Guest blog

Word of mouth, networking and perhaps the odd email campaign will bring in a certain amount of business. But is this low-impact approach enough to cut through the endless noise from your competitors? And will it feed your future sales pipeline?

There comes a point when you need to invest in the medium- to long-term game, as well as knowing what to do if your leads run dry. But how? Here’s 5 top tips to boost your marketing performance.

 TIP 1: Beware the quick-fix campaign

For a short-term sales pipeline fix, running well-targeted and carefully crafted outbound lead generation campaigns – to thoroughly researched prospect lists – can buy you time and give you breathing space. (Here’s a few more tips on how to ensure campaign success).

But outbound lead generation is just one fix to the challenging problem of generating ongoing interest. Meantime, what about your longer-term objectives and the bigger marketing picture?

To make your marketing really effective, you’ll need to personalise it to the different tribes within your intended audience. To do that, you’ll need to build a range of buyer personas and structure engaging content around the three key buying stages: awareness, consideration and decision. Then you’ll need a robust process to structure and support campaign management – here’s how Hubspot makes it happen.

Patience and investment will pay off in the form of higher quality enquiries, because the people who engage with you are more likely to be further down the sales process, and more likely to convert.

TIP 2: Pause. Review. Improve.

So now that you’ve taken care of your need for leads, where do you focus on next? With a multitude of marketing channels to consider, and hard-to-reach audience to engage with, how do you decide what’s right for your business?

Stop and take stock. Even if you’ve taken a predominantly tactical approach – adhoc even (that’s ok - totally normal for a growing business) – with your marketing to date, there’s lots to glean here. Run a review of what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what you’ve learned. How has your marketing supported your business objectives? Remind yourself what the goal of each activity was, and ask yourself how successful it was. What did you miss (gaps)? What could you have done better (opportunities)?

If you’re lacking the right level of marketing expertise in-house to run a review, consider bringing in outside professional help. Metis has written before about how effective it can be for consultancies to use external or virtual services. Marketing experts can turn that marketing review insight into actionable recommendations and strategic direction.

TIP 3: Assess your marketing resource options

With learnings from your marketing review under your belt, you’re in a stronger position to build a focused marketing strategy for the year ahead. Do you have the right marketing expertise to manage and execute on your strategy?

If you’ve in-house marketing resource already, assess their current skillset. Do they have what’s needed to take you to that next growth stage? If you identify skills gaps, or see the need for upping their… consider how a marketing mentor might help.

If you’ve outsourced your marketing, review whether your supplier is capable of delivering your future marketing needs. Even the most well-tuned marketing strategy can fail if it’s not led and executed by the right marketing professional.

TIP 4: Put a metric on it

“Whenever you can, count.” ~ Sir Francis Galton.

As a consultant, you’ll know what Sir Francis is talking about. Build marketing you can measure. One of the many benefits of our digital age is the ability to track and report on all things online. Every activity you commit time, resource and budget to must be given some KPIs. That way, as it unfolds you can see whether you’re on track and adjust if needed. As time goes on you’ll be able to set your own benchmarks, as you grow an understanding of how each channel performs for you.

Not all marketing metrics have the same value, and that’s ultimately for you to weigh up. For a growing firm, building brand awareness and building client references might be key in your market; whilst generating hard cold leads will be a priority for a start-up consultancy.

TIP 5: Talk to your prospects and customers

Listening should underpin any sound marketing strategy. Tap into your clients and ask them for their opinion. It could be on how they digest information, what events they attend, how they network. Or, where you’ve built really strong relationships, you could go into the detail of content topics you’re working on. Or get their take on campaign themes.

Whatever your end goal, staying tuned into your target audience is essential. It sets your business in the best position to understand and react to changes in your market. Create a good two-way dialogue with your audience, and you’re giving yourself the best chance at marketing success.

Marketing on your mind?

If you’ve got any burning marketing questions on your mind, drop Linsay Duncan, co-founder of Marke2ing, a line, at linsay.duncan@marke2ing.com, or call her on 0203 137 3343.