When the market shifts, your marketing must follow suit. In this article, we look at ways you fine-tune your marketing campaign to take account of changing times.
The competitive landscape that your business operates in can change in many ways. Perhaps a new competitor has entered the market, or the economy has taken a turn for the worse and customers are more cautious about what they buy – and who they buy from.
If the market is shifting, so too must your marketing. What may have worked when customers had plenty of disposable income might not be so compelling when they have less money to spend. While you might be tempted to stick with something that’s been a winning formula, the time is right to review your marketing.
Go back to basics
Start this process by going back to the “seven P’s” of your marketing mix: Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People, Process and Physical evidence. Is the product providing value to the customer at its current price, and is it something they actually want? Are you using all the sales channels effectively? Is the message about it the right one? Are you targeting the right customers, and can you demonstrate that your marketing is working?
Use Web metrics effectively
The Web is a great medium for marketing. Not only does it have effective reach into most segments of society now, when used wisely it allows you to target small, very specific sectors. To judge if it’s working for you at the moment, use whatever Web metrics systems you can get to track sales as well as the overall response to any messages you put out there. If these metrics aren’t in place, get them sorted out in short measure – they can be one of the most valuable and cost-effective ways of fine-tuning your marketing.
Target the most profitable customers, not the most customers
With customers, the 80/20 rule usually applies: 80% of your business will come from 20% of your customers. Yet all too often, companies spend 80% of their marketing chasing that big chunk of potential and low-spend existing customers, in an attempt to turn them into bigger ones. While upsell has a lot of value as a business development tool, this tends to be in the long term. If you want quick results, spend more on making sure your existing large accounts stick with you, and don’t move those big chunks of business elsewhere.
Fine-tune your content
You might not think it, but you are actually in the business of providing content. Whether that content consists of documentation for your products, help pages on a Web site, or just product descriptions, it’s all content. Take producing this content seriously, because it is the front line of communications with all your customers. Be professional about it. Adopt a consistent tone of voice, and make sure everything uses plain language that’s appropriate to the audience.
Research, research and research again
Any marketing plan is only as good as the research that you do after it has been implemented. All too often, this research element is either added in after the programme has started, or even worse simply ignored. Not planning the research not only shows you don’t want to find out how effective it is, but also indicates that you’re not clear on what you want to achieve – and without specific and measurable goals, no marketing will ever truly succeed.
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