The bottom line of any business is to make money, and marketing is an essential channel to reach that end goal. If you must remain in business, you must intentionally be in control of what goes on in the market, whether you feel like it or not.
What is the intention behind your marketing plans and actions? How will it drive the results that you want? This is where having data comes into play.
Make data-based decisions
Your marketing numbers tell you a lot about the state of your business – where and how you are winning or losing. Data is the weapon of modern business. Like a sword, it is only as useful as the person who wields it. To make good marketing decisions, you must depend on accurate data.
Every marketing effort that is not measurable is no marketing. How will you know if all of your marketing effort was a good investment, an expense, or a waste of resources? Are you delivering the right values to your market? Only your data will tell.
You must learn to make data-driven decisions by relying on data to measure the effectiveness of marketing efforts.
This allows you to adjust your strategies and tactics based on key performance indicators. When you ignore your numbers, you will struggle in business.
And when get some market insights from the numbers, keep doing and improving on what is bringing the result.
Don’t let your customers go
In the marketplace, it’s not what you think that matters but what the customers think and do about what you are giving to them. That is why someone shared that, ‘Marketing is so basic that it cannot be considered a separate function.
It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its final result, that is, from the customer’s point of view.’
Your customers are your business power base. So, if you don’t stay in touch with your power base, you’ll never attain power in your business.
When it comes to lead generation, a happy customer is the best tool. Find out why they buy and build on that. That to me is the most important aspect of the voice of the customer (VoC). Let’s face it, enterprises that can harness the power of extremely loyal customers win!
Unlocking the opportunities inherent in referrals
You may have had people use your products and services in the past, and you think that’s all. No! Intentionally engage them as your referral agents. Make them talk about you both on- and off-lines; it has a way of generating a ripple effect.
The real key to earnings is repeat customers, and those that they refer to you. Referral or recommendation works wonders; it is one sure way of driving business growth. More than 70% of the jobs that I have done for a couple of years now came via referrals and recommendations. Interestingly, we intentionally moved those customers to actions.
Referrals are often the best source of new customers. Hence, it makes sense to look at maximising opportunities from existing contacts. A referral is ‘pre-sold’ – they are coming to you because they genuinely need what you offer. That is to say, a referral is the key to the door of resistance.
We shall continue this discussion in Part 3, and dig deeper into the subject of referral which is at the heart of intentional marketing. See you then.
…To be Continued
Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist, and the author of BUSINESS SENSE, and ON BECOMING AN ENTREPRENEUR.
He maintains a personal blog, where he shares proven business ideas and principles for SMEs.
