Rethink Your Marketing Plan
The key to success in business is very complicated. You need a lot of different factors to work together at the same time like a product or service that customers not only want or need, but are willing to pay for, a back room that allows you to deliver the experience economically and on time, and you need to collect more revenue than your costs.
One of the main components of creating demand is a strong marketing plan. At this point, I know you are thinking- “No kidding”. But it is amazing how difficult it is to achieve a strong plan. When going through your plan, you need to ask yourself the following questions:
What is our content marketing strategy? According to Michael Brenner, you need to change how you reach, engage and convert new buyers by establishing yourself as the expert, not just as a purveyor of a product or service. Branding takes a back seat to credibility.
What is your out of home strategy? How are you reaching customers when they are out and about to get conversions? Social and digital media are great ways to get intercepts at the time of potential purchase. Restaurants tweeting specials at 11:30 is a great way to sway a lunch decision.
Do you love your current clients? One of the largest segments of business that you ignore is your current users. This is especially true in healthcare. One of their core indices is new patients. However, it is much easier to grow revenue by supplying current patients with more services- whether they are inside of an individual office or health system. Make sure you engage the people who are already used to working with you. They will buy more.
Am I ready when my potential clients are ready to buy? Again I will pick on health care providers. One of the main purposes of Urgent Care Centers is to help you avoid emergency rooms. However, almost every urgent care closes at 9 pm. When are emergency rooms the busiest- you guessed it, from 10 pm to 4 am.
Am I aligning myself with companies that make sense? Budweiser sponsoring sporting events or beauty products on daytime TV make perfect sense, logical combinations. A billboard for orthopedic surgeons on a bridge probably not so much. That money could sponsor entire youth sports leagues where kids are getting hurt every day or a senior center where people are always talking about their maladies.
Again nothing that I post is rocket science. But take the time to really think about how to engage your clients and potential clients. You will find that many of your expenditures are wasted effort because the target is not able or willing to buy your message when you are delivering it.
