Marketing Bootcamp 101
Inside Tips to Grow Your Sales Fast
No matter what business you are in, if you want it to be successful you need to know about marketing and why it is so important to the fiscal health of your firm.
Dictionary.com’s second definition of marketing is a good place to start. It defines marketing as "the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling."
Successful business owners know it is so much more than that! It’s what your collateral materials say, and how they look; it’s what kind of service or product you deliver, and how you deliver it; it’s where you engage your prospects, and how often you reach out to them.
The Basic Facts about Marketing
If you are running a hobby, you can click onto another article and not read another word. But if you are serious about making money in your business – lots of it – listen up. You need to think about marketing as a commodity that you cannot live without – like air. Without oxygen you will die. Without marketing – yup – you guessed it; your business will surely bite the dust.
So what exactly do you have to do to market your company on a sensible budget in a way that will yield measurable returns? Your basic Marketing Toolkit should include a strategically thought out month-by-month Action Plan for the year. This plan or blueprint should include the use of the following components:
- Professionally designed business cards (to be given out at networking functions)
- Direct mail (an oversized color postcard)
- Print advertising (in your local paper, industry trade journals, etc.)
- A color brochure
- A multi-page website with information and motivation
- Memberships and directory listings with several business networking groups
- Online listings linking back to your company’s website on those member websites
- Charitable campaigns (sponsoring a baseball team, taking an ad in a high school play journal, and/ or hospital annual gala journal)
- Paid online ads (tile or leaderboards in high traffic sites)
- Press releases (at least 4-6 times a year)
Get in the Game by Being Professional
Remember that your image matters, so it is critical that you use professionals to produce the tools you need – a webmaster to code your site, a copywriter to develop smart messaging in all your print communications; a professional graphic designer to create your brand (logo, colors and layouts using unique style guidelines) and a marketing expert to help you develop killer strategy, advise you on the best media outlets, and other cost-effective marketing platforms that make sense for your product/service, geographic footprint, and sales objectives.
Keep in mind that a plan is an outline. While it is meant to keep you moving forward, it should be flexible because new opportunities will arise in the course of the coming year. What matters most is that it maps out a series of well thought-out actions and initiatives that will pitch your firm’s value in different venues. By pursuing multiple actions you are engaging your prospects and clients in a consistent way, and your marketing engine is always “on” (which is what all successful businesses do as a matter of course). The key to other winning businesses: they don’t just dream big, they actively invest in their success.
Whether you want to jump start an ailing firm, launch a business with strength or move your company to the next level - be proactive in ’08. Do what you need to do to insure your marketing engine is roaring and watch your sales soar!.
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