Jim's Marketing Blog

Marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your business

Agility is the new growth

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marketing, agile growth

Photo: Shutterstock.

Since the start of the pandemic, I’ve written a lot about the need for business owners to adopt agile thinking. So it may come as a surprise that the title of today’s post is taken from Matthieu Pellerin, the founder and head of Google’s Growth Lab.

Pellerin wrote a very interesting post yesterday, Inside Google Marketing: Agility is the new growth. In it, he generously shares what he’s seeing, regarding changes required when marketing during the coronavirus pandemic. I found the following quote especially interesting:

“Our raison d’être continues to be driving responsible and sustainable growth, but we’re now operating under a new mantra of ‘organisational agility’.”

Whilst his post focuses on what his team at Google are doing, there’s clearly a core message we can all benefit from.

The needs, wants and situation of your clients and prospective clients is changing rapidly. In some cases, daily. Your marketing messaging needs to be just as agile, if you want to be as useful, valuable and relevant to them as possible. This includes your email marketing, website content, blog posts, social networking updates and vlogging, etc.

You simply cannot expect a pre-pandemic marketing message to strike the correct tone. Pellerin gives an example of just how important he believes it is, to get agile and move fast:

“We readjust these plans regularly and continue to switch resources as needed. Our key product priorities are shifting at lightning speed”.

Next steps

If, like many people reading this, you’re getting fewer sales or new client enquiries, check the messaging you’re using. If it fails to address the new and evolving priorities of your marketplace, it will also fail to deliver the results you need.

Whenever possible, hire a professional marketing copywriter to create compelling, relevant content for you. If that’s not within your budget, do something yourself. And in either case, review the message at least every 7 days. Sooner if it isn’t generating the results you need.

Yes, this means spending more time on your marketing. However, an agile situation demands an equally agile response.

A wonderful lesson from Mark Twain

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mark twain, goiing out limb, out on a limb

Photo: Shutterstock.

One of the foundations of success, is a willingness to go out on a limb. That’s because all meaningful progress is preceded by the decision to take a calculated risk; to go out on a limb and do something.

Risk, security and progress

Starting a family, starting a business, relocating – all of these life changing decisions require us to go out on a limb. One of the oddities of life, is that even though the decisions that lead to the most progress in our lives are preceded by risk, we tend to opt for certainty instead. The pull of the comfort zone is clearly too strong for most to resist.

The challenge with opting for the mediocre decisions, is that mediocre decisions lead to mediocre results.

In our strive for certainty and security, it’s easy to justify playing it safe. After all…

  • If we don’t state our opinions, our opinions can’t be criticised.
  • If we don’t start a business, the business can’t fail.
  • If we don’t ask that amazing person for a dance, they can’t say no.

Mark Twain and going out on a limb

I discovered a wonderful quote from Mark Twain, which describes the importance of going out on a limb far more eloquently than I can.

Here’s what he said: “Why not go out on a limb? That’s where the fruit is!”

One of the great ironies in business, is that playing it safe is the riskiest thing we can do. This means a risk averse business owner places an incredibly low ceiling on his or her potential. They reach a plateau with their business no matter how hard they work, because every genuinely valuable opportunity has an element of risk attached. Progress means change. And change means risk.

Here’s an interesting fact:

In over 6000 years of recorded human history, no one has ever achieved anything outstanding by playing it safe. No one. The message is clear. We need to either accept the necessity for calculated risks, or settle for way, way less than we deserve.

So why not go out on a limb, as Mark Twain suggests? At least occasionally. And put yourself within reach of the fruit.

It’s pure, marketing gold dust

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marketing gold dust

Photo: Shutterstock.

One of the most important lessons in marketing, is to understand that none of us have any clients or customers.

In other words, the client relationship is not ours.

We have to earn the privilege of providing a service to our clients… and then keep looking for opportunities to re-earn it. This means consistently looking for ways to deliver more value than they expect. And determining that an outstanding service is our absolute base line, our bare minimum, and never offering anything less.

Pure marketing gold dust

Only by accepting that we have no clients, can we avoid complacency and operate at our very best. And by operating at our very best, we become not only invaluable to our clients; we also leave a trail of outstanding work that inspires client referrals.

Think about it.

  • Massively higher client retention than others in our industry.
  • Far, far more client referrals than others in our industry.

It’s pure, marketing gold dust. A robust, unstoppable way to grow a successful business.

As I have said many times before, everything in business is marketing. This includes the quality of the service you provide to your clients, and your absolute commitment to their success.

Pandemic marketing: Specifics you need to focus on

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Photo: Shutterstock.

