‘Marketing tells a story that spreads. Sales overcome the natural resistance to say yes’ – Seth Godin
As I continue coaching several business owners in various industries, one question consistently comes up. The question is, ‘How can I use sales and marketing to boost my top-line revenue goals?’
In my view, sales is the end of a process, the point at which an individual makes the decision to purchase and follows through. Marketing, on the other hand, refers to all the actions that take place before the buying decision. Marketing involves education, creating awareness and gaining consumer interest. As you create your business growth blueprint, it is essential to include sales and marketing milestones to help you increase your market share and retain loyal customers.
Set your marketing and sales goals
Even before crafting a plan to market a product or service, it is essential to set a growth intention. This requires evaluating the change that would be ideal for the business at the end of a certain period, such as over three months. The change could be in terms of the number of customers, increase in awareness of your product or service, or even higher reach and engagement. Short term goals allow for quick assessment and correction where necessary and modification of the intentions.
Evaluate What Works
Simplify sales and marketing ideas by evaluating what works. Most business owners carry out sales and marketing initiatives when creating their businesses and operating from day to day. The challenge is the belief that doing something different will offer a better result. Rather than making a massive change to strategy, it is worth looking at what works, and breaking down what about a certain strategy gave the best result. With this information, the developing and improving the working strategy should be the goal with the aim of multiplication of the result. Take Affirm, for example, a company that offers payment solutions for multiple shopping sites. Through the current crisis, they are building on their payment plan offers, increasing choices for customers and have been able to achieve growth during the current tough economic times.
Focus on a Core Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is something that all customers will be drawn to as it speaks directly to the problem they are trying to overcome. An example of an effective lead magnet is an entrepreneur who now runs an online fitness program. She was struggling with getting her business up and running, despite having an excellent presence online through social media. After consulting with her clients, she made the following discoveries.
- Women have an interest in getting fit and looking fabulous in the simplest way possible.
- Women were not willing to commit to hours in the gym and hardcore exercise.
Looking at her messaging, and her product, she made alterations and offered fitness solutions for women who want to look great without hours of exercise. A short video with this preposition now has thousands of views, a result she saw within a few days. The result has been more engagement with one core lead magnet message than all the other message posts she put up before.
Maximizing sales and marketing to achieve business growth requires some strategic planning through reviewing your existing activities. There are many new strategies available for exploration when you are online, and more platforms launching each day. You do not need a presence on all of these platforms. Remember, what works for one business may not necessarily work for another. Looking inward is often all that is necessary to achieve strategic, long term growth.
How can you build on what works in your marketing strategies to elevate your business growth intentions?
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