Here’s some important marketing advice that can help you massively increase your income, if you are like the vast majority of small business owners out there. Let me start by asking you a quick question:
How many ways do you market your services?
The most successful businesses will use at least a dozen or more forms of marketing. Each marketing activity will have been chosen and developed, so that it compliments and builds upon the others. This creates what we call a compound marketing effect. This is also what I am referring to, when you hear me mention the term strategic marketing.
Strategic marketing
Strategic marketing is about the BIG picture. If you want to massively improve your results and set your business on the right track, you need to think and plan strategically. Your marketing strategy is a focused plan, which will usually be split into weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual segments. It’s a flexible plan, which needs to be reviewed regularly. You need to know what works, and what doesn’t. You need to know what needs fixing, and what needs trashing. Here’s some information on how to test and measure your marketing.
Tactical marketing
Tactical marketing is how most small business owners market their services. They tend to be on the look out for the ONE KILLER MARKETING TACTIC or trick, which will make them rich. Because they are always looking for that non-existent silver bullet, they usually have either no overall marketing strategy or just a fuzzy idea of what they should be doing. They make seemingly random marketing decisions, which do not build upon anything.
Most small business owners market in isolation. For example, they will (just decide) to do some email marketing and because there’s no overall plan, if they don’t get a great result after the first or second email, they stop. They wouldn’t even think of developing a 6 month email marketing plan, with each email message building on the previous one, until the final email gives a massively leveraged call to action, which earns them a ton of money! No, they will send a few poorly written emails out and then claim email marketing doesn’t work! If the magic bullet fails more than a few times, it’s dropped and replaced with the next isolated marketing attempt.
Don’t do that. It’s frustrating and you will go broke!
Marketing strategy first – Marketing tactics second
If you want to start seeing some real, measurable progress, you need to know what your marketing strategy is. Only then, can you possibly know what the correct tactics will be for you and what you want to achieve. Otherwise, it’s like trying to plan a route somewhere, when you don’t have a destination!
Decide what you want to achieve and get specific. This means putting some numbers together, such as your target; turnover, profits, unit sales, client numbers etc. Then, decide what resources you are prepared to invest, to make this happen. For example, how much time / money are you able to invest in your marketing? Until you know exactly what your resources are, you cannot possibly select the correct marketing tactics for your overall strategy.
So, it’s strategy first, then combine (or compound) your tactics together, in order to get the best possible results.
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