During the last six weeks the topics at our Mind Masters meetings have focused on the essential aspects of a marketing system. Yes, marketing is not only a system, it may be the most important system in any business. We recognized that before you can put all the elements into a system you must gather the “pieces parts.”
To help you determine the current viability of your marketing elements (and ultimately, your marketing system) let’s see what you have in place.
- How about an active mailing or email list? Do you have from 500 to 2,000 on this list that are your ideal, target market? How often do you add to it, or are people opting in?
- Do you keep in touch with this list on a monthly basis? Many of the strategies that you will employ for your marketing and sales will come from the connections you have made and continue to make with your list.
- In this hi-tech world, having a good, working web site that gets serious inquiries from prospective clients/customers is also a foundational element for your marketing system. Have you checked the analytics of your pages to see what is attracting visitors’ interest and made adjustments accordingly?
- In addition to having a consistent marketing message, prospects want to know your product/service has worked for someone else. How many of your past clients have you asked for a written testimonial or developed a case study on?
Now the basics are in place, what are the strategies you will use to put the “wheel” in motion? Each strategy takes these things into consideration but determines the how of your marketing. The web site can be a strategy; if you look at most e-commerce stores, there is an ongoing system of changes, messages, sales to keep the flow of people to those sites.
If networking is a strategy you like to use, you know you can’t just show up every now and then, it takes joining appropriate associations and working your way into the power circles. Run for and serve on the Board of Directors or critical committees where you will garner attention for your skills. Make yourself a “player.” If the association has a newsletter, be a frequent contributor.
Now, before you determine whether social media or if direct mail is still an effective way to generate leads, start at the point where you will ultimately create the greatest possible impact – strategy and utilize the elements of your system for marketing and sales success!