Text: Kathi Clarke. Article from the October/November 2013 issue of Your Business Magazine.
What makes your offering special, better and different from your competition and how do you communicate this to your advantage?
In this second article in her six-part series, business growth expert Kathi Clarke explores how you can carve out a niche for your business.
Your marketing plan
Step two in building a resilient and profitable business is all about not competing on price alone, ensuring that you are able to fill your sales funnel effectively and consistently and that you have a tried and tested process to get potential customers to a “yes please” stage. The fundamentals that you should have in place at this stage include a marketing plan that sets out:
What you sell. This may sound ridiculously obvious but it is surprising how many business owners are not clear on this which means leaving money on the table. For example, a financial planner doesn’t sell just “life insurance” but rather peace of mind. A dentist doesn’t just sell “fillings”, he sells being able to smile with confidence.
Who you sell to. This is commonly known as your target market and is made up of who ideally buys what you sell. Once you have identified them, collect as much information about them as you can. The more you know, such as what they read, where they hang out, how they spend their free time, their habits, ages, gender, geography, mindset, values and the like, the easier it will be to select appropriate marketing strategies, articulate accurate marketing messages and put together effective and appealing offers.
How much to charge. Once you know what and to whom, you need to know at what price. To ensure that you sell profitably, know your numbers and both the production costs and business expenses that need to be covered.
Be aware of how and where you price yourself in the market psychologically – which calls for good, solid research. For example, high-volume goods need competitive pricing whereas exclusive destinations cannot afford to be seen as being cheap.
What makes you unique? In order to persuade potential customers to buy from you, you need to identify your USP (unique selling proposition). This is all about knowing what makes your product and services special, different, and better than your competition. There are reasons why customers would choose to buy from you as opposed to anyone else. If you don’t know what these are, ask your customers why and who else they considered before selecting you. They’ll soon tell you what it is they like about what you do. It’s these things that need to be included in your marketing message.
Don’t make these mistakes
It should now be far easier to decide on the “what” and “how” of your marketing to ensure that your target audience receives your message loudly, clearly, and compellingly. If you don’t develop a plan, you’re likely to make one of these common mistakes:
Spray and pray: Putting out a message that lacks the punch to a very broad audience won’t bring you many paying customers – which is the goal at the early stages of a business or when cash is tight – and will result in a rubbish return on your marketing investment.
Waste your rands: If your money spent on marketing doesn’t deliver enough of the right prospects at the right time, you won’t be any closer to a bunch of strategies that will enable you to “turn on the sales” when you need them – which is critical to future growth and predictable cash flow.
Fail to test and measure. A website or advertising campaign can result in a large cash outlay and poor results if you don’t do the work upfront to establish what will and won’t work.
Informing not compelling. It is not enough to just entertain or inform your audience, you need to promote using strategic marketing initiatives that actually get your products or services into the hands of paying customers. The measure of this is your client acquisition cost.
Insufficient marketing. Marketing is an essential investment and shouldn’t be treated as a grudge purchase. Initially, it’s about establishing visibility and identifying prospects without which you are not going to get to a sale… and as you build up cash to invest it’s about solidifying a brand.
Once you’ve successfully generated targeted leads, i.e. marketed well, you should outline how you will handle potential customers up until the point at which they become customers. This means building relationships with them, communicating your credibility and value, handling their objections and getting to a final “yes”. Consider also how to approach potential customers who say no for now, but whose needs may change in the future. A CRM (client relationship management) package to help you to track what has been said and to whom is invaluable at this stage.
Sales are the lifeblood of your business, so your time needs to be split between generating leads (marketing) and closing the deal (sales). If selling isn’t your thing, you need to fix this pronto by reading, attending a course, or working with a business coach and then practicing because it is the fuel line to any business.
In the next issue, we’ll take a look at the third step toward building a successful business; leverage or the art of systematising for success and doing more with less.
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