business growth

							MARKETING FOR BUSINESS GROWTH:
                 A Pragmatic Approach for Smaller Businesses

What IS Marketing?

Marketing means many different things to business people. Often, to
smaller businesses it means advertising, it means expense, it means not
knowing if you are networking with the right people, or joining the best
organizations for leads. But this doesn’t begin to convey marketing’s
real significance.



               What is Marketing?
   What?                                               Awareness


   Where?                   Targets                     Customer
                 Brand                     Content
                                                        Retention
   When?
                               ?                     Relationships
                     Timing        Strategy
   How?
                                                        Business
   Who To?
                         Differentiation             Development


                                                      Competition
   What Price?
                      How to Present?



What marketing really means is understanding all there is to know
about your business, your clients, your competitors, and the market,
then working out how to present yourself to the right people, at the
right time, with the right offer, at the right price, to get the business.

Marketing is useful if it fuels business growth. Having people know you
exist only adds value if they are ready to buy, understand your offer,
and accept your value proposition. You need clear messages to convey
what that is.




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You must evolve a strategy to grow the business. Even if you want to
remain the same size, you need to be ready when the market changes or
your competitors will take business from you.



          Go To Market Strategy
              Development


            EVOLUTION
                OF
             STRATEGY                   Go to Market
                                         Approach



                        Networking
     Word of Mouth      & Referrals

                 BUSINESS GROWTH



At first, you may get the business going by word of mouth. Telling all
your business contacts, friends, family, golf partners, and church
members will provide a few clients. Then, if you deliver good results
they may give you some referrals. You start to network and get some
leads from that activity—maybe. But to achieve real growth you need to
plan for it. You need a Go to Market strategy.

This means deciding which direction the business needs to go by asking:
   Who are the target customers?
   What do they need?
   Why should they get it from you?
Then it require knowing:
    What’s happening in the market?
    Is it changing?
    Is your business changing from what it was?
    What resources do you have?
    What is your pricing policy?


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You need to review your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and
Threats (SWOT), and create a way to deal with them. You need
marketing action plans to make the most of the opportunities you have,
and you need to develop key pieces of marketing collateral—the stuff—
that supports your marketing activities.

Once you have established what the future of the organization will look
like, you can begin to work towards growth. First, identify your
priorities, deciding which areas are all right as they are, and which need
immediate attention.

Your priorities will depend on a number of things—not just the stage of
development your business has reached, its size, or its resources, but
also whether there is an opportunity that is time-dependent. Maybe the
competition has begun a campaign to target your clients, or a major
event is coming up of which you can take advantage.




                    Prioritization
  Size                                          Awareness


  Resources                                         Brand
                                              Development


  Targets                                         Solutions


  Objectives                                        Timing


                                               Competition
  Dollars




The key thing is to have a clear set of objectives that are measurable, so
that you can prioritize among those objectives, measuring your progress
against them.



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Like any plan, a Go to Market strategy needs to have target dates,
actions, and responsibilities assigned. You need a review process to
ensure that you are getting benefits and that things haven’t changed.
Be pragmatic. Do the things that give your organization the biggest
benefits first, but also do some things that position you for the longer
term.

There are some basic building blocks that any entity needs to have in
place in order to attract customers.



       Collateral “Building Blocks”
                    Business
        Logo                       Website      Brochure
                     Cards


        Company             Elevator
                                             Biographies
          Pitch               Pitch


                    Customer                    Company
       Mailers                     Quotes
                     Stories                    Overview


                        KEY MESSAGES




Know your key messages. They are the thread that ties all of the
building blocks together, ensuring that there is no confusion within the
team or among your clients. The actual building blocks you need to
develop depend upon your priorities. They identify the critical areas for
focus, the timelines for development, and the responsibilities for
completion.

Some businesses may only need a logo, business cards, and brochure,
plus an elevator pitch. Everyone needs to know what to say in the event
that they meet the lead of their dreams, but only have three floors to get
across the message.

Many other companies will need to go further and have things such as:


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    A set of PowerPoint slides describing your solution to clients
     needs.
    A website for easy deployment of information and awareness.
    Management bios for use on the website, in press releases,
     conference papers.
    Company overview for similar uses.
    Customer stories and quotes to support presentations to new
     prospects.

So, why don’t all small businesses do these things?




                        Barriers




The barriers I most frequently hear of are lack of time, more important
things to do, no resources, no money, or don’t see why it is essential. In
a smaller business, everyone is ALWAYS busy. There is never a good
time to sit back and think or plan. If you don’t do these things, however,
one day you will raise your head above the parapet and see that the
market has changed, your customers are defecting, and you have lost
whatever advantage you may have had in your niche. If you don’t do
these things you cannot hope to grow your business, or even maintain its
current levels. If you cannot visualize the future and create real plans to
get to where you want to be, you won’t get there.


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Every business has to spend some time, money, and resources to let
people know what they do, how they do it, and what it costs. If you don’t
plan, but just do things as they come along, without assessing whether
they add value, you are wasting those resources. That is the last thing a
small business can afford to do. Doing something because it is low cost,
or easy, or doesn’t take any time, is likely to also result in no growth to
the business.

You need to measure how the business is doing. You need to ask not
simply whether you have money in the bank, or have not gone over your
overdraft levels, etc., but consider other criteria as well.

You need to measure your operational efficiency and also the
effectiveness of your marketing strategy.




               Measuring Success
     •   New Leads                              Sales
     •   New Clients                     $

     •   Referrals
     •   Partner Opportunities                   Time
     •   Press Coverage
     •   Web Site Hits                         Profit
     •   Awareness                       $
     •   Customer Feedback
     •   Network Feedback
                                                 Time




Depending on your priorities and the elements of your plan, select a
small number of metrics and track them regularly. Keep it simple so
you don’t have the excuse that it is too hard and time consuming to
measure. Review regularly and change tactics if things don’t work out
after they have had a decent chance to deliver results.




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Realistically, you may need help—help from someone with an
understanding of what you are trying to achieve and a pragmatic
approach to ensuring fast, effective delivery. You may need a Virtual
Marketing Department that can both help steer the strategy and deliver
the collateral you need.

iP2 consultants deploys a network of skilled consultants on behalf of our
clients. We serve as their Virtual Marketing VP so they don’t have to
hire and manage relationships with multiple service providers. Our
services include marketing consulting, collateral and web development,
business writing, PR consulting, advertising, and mentoring to help our
clients stay on track. We do all this seamlessly and for a fixed price. Our
services are tailored to clients’ business requirements, and are designed
to meet their standards, deadlines, and budget.

Visit our website at www.ipsquared.biz for more information.




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