Marketing plays an essential role in growing your business, but it can also be what stalls you out. If you feel like you’re putting money and effort into marketing tactics and just not getting any traction, you could be missing at least one of these opportunities:
1. Use analytics and testing to understand your customers better.
Your market is always evolving. What worked 20 years ago probably won’t work as well today. That’s why you need to measure your customers’ behaviour and your brand’s impact. The rise of digital technologies has improved the quality of this information and made it more accessible than ever before. If you’re not already looking at the data, start with tools like Google Analytics. Look at your baseline metrics to identify where you’re on track and where you’re not. You can then test ways to fix problems. You can also use metrics to keep pace with change in your market so you’re not constantly playing catch up.
2. Take advantage of the goldmine of information you’re already sitting on.
You can use past customer data to better understand your current potential market. Look at purchase information to get a sense of trends. What is the average purchase size? What industries do you sell most to? What times of year do you see peaks and valleys in demand? This data can give you a strong baseline to plan from and a higher degree of confidence that you’re choosing the right marketing strategies.
3. Focus on your customers’ needs, wants and desires.
You can tell your customers how great you are, but you have to do it in a way that makes a connection to what matters to them. Don’t force them to make that connection themselves. That’s too much thinking.
Make it a no-brainer for customers to pick you. Tell them what they want to hear: Why should I care about you? What’s in it for me?
4. Make it personal – cater the brand experience to your customers.
Personalizing your marketing to individual customers is a powerful strategy. But to do it, you need good, clean demographic data (see point No. 1). Even if you’re still in the process of collecting and analyzing data, you can get started right away.
Personalizing the customer experience can begin with something as simple as changing the language you use in your marketing messages. For example, words like “you” and “we” go a long way toward helping a customer make a connection to your company.
Of course, with clean data, you can take personalization to the next level. You can go beyond inserting someone’s name in an email to using lead nurturing strategies that help each one of your customers feel like they’re your most important customer.
At the end of the day, we’re all humans talking to humans. So don’t think of it as personalizing your marketing; think of it as humanizing it! And remember, you can be personal and still be professional. Personalizing the experience should enhance your brand, not damage it.
5. Streamline the buying experience
It doesn’t matter if your customer is engaging with your brand through their sales rep, on the phone, via email, on the website or at a trade show, they expect the same positive, helpful experience each and every time.
Strong marketing means consistent messaging across platforms and across teams, online and offline. Your marketing team is your sales team is your customer service team. Create consistency in the brand experience and you’ll earn your customers’ trust. And trust is what keeps bringing them back time after time.
Make the Most of Your Marketing Strategy
Did one, two or more of these ring true for you? Don’t worry—you’re not alone. It can be easy to get overwhelmed or wrapped up in daily grind, but with some easy tweaks, you’ll be able to tackle your marketing strategies with more insight, agility and, ultimately, success.
What’s the biggest marketing challenge you face today? Let’s chat about how we can help. Connect with us to get started.
[Adapted from a post written by our founder, originally published on the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) Blog]
