Marketing is about more than getting people’s attention. It’s about getting the right people’s attention. Or at least that’s at the core of how we interpret it.
To us, marketing isn’t a vanity activity that you do to see yourselves on the front page. It has many potential outcomes and front page coverage might be one of them, but only if such broad-reaching coverage results in business that is worth the hours it took to achieve it.
To fulfil your business objectives, you might benefit more from targeted elements such as:
- cross-selling your services and products to existing customers to expand their buy-in
- giving potential customers confidence to take the first step
- reducing the costs of finding better staff to improve customer service
- differentiating yourselves from competitors in a crowded market place
- being proactive about seeking specific types of work
- developing a saleable business for an exit strategy
The way we work is to start by looking at what you are trying to achieve with the business and which people you need to influence. Identifying what those people are currently doing, the choices they are making, the language they use, the environments they operate in, the problems they are looking to solve are all key parts of the planning that happens before any activity is undertaken. This allows us to identify which are the right people to target and what the priorities are so that we can see clearly what tactics can be employed to best achieve these goals.
There are no ‘off-the-shelf’ approaches with us. Our marketing programmes feature tactics which differ to suit the specific needs of our clients, for example we might use:
- Website hosted content to make your website more visible in search results and therefore more easily found by your potential customers
- Social media campaigns to galvanise supporters into providing evidence of success which will give confidence to those considering your products or services
- Email marketing to introduce existing customers to sides of the business they aren’t yet accessing
- Account based marketing to develop influencers and referrals
- Media relations to develop new vertical markets
A lot of businesses don’t invest in marketing once they have gone past the initial start-up phase because they have limited resources and sufficient inbound opportunities. But this can be a dangerous approach which can lead to issues such as spiralling HR costs because high calibre candidates aren’t immediately attracted to a low-profile company, poor crisis management in the event of an unforeseen problem, pigeon-holing the company into an area which is less profitable, or decreasing new business opportunities in the face of a new, hungry competitor in the market.
If you are considering investing in marketing or upweighting your activity, take a look at your business plan and see how much of your future success relies on external forces that you are not currently taking steps to influence.
You can take a look at our no-strings attached marketing evaluation tool to see whether there are simple ways that you can alter your activities to better support your goals. And then it’s up to you to decide whether you want to have a discussion with us about whether we’re the right partner to help you achieve business growth.