When my family operated Clear Lake Lodge back in the 1980s before the internet and Trip Advisor®, we learned that our best marketing was referrals from satisfied guests. And, we changed the name from Siesta Hotel to Clear Lake Lodge so we appeared earlier in the yellow pages.
Is your marketing stuck in the ‘80s?
Many businesses that have successfully grown organically—because their customers kept placing more orders—have never fully appreciated nor benefited from taking a professional approach to marketing.
Marketing defined: Marketing is about the power of your brand to reach your ideal customer, create awareness of your business and your value, and motivate them to reach out to you.
Marketing requires you to understand the value of your business from your customer’s eyes. It’s not about your methodology…that’s a future topic. It’s about proactively communicating your awesome power to create better results for your ideal customers.
Marketing
Questions to analyze and optimize your marketing:
- Value and Results: How do you measure the financial impact that you have on your customers? In other words, how can you answer the “What can you do for me?” question? If you say, we can help you grow revenues by 377%, that’s specific and powerful.
- Reach: How are you communicating your value to your customers (who do NOT know everything you do) and to prospects (who need a reason to switch to you)? Are you waiting for someone to contact you or are you pushing your value onto the world proactively and regularly?
- Existing Customers: Do your existing customers know everything that you can do for them? How do you know? Are you proactively meeting with them on a regular (at least quarterly) basis, acting like a consultant, and analyzing how they can improve their business?
- New Customers: What percentage of your revenues are from new customers in the last year? How did these customers hear about you? (Just ask them, they’ll tell you.)
- Innovation: What percentage of your revenues are from new products or services that you didn’t offer three years ago?
- Digital: How are you using the internet and digital communications to reach your customers? (This newsletter is an example of proactive value using digital marketing.)
- Video: How can you show examples of your best customers using your products and services and talking about how you helped them improve their business? You talking about you is boring. Your customers talking about you is powerful.
- Messaging: How do you summarize your marketing message so your clients and prospects understand how you help them. This isn’t about your vision, mission, and values. It’s about the results you can create.
My marketing message is: I help companies to maximize revenues, profits, and valuation, or achieve “The Triple Double®” as I call it, so they improve their customers’ businesses, their employees’ lives, and their shareholders’ wealth.
What’s your marketing message?
Next week, we’ll continue on to the third M: Methodology, the nuts and bolts of your business.
If you’d like to discuss how I can help you to increase revenues, profits, and valuation by formalizing and implementing powerful marketing strategies, please call me at 1-306-992-6177 or send me an email at [email protected].
Thanks for reading!
