted line is signed. We are unique because our service is not one size fits all.
But our ultimate USP is me. I care for my clients. I call them regularly. I follow up. I share helpful information. I ask questions. I tell the truth. I feel passionate about their business. I help with their problems. I am their sole point of contact. I don’t see profit and billables as my priority. I base my success on the success of my clients. Profit and billables come as a byproduct of that.
(4) Do you segment your target markets?
Do you sell gates? Do you sell solar? Do you sell maps? Who are the people that buy these things? How does their education, age, gender, income, geographical location, and most importantly, internal and philosophical thought processes differ? What are their hopes, dreams, ambitions, fears, objections, worries, problems? All of your potential clients aren’t the same. Your targets should be segmented into similar personality and need/desire types so you are always speaking with the right voice and relevant language to the appropriate group of potential customers.
(5) Where do you concentrate your efforts?
Who are your best customers? Who are the people that value your service the most? Who are people that trust your business the most (hint: people you have already done a good job for). What is the best way to reach them? What is the best media to use? How do you stay in touch with them once you’ve reached them to build trust if they aren’t yet ready to commit? How you stay top of mind? How do you make them feel special?
Knowing these 5 critical aspects of your service or product offering and actively engaging in a strategy to communicate them in an organised and regular fashion to you customer will increase the effectiveness of your marketing and increase the growth of your business exponentially.
What are you doing to grow your business?