Marketing Goals | The Keys to Growing Your Business

The struggle is real. Competition is more fierce than it ever has been and businesses are being forced to over-compromise. This post explains how good marketing should help you capitalize on your strengths and grow your business with higher margins and better clients.

So what should good marketing really do?

Marketing helps you define your target market. Your target market is not just the clients you have, it is the clients you want to have. Think about the clients you’ve had to fire or wish you could have fired. Was it because of their lack of working capital? A lack of potential? Impossible expectations? Were they using your service for the wrong reasons? Good marketing will help you figure out the characteristics of a good client and the differences in what drives good clients to convert vs. what makes bad clients convert.

Note: By “characteristics,” I mean their habits and where they’re at in the purchase cycle, their interests, the problems they can solve by using your service, etc…

Marketing helps you reach your target market. After you clearly understand who your target market is, you can start to develop a plan on how to reach them. “Reach,” at it’s shallowest level, can simply mean exposure, although that is not the only thing good marketing accomplishes. Good marketing accomplishes reach in the following ways:

In the right place – There are a million different places to promote your business, but it is important to choose the places where your customers will be. Carefully selecting the right marketing platforms will increase effectiveness and efficiency.

At the right time – When will potential customers be there? The more in-depth you can get in defining your target market the easier it is figure out the best time of day/day of the week to reach them. If they’re actively searching for your service, when would they be Googling it? When do they go on social media, when are they in the office to answer their phones? Hint: Don’t call people trying to sell on a Friday afternoon.

In the right context – Context is everything. It is the Perfecting the art of reaching your target market in the right context will save a ton of time and make you a lot more money. Think about the problems you can help them solve. How would they be thinking about it? Do they even know what the problem is? A lot of people can’t clearly define the problem so if you can do that for them then you gain instant credibility. On the other hand, if the problems you help solve are common, it is even more important to promote your business in a way that appeals to their needs and wants. Common problems = competition. Appeals on emotion are the strongest type of appeal, so it needs to be on your marketer’s mind.

Marketing & Brand Equity. Why do your customers choose you? Hopefully it’s not solely based on your prices. When you establish brand equity, people see value in your brand because of quality, not price. Of course, the way to develop brand equity is by providing quality goods or services, but marketing should help you use the quality of work you do to generate more business. It can be as complex as Apple’s marketing for the iPhone, or as simple as raising your bids on a job and showing the right amount of money going to the right places. Either way, marketing should help you use your strengths to generate more revenue.

A Sustainable Competitive Advantage. This is something that gives you an edge over your competition, long-term. Price is not a sustainable competitive advantage. I want you to take a minute and think about what makes you different from the competition. How does that provide value to your customers? Your marketing should effectively communicate this to your target market. When it does, good things happen.

Your brand image is stronger and more consistent because people can understand the value you bring and get what they expect across all of your marketing channels.
Having a strong and consistent brand helps develop brand equity, which means price isn’t as much of a factor.

You attract better customers = higher margins, more referrals, less conflict.

You generate more revenue and grow your business.

So, do your marketing efforts help accomplish these goals?

Marketing Goals | The Keys to Growing Your Business

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