Marketing has always had concepts that remain relevant throughout the years, but it's also constantly changing as technology advances and buyer shopping habits and methods change. As trends, the economy, consumer preferences, and other factors change, marketers have to consistently take a proactive approach if they want to see conversions.
Making the decision to outsource your business’s marketing efforts can be very difficult. Handing off the reins to an outside company can be scary, especially for small businesses that don’t have the resources to put a ton of money into their marketing efforts. We can’t all afford to run campaigns like Coca-Cola, Sony or Starbucks. However, there are many things to be learned from these big brands.
Regardless of which mass media routes you're using to market your business, it is vital that you take the time to have a comprehensive plan in place. Without a thoughtful plan, you risk wasting valuable time and money on unfruitful marketing efforts.
When I look at the successes and failures in business, I think I have found consistency between them.
The successful businesses remember their primary objective and the businesses that fail have forgotten what they are working for. Their efforts are misplaced because they forgot the reasoning and goals behind their efforts.
Let's put a practical example with this concept.
There is no single business that doesn't require a bit of understanding of technology in this day and age. Even the least technical professionals are sporting smartphones or alternate mobile devices to check email, talk to staff and connect with clients.
The challenge is that technology can be a bit unnerving for some business owners. It’s not unnerving because it’s technology, per se. It’s unnerving because of the need to understand, yet again, something new.
When there is so much technology to keep up with, how do we keep it all straight?
Think of it this way- Technology helps us solve problems and improve our processes the same way any other tool would. Until we understand that the technology we use is meant to solve problems, we’ll continue to focus on how hard it is to integrate technology into our business and marketing efforts.
A trending term right now in the business world is "martech." Maybe you've heard of it, but for the sake of those who haven't, martech is the blending of marketing and technology. Every company has at least a smidge of this happening within their walls, whether they realize it or not. It's a thing of beauty. Let's explore a few examples of martech to give you a clearer idea of it in action.
We get questions from people all of the time looking for the best way to market themselves. They want to know the right strategy and tactics to developing great sales and marketing funnels, going viral, getting a higher ROI... the list goes on. Well, there is, in fact, a root ideology that we believe strongly impacts all of these things:
Be uniquely YOU and the rest will follow.
If you’re a data nerd like me, then you know that one of the most frustrating things in marketing is to *not know information about the users browsing your site content.* Sure, you could sift through all the information that Google Analytics provide, but there’s got to be an easier way to get some quick insights about leads and users…
Cue Lionel Richie singing “Hello, is it me you’re looking for?” as a Hubspot Free Marketing Software banner pops up on your screen.
What’s this? Hubspot has software that does this? And it’s FREE?
For as long as business owners have had a location to hang their sign, they have tried to find more and more ways to get more and more people to buy from them.
What usually happens is that businesses (even experienced marketers) will simply create a punchlist of tactics that they think are important to do — if they do they’ll get sales.
What is marketing myopia? Simply put: it's tunnel vision. More specifically, it's what occurs when a business becomes complacent in its marketing efforts, and either focuses too much on the products they sell and not enough on the benefits it provides the user, or focuses far too much on one marketing channel and ignores others.
Years ago, in a different life, I was a sales manager in a different industry. I had ten sales associates working for me in outside sales. We won some and we lost some.
Whether we won a deal or lost a deal, I would ask my sales rep to debrief. I wanted to know how it all worked out. I was always much more interested in the reasons we lost deals than the reasons we won deals.
In that highly commoditized industry, more often than not, the reason for losing a deal came back as, "We were too expensive."
That always frustrated me; not because we were over-priced but because the sales rep didn't understand that price is only one part of the buying decision. It's usually not even the most important part.
