Growing Your Business With Your Marketing Priorities
by: Charlie Cook
None of us have enough time in the day to get everything done, but small business owners and entrepreneurs like you are particularly pressed. You wear so many hats; there is a seemingly infinite list of tasks to accomplish each day, from providing services to clients, managing product distribution and delivery, to keeping accounting in order.
You try to fit in some marketing when you can, but you're not sure which activities are essential to do each week or each month to build a steady stream of clients. You make some calls, send out a mailing or put up a web site, but you still have that nagging feeling that if you knew which marketing activities translated into the most new business, you could be more successful.
You want more clients or, if not more clients, higher paying clients. So, what are the most important marketing tasks to do in order to attract more of the right type of prospects?
Build and Maintain Relationships with Prospects
Your number one marketing priority should be to build relationships with lots of qualified prospects. It sounds obvious, but remember that the reason to advertise, network or to have a web site is to generate leads, leads you can then convert to sales. Take a look at the number of years you’ve been in business and the size of your prospect list.
If your advertising, networking and web site are working, you should be able to generate new leads and a growing list of qualified prospects each month. A successful website, for example, can generate hundreds, if not thousands, of new leads monthly.
George recently signed up for my coaching services. He has been in business for over ten years, but his prospect list consists of less than 150 names. George should have contact information for thousands of prospects by now. Even without an active web based lead generation strategy, if George had added every prospect and client to his list over ten years his list should contain over a thousand interested people.
How many more sales could you close if twice as many — or ten times as many— people know how you could help them?
The first step is to get prospects' attention with your marketing message and materials. Then you want prospects to take the next step; to contact you, buy from you right away, or add their name to your mailing list. Offering free, relevant information such as a report or free workshop will prompt your prospects to give you their contact information and increase the results generated by your advertisements and mailings.
How big is your target market? What percentage of this group is on your mailing list?
Your goal is to help as many people in your target market learn what you do and to get them to give you their contact information. Once you have their permission to stay in touch, you can go to work building a relationship with them.
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Growing Your Business With Your Marketing Priorities
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About The Author
2005 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.
The author, Charlie Cook, helps service professionals, small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up to receive the Free Marketing Plan eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business' at http://www.marketingforsuccess.com
ccook@marketingforsuccess.com
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