Open Your Heart to Good Marketing

We’ve all been there. You're excited to begin working with a new client, only to find out a little bit down the road that the client's needs don't exactly align with your services. Your team then goes out of the way to help them to the best of your ability and, as much as the client appreciates all your attempts to help, you just can't get past the fundamental differences between their needs and your offering. Ultimately, you end up parting ways with nothing to show for all their hard work. Well, guess what? You can end this problem easily, with good marketing.

People often say that bad marketing is worse than not marketing at all, and yes, both are bad, don’t get me wrong, but this might actually be true. Like anything else marketing can be used incorrectly and result in not-so-desirable outcomes. On the other hand, however, marketing, when used properly can lead to incredible results. With that being said, here’s 4 concrete reasons to open your heart to good marketing.

Increase Brand Awareness - Being visible in the marketplace and to your target market is priceless. Think of it like you’re trying to be the popular kid in high school. You want people to know your name. You want them to know what you’re all about, what you stand for, and what your future looks like. Being well-known as a business is a sign of good marketing. A variety of marketing tools can help you to increase your brand awareness but first and foremost you’ll want to be sure that you’re building a good reputation for your business. Discussing things like your mission, vision, values, and goals will be key to developing the right message for your brand.

Once you’ve agreed upon your foundational marketing concepts and core values, you can begin to create content and send messages to build your brand. You should always begin by reflecting your brand onto your website. Your website is the hub of all of your marketing initiatives, you’ll want to make sure that it accurately portrays the message that you want your business to be sending. Establishing a presence on social media should also be priority. On social media you will want to be sending the same message. Keep your message, and your branding consistent.

Increase Growth - Good marketing can also help your business grow. Building your brand, plays a big role in this growth, and so does being consistent. When you think about it, though, when you grow, you increase revenues, and when you increase revenues you can better your business. In order to grow your business you will need to do a combination of things correctly:

1. Build your brand awareness
2. Upsell your current clients services of yours that they haven't already subscribed to, and...
3. Generate new leads -- and good news, a nimber of marketing activities can assist you in doing this! 

Since we’ve already discussed, briefly, building your brand, let’s talk about what you can do to grow your customer base. Selling your current clients additional services may be much simpler if you have had a client appreciation program in place. You’ve been doing quarterly business reviews (QBRs), sending them gifts, hosting appreciation events, keeping them on your holiday card list, and so on and so forth. They know that you value and appreciate them as a client, and in turn they are more likely to give you the time of day when you try to introduce them to, and sell them on additional services. Consider developing what we call a service highlight, in which you select a service that a few of your clients don’t have, but you think they can benefit from. You can provide a postcard reflecting the service, include a blurb about it in your monthly newsletter, or even share a blog about it’s benefits. Including a personalized letter that explains how you think that this is a service they could really benefit from, and that you would recommend it. It may be the personal touch they need to move forward.

New client acquisition is no easy task. In fact, on average it takes nearly 27 touches before a lead moves through the conversion funnel, but that’s not meant to scare you off. Just keep in mind that you will need to be persistent, and try new things! On the bright side, there are so many marketing tactics that can help make this process easier, and quicker. The easiest? Social Proof. Consider this scenario: You’re back and forth about buying something new online but can’t decide if it’s worth it or not. You read the reviews, no stars, awful ratings, so you decide not to buy, right? You trust your peers to give you an honest, and trustworthy review, because after all, they aren’t trying to win you over or anything right? On the other hand, the reviews are awesome, there is all sorts of buzz about how awesome this person, place, or thing is then you are probably more inclined to make the purchase (The whole FOMO thing, also comes into play here).

The same policy applies to your clients leaving reviews, or making recommendations for or about your company. Prospects and Leads will be much more likely to reach out to you once they’ve read a glowing testimonial from one of your wonderful clients, or after one of their peers (who happens to be a client of yours) recommends your business to them. Make use of social media, referrals, and testimonials for this purpose. If someone brings up a concern? Address it, and fix it. The last thing you want is a client, or prospect leaving with a bad taste in their mouth. If growing your company seems completely out of reach then you need to fall in love with marketing, because with it you can accomplish this goal.

Get Better, More Qualified Clients - Are you pulling leads, but they just aren’t the right leads? (See Scenario 1). You pull new leads: companies who seem lucrative, successful, growing, even fun, maybe. As you begin the process of working with them you soon find out that they don’t understand what your company does, or what your services are really offering them. Your leads aren’t qualified. It’s not the end of the road! With good marketing you can educate leads and prospects, and turn them into qualified clients. Does that sound like music to your ears? It’s true. You can use marketing to educate leads and prospects, even clients about issues they face, how to prepare for them, and what services (that you offer) are available to them!

There are a number of great ways to do this, including: educational seminars like webinars and lunch and learns, and deliverables like case studies, whitepapers, and eBooks. Educated clients respect your authority as an expert in your field, and are more likely to take your advice when you suggest and recommend other products and services to them. Educational marketing is a key component in a healthy Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Open your heart to educational marketing, and your business will benefit.

Be Creative - Loving marketing because it allows you to accomplish your business goals is one thing, but one of the reasons why we love marketing is because it gives you the ability to have fun, and be creative. With marketing you get to break down what makes people take action. You think creatively, brainstorm, build, and collaborate, and when done well, your business can benefit immensely. It is fun to get your brain thinking differently, right? What’s not to love?

We might be biased but we love marketing. We hope that you share some of these business goals, and that you’ll open your heart to good marketing to help you accomplish them. Not to mention, our marketing team is here to help. Want to host a webinar, write a whitepaper, or begin a testimonial campaign? Reach out to us, we’re here to help!