When you’re just starting to spend marketing dollars,
it’s all about the balance.
Quite a few of my clients are small-but-growing-quickly companies. When they call me, it’s because they’re just starting to expand beyond their original footprint. They’re spending money on new salespeople, looking to build on early success, and they need to find a way to make a mark in a larger marketplace.
Typically, these companies have strong entrepreneurial leaders who’ve attracted some great talent, and they have a good idea of what’s working well with their clients. But they’re so busy wearing so many hats, and getting approached by so many vendors trying to sell them marketing ‘opportunities’ (how on earth do those obscure trade journals find small businesses so quickly? And manage to convince them that spending $4000 on a half-page ad is actually a good idea?), that it’s easy for them to waste money on marketing efforts that don’t work, and don’t build anything for the future, either.
Successful marketing strategies are based on a continuum.
The best way to start building a brand and a marketing strategy is to start by defining 3 key areas, and then keep refining, revisiting and reiterating them.
1. STORY
Successful entrepreneurs are already telling a story about their business. Growing the business means codifying that story, and then making sure that everyone in the company is telling it consistently.
This becomes the basis of the brand identity, but for small and growing companies it will change and grow over time, as new products and services – and points of difference – are added.
2. SALES
In my experience, the best entrepreneurial companies are selling stuff all over the place, and not always doing it in a systematic manner. This is fine when there are only one or two core salespeople, but can become problematic when the company starts hiring a more junior salesforce.
So before you even start recommending a marketing spend, you have to take the time to figure out a sales strategy for the short, medium and longer term. This includes identifying target markets, termite strategies (i.e. quick and easy sales that will lead to long-term sales relationships), and products.
The sales strategy will also change over time, as the client moves into different markets or expands its offerings.
3. SUCCESS
This is really about defining what success looks like in both the short and longer terms. Sometimes a smaller company can get so focused on short-term cashflow that they don’t have time to look at long-term goals; other times the company dreams big but isn’t balancing long sales cycles with quick hits. Some entrepreneurs dream of winning awards for R&D; others define success as being able to spend 6 months in Tahiti.
Balancing Story, Sales and Success
In the first year of a real marketing strategy, it’s all about balancing these 3 elements: Making sure the story is the right one to achieve the sales and success goals; making sure the sales goals are reflective of the story; making sure that the story and the sales are the right ones to lead to the vision of success.
All three will change, especially at first. But if you keep them all firmly in mind, you’ll find that it’ll be much easier to assess, budget for, and measure marketing efforts.