We’ve all seen the tragic, human cost of the pandemic unfolding and the heroic work of those working on the front line.

Commercially, as countries start to sketch out their plans to ease certain restrictions, we can get a better idea of the business disruption we’re likely to see between now and next year. With that in mind, and to help you plan ahead, here are some specific marketing challenges, which business owners will need to overcome.

I’ve split them into 2 groups (business to business and business to consumer), though you may find some overlap.

If you sell products or services to businesses.

  • Those offering design, branding and so-called ‘soft skills’ training may find prospects holding back on investment, until things settle down.
  • It’s likely that a number of the businesses you serve will cease trading. This will vary depending on the industries you sell into.
  • If your customers have been scaling back or reducing staff numbers, this could reduce the frequency or size of their requirement / future orders from you.
  • With almost every business taking a financial hit from the pandemic, you will encounter more price resistance than before.
  • Leading on from the previous point, your low cost competitors are likely to be a greater threat to your business than they were.
  • Some of your competitors will be a lot more active with their marketing. Most will rely on DIY marketing and have little effect on your business. However, some may get expert help and eat into your market share.

If you sell direct to consumers.

  • Many consumers will be forced to scale back on non-essential products and services. This is less of an issue if you sell into the expensive end of your market, or the low cost end of the market. It’s a bigger concern if you sell into the middle of the market.
  • If most of your customers are elderly, many will be required to stay in lockdown until a vaccine or cure for COVID-19 is developed. You’ll need to create a safe way to serve your customers. Then, you’ll need to market your new approach clearly.
  • Those offering so-called ‘soft skills’ training may find customers and prospective customers less willing to invest, until their financial situation is more certain.
  • Restaurants, coffee shops and cafés, etc., are likely to be required to provide social distancing for customers, until a vaccine or cure is developed. This means you’ll have a smaller capacity, fewer tables / fewer seats and probably fewer customers. You’ll need to work hard on increasing the average order amount.

Issues like these will impact millions of business owners, but you don’t need to be one of them. Everything here can be overcome successfully, if marketed correctly. Everything.

So get to work now on the areas that are likely to impact your business. And give yourself the advantage of adapting to the new needs of your customers, before your competitors do.

Your built in compass, to show you the way forward

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marketing compass

Photo: Shutterstock.

Here’s what business owners are telling me, in increasing numbers every day.

Our website used to generate sales leads. Now it doesn’t.

Our Google Adwords strategy used to get high quality prospective clients to our website. Now it doesn’t.

Our newsletter used to attract client enquiries. Now it doesn’t.

Our inbox used to notify us of sales from my website all day long. Now it doesn’t.

When what used to work ceases to work, you need to try something new. This means changing things. And no matter who you are, implementing meaningful change is always a little scary.

However, that scary feeling can actually be extremely useful.

Allow me to explain.

There’s a business maxim I’ve heard many times over the years. “If it doesn’t feel scary, it’s probably not moving you forward”.

If you make marketing decisions, backed-up with the rigour required, and it feels scary, maybe you can use that fear as your compass? A pointer that the change you’ve made, at the very least, has the potential to work.

Think about it… these are truly exceptional times. And exceptional times require an exceptional response. If the changes you’re planning don’t feel scary, they’re probably not exceptional.

At worst, your business can still grow

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This is a short post. It’s also the most important I’ve written in a long time. I strongly recommend you take a couple of minutes to read it.

coronavirus. marketing mindset

Photo: Shutterstock.

During the pandemic.

  • You have the freedom to focus on surviving.
  • You have the freedom to focus on thriving.

If your thinking is all about how to survive, it will have a hard limit. A limit that sees survival as the desired end point. If things go as well as they possibly can, you’ll still be in business by the end of the pandemic. If things fall (even a little) short of your desired end point, you’re out of business.

If your thinking is all about how to thrive, it has no limitation. No restriction on your end point. If things go well, your business (and you) will have absolutely thrived by the end of the pandemic. If things fall short of your desired end point, your business can still grow!

Focusing on thriving will open you up to outstanding possibilities. It will boost your energy levels. It will inspire the people around you. It will excite your marketplace. It will open your eyes to opportunities that the survive crowd aren’t even looking for.

Picture this for a moment. Imagine how much better your chances of success will be, if you choose today to focus exclusively on thriving. This means you too will be working on outstanding business possibilities, with boundless energy, surrounded by  inspired people, with an excited marketplace, and all this whilst simultaneously enjoying new opportunities, just like my ‘thrive’ clients.

I hope you found this useful, but more importantly, I hope it inspires you too, to thrive.