The Top 3 Goals You Should Expect From Your Marketing Team
Whether your company’s marketing is in-house, out-sourced, or a combo of both, the role of your marketing team needs to keep these 3 important goals in mind to drive brand awareness and profitability.
Too often, companies look to marketing as a one-stop shop. Business owners confuse marketing with business development and sales and end up being disappointed with the results in all three areas. This is a big mistake. It’s like when you want to host a dinner party and you create a savory Pasta Bolognese dinner but no one invited the guests, cleaned the house or set the table, only to claim that the dinner party was a bust. With a clear focus on what marketing’s role is and what you can expect from that important function, can you expect to see growth and business results.
Here are 3 core functions of your marketing team:
1. Know your target market and competition
The golden rule of marketing is “Know Your Audience” whether they are a client or a competitor. Business owners tend to think they know their audience and their industry, but the business landscape is constantly changing and customers’ needs are evolving. It pays to have an objective, trained eye on trends in the marketplace to grow more efficiently and become more profitable. Business owners are justifiably busy managing the day-to-day business and don’t have the time to research and monitor their target customer and competition. Your marketing manager or team are well suited to research, track and monitor these key metrics and make the necessary adjustments to the marketing campaign to optimize results. Understanding your target audience and competition are the “Waze” of effective marketing campaigns. These insights will help you to better navigate your course of action which will leave your competition in the dust.
2. Develop a marketing strategy to drive brand reputation and profitability
Between 80%-90% of business buyers begin their buying process with online research, according to the latest research. Do an honest assessment of your website— “Does it say what we do”? “Does it reflect our company culture and voice”? A majority of businesses today have website content that is outdated, clunky, or worse-- inaccurate. This makes it very easy for a potential new client to pass you over for a competitor who captures their value proposition. An impactful marketing campaign strategy includes most if not all of these communication tactics:
· Website
· White papers
· Social Media
· Email campaigns
· Newsletter
· Blog
· Metrics
The goal to keep in mind is to keep your followers engaged by sharing current content and showing how you differentiate from the competition through your value proposition. Then, you’ll want to track your progress and tweak the messaging depending on data metrics, kind of like a fine Bolognese sauce.
3. New Leads= Business Opportunities
That’s the ultimate goal of marketing, right? We all love new leads. The mind shift here is to inform, engage, nurture and build leads into relationships that turn into business opportunities for your sales or business development team. Lead generation needs to be cultivated on a one-year timeline to build a cadence and yield positive results. The common mistake is to expect results in the short term, but if done deliberately and patiently, you will reap new business opportunities and referrals over the long run. These new business opportunities can be shared with the sales and/or business development team to further foster the relationship and close the deal. Slow and steady wins the race.
With increasing competition, evolving business models, the influx of digital communications and the expansion of a global economy, the race is on to stand out from the pack. The winner will be the company with the most visibility in the marketplace and the best value proposition.