"There’s nothing quite as intense as the moment of clarity when you suddenly see what’s possible for you.”
Do you have clarity in your marketing?
So you own your own business. You know what you do as a business, you’ve been doing it for years and you know what to sell and how…
But do you really know how to market it effectively?
What is it that you are marketing? Is it the product or the solution? Why does it make a difference?
Who are you marketing to? Do you have a clear profile of what your customer looks like? (And this will change frequently).
Having clarity in your marketing about your business is essential and yet it’s very difficult to maintain and keep ahead of. The world is a changing beast and it’s moving fast, and with this then customer perceptions of what they need and what they want is also changing – we are a very fickle bunch.
The Expectation
Our expectations are getting higher, even if we don’t realise it. We expect fast communication, we expect to see a solution immediately, we expect to receive the solution quickly. We expect our expectations to be met, and if they are not we will look to move on. Aside from the big global brands who can afford to spend the budgets to entice a customer in, for us smaller businesses we have to work tirelessly to prove ourselves and prove our worth. The customers’ needs change as they are influenced by other competitors and other external factors.
But if we don’t really have clarity over where we are heading as a business, what we are offering and to whom, then this task is even harder to overcome.
Clarity is essential in effective marketing for your business, from truly knowing your products and truly knowing your target market – which can often evolve and change. Staying ahead of this and having the clarity to adapt your business is difficult, but now expected by your customers.
The Experience
It’s not just the product or the target market that you need to have clarity over, it’s also the customer experience. This needs to detail every interaction the customer has with you – this is your marketing. Your marketing is not just bringing in an enquiry but it’s what you then do with that enquiry and how you create a long-lasting relationship with them. Relationships are essential for future cross-sales, for referrals and for general repeat business. It takes one poor conversation with a team member or an email with no reply and all your marketing can prove fruitless. You need clarity over this!
You need to be thinking of the smaller details…which is difficult when you are so involved IN your business.
The Communication
There needs to be clarity in your communications. Not just what you are saying to each of your target markets, but how, and what are you trying to achieve. The end action needs to have a reason behind it, otherwise it will fall away and nobody will be bothered.
You need to think about all your internal customer communications, so from your marketing and how this links through to your sales team and your customer services. If you speak one message at the beginning and end up with another at the end then there needs to be clarity over this with a final intention. Everyone in your business needs to be on the same page, and have the same clarity over communications, expectations and your business.
“Finding clarity is eliminating options and aligning values.”
Clarity is key…
For product development
For customer targeting
For proposition development
For customer retention
For customer experience
For the finer details
For a strategy to support business growth
Need to clear the fog, get an external view and get some clarity? Hello Marketing over 15 years experience in Financial Services marketing. We will challenge, ask questions and help find clarity for your next steps to business growth.
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