You’ve been in business for several years and you’ve built a pretty successful firm. You followed the steps of the business plan. You discovered a product or service people wanted, found customers to buy it, and built a team and internal processes to support your vision. Check, check, check!
Now, like every other medium-sized business, what you need is more sales leads. If you don’t tell more people about your product or service, you won’t be able to support the organization you’ve established. So, you Google “how to get more sales leads” and follow the advice. You spend thousands of dollars on a new website. You throw money at Google ads, and you start posting to every social media platform.
You’re busy doing ‘marketing’ but you don’t have any sales leads to show for it. Unless you count the spam emails trying to persuade you to invest in an app for your business. You’re ready to throw your hands up and give up on this thing called marketing.
Wait, not so fast. There’s a key ingredient you’re missing. Read on and we’ll show you what will make all the difference in getting those sales leads.
The dangers of no marketing strategy
Unfortunately, you’ve fallen into a scattergun approach to marketing. You’ve jumped into tactics (activities), rather than creating a bullet-proof marketing strategy first. You’re not alone, many businesses fall into the same trap.
The reality is, if you don’t take time to build the right foundation for your marketing, all those activities risk being hit and miss. You can get caught in an endless cycle of trying more things, new things, the latest trend. If you stay on this wheel you risk:
Marketing strategy – the right foundation
This is why you need to take a step back and invest in a marketing strategy: the foundation which supports and guides the decisions around which marketing tactics have the best chance of driving sales that build your business. You wouldn’t expect a building to stand the test of time if the builder didn’t lay the right foundation for the type of construction they’re putting up. The same is true of your marketing. If you don’t build the right foundation then you risk your marketing activities and sales efforts crumbling around you. You’d laugh someone off Dragon’s Den if they didn’t have a business plan. However, when it comes to marketing, we often skip this step.
“If you form a strategy without research, your brand will barely float and at the speed industries move at today, brands sink fast.”
Ryan Holmes
Founder and CEO of Hootsuite
A marketing strategy is your blueprint. It clarifies:
Armed with this information, you can cherry pick the marketing activities which will make a difference to your bottom line. If we’ve piqued your interest and you want a template for thinking about your marketing plan, SOSTAC is a great place to start.
Six benefits to a marketing strategy
When you take the time to build a marketing strategy before you rush to buying Facebook ads, you gain:
You might be concerned about analysis paralysis. We totally understand! So, we’ve developed a proprietary approach that allows us to quickly collect, research, analyse and deliver key insights into your unique strategic marketing plan, and provide the foundation to the tactics that have the best chance of delivering results for your business.
Do you need help creating a marketing strategy which delivers results? We spend our days developing strategies to meet our client’s goals. Contact us to arrange a free consultation.