Three Marketing Rules to Live By

May 21, 2018

As business owners, marketing is a necessary evil. Some of us set a budget. Some of us just answer the phone and decide if we’re going to advertise based on the sales pitch. Before you start throwing money at your marketing, get focused. Don’t pour your hard earned dollars down the drain along with your sanity. Use these three rules as your map to marketing decisions.

1 – Doing everything for everybody doesn’t get you anywhere.

Stay focused – don’t spread yourself too thin. Selling everything to everyone is working harder, not smarter. Blanket marketing is less effective than targeted messages. Even if your product appeals to multiple audiences their reason for buying, concerns and expectations are different. Stop thinking about your marketing like branding and start thinking about it as a sales pitch. A successful sales pitch focuses on the needs of a specific buyer, not everyone in general.

When you say, “we pave roads, all roads, no job is too big or too small” people hear, “we’re just like everyone else, nothing special. Just doing our jobs.”

If you say, “we specialize in paving and repairing roads for neighborhoods, our crews understand the ins and outs of working in the community space so jobs are completed quickly with minimal inconvenience.” People hear, “we are good at this so you don’t have to worry about it, you can trust us.”

Which sounds like a better sales pitch to you?

Specializing isn’t just good for marketing, it’s good for business.

In addition to increasing your return on investment of marketing dollars, focusing on a specific niche benefits both your sales staff and your client. Your sales staff can speak the lingo and connect with their prospects. And as a company, you can better serve your clients because you’ll no longer recreate the wheel for each project you win. You’ll learn how they run their businesses, what their concerns are and how to avoid problems before they happen.

2 – Build your plan around your strengths.

As a company, your staff plays on their strengths to get a job done right. Your marketing should follow the same approach.

Choose activities that align with your strengths as a company or as individuals. If you hate public speaking – don’t do it. If you love to write – start a blog. If you can’t stand social media but know you have to do it because all of your competitors do then hire someone to do it for you.

Having a focused marketing approach also applies to your marketing activities. You don’t need to do it all. You just need to go all out on the few things you can do best. A good plan centers around where your strengths and assets collide.

3 – Leverage the marketing assets you have to get what you need.

Take what you have and make it into what you need. If you have money, that’s totally awesome, you should just call me. I’ll do it all for you. Actually just stop reading this article and call me. This is going to be the beginning of a great relationship! If you’re not ready to make that type of commitment then let’s talk about leveraging assets.

If you need a loan to buy new equipment you go to the bank and show them your financials and they determine if you are good for the loan. You leverage what you have to get something you want.

Marketing works the same way.

You want a social media following but you have an email list? Send an email to ask past customers to follow you on social media.

A database of past customers is an obvious asset but they come in all shapes and sizes. Surprisingly your teenage children and even your build process can be leveraged as well.

You want a to repave all the driveways in the high-class neighborhoods in your town and you have a house full of teenagers sitting on their duffs all summer long? Leverage your teenagers. Drop ‘em off in the neighborhoods and have them deliver door hangers.

You want reviews and you have a build process to complete every project? Leverage the people who enact the process to ask clients for reviews when they’re happiest.

Your Strengths + Your Assets = Your Plan

Don’t just say I’m going to spend $120,000 on marketing this year. Ask yourself what do I want out of my marketing? And how can I connect with a specific audience using what I have, including my budget, to get what I want?