The recent comments by the government to cut marketing spend and divert it into price cuts were ‘interesting’ to say the least. I don’t agree with it (at all), but I also have clients who are more cautious than ever before about investing in marketing. A lot of them battled through the pandemic, and are now recovering and aiming for growth, but are either critical of the marketing investment or have been burnt by a lack of results in the past. Fact is they need leads, so there is no way around marketing / lead generation.
To me, it isn’t a question about whether you should or shouldn’t invest in marketing, but how to de-risk the investment and maximise its output. Here are some of the many steps you can take:
Planning:
Agree at board or leadership level who your ideal clients are and who your audience is. Define what messaging will resonate with them and how to get buy-in
Agree how many leads and what kinds of leads you need to generate. Decide how you define success and how you’ll measure ROI
Before you kick off marketing activity either in-house or with a third party, create a detailed brief. A good brief includes details about who you are, your vision for growth, your ideal client, your audience, the leads you’re expecting, your messaging, how you define success, ROI, etc.
Running:
Review marketing performance as part of your board or leadership catch-ups and reports
Tie sales and marketing up and review progress on lead generation with an integrated view, looking at pipelines as a team
Get regular progress reports from your agency or in-house marketer
Test, review, test, review. De-risk marketing spend by testing what works. Don’t put all eggs in one basket. If you’re worried about the investment and/or need leads to come in quickly, start with those activities that are most likely to achieve that
Converting:
Review and optimise your sales and pitch process to make sure you convert leads that are coming in. This includes your qualification process, how you position yourself, how you create and structure proposals and pitch presentations etc.
Always collect post-pitch feedback to understand how to win more deals
These might seem obvious, but my experience is that marketing is often ‘left to it’, without safeguarding its success.
Message me to talk about how I de-risk and maximise my clients' marketing activity.