When the going gets tough, the tough get going. When the going gets tough, the tough get ready … If you are as old as we are then these lyrics will make you think of Billy Ocean’s hit way back when.
Business is tough out there and has been for a lot of this year as a lot of agencies and SME owners have found out. To be frank, it is and has been pretty brutal for agencies and SMEs these past few months with uncertainty, longer lead times and rising costs. But in tough times, how do you react? Do you get going and hope things will improve or to do get ready to fight, be proactive and take action?
Burying your head in the sand really won’t help. So don’t get going, get ready …
Help yourself
This joint blog by Nicole Martin of Pinpoint Marketing Consultancy Ltd and Remeny Armitage of Brilliant and Human looks at not being doom and gloom about the current state of business and aims to provide proactive tips and food for thought to help you help yourself and make good from what we can. “This is going to be the most pro-growth, pro-business Treasury that this country has ever seen,” Reeves told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick via remote interview.
The Summer can be quieter in the world of B2B marketing, so make the most of any quiet spells that you and your prospects are having, and let’s get to work and talk about marketing, leads and sales and research …
Keep your marketing going
In tough times or when cash flow is tight, stopping your marketing can seem like a good idea and a way to save on spend. But by stopping or cutting back on your marketing, you make well lose market share, lose consistency in leads and sales, and your competition may jump ahead of you if they don’t. Cutting back is better than stopping, but don’t make any knee jerk reactions. Think it through, audit things and get the full picture before making any marketing decisions.
By auditing, we mean look at your leads in terms of numbers of lead sources. Look at what is or isn’t working for the business marketing and lead gen wise. Look at and get to know your numbers eg sales, turnover, conversion rate, cost of sales, ROI and so on. The findings of all of these things can be very useful to base future decisions on.
“Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time” – Henry Ford.
Build your sales pipeline
Of course nurture the current leads you have to eventually convert these into sales. But whilst doing this, and the delivery, keep adding prospects and suspects into this pipeline. Sales and marketing can be a numbers game but remember also quality vs quantity.
Leads in marketing refer to any individual or business within your marketing reach who has interacted with your brand way or has the potential to become a future customer. Eg a referral, someone you met networking, someone who downloaded a lead magnet from your site etc.
Leads then moved into the pipeline or the funnel. This is where you nurture them and nudge them through the stages before buying. Eg a discovery call, then a second call, then a proposal or quote etc.
Knowledge is power so by knowing your numbers, your sales tactics, your marketing strategies and so on, you and your business will be in a much better state to build on. And build a pipeline.
“If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail.” – Jeff Bezos
Research for business growth
Types of research
Research covers a few areas from market research to competitor research to keyword research to researching your marketing or online presence and so on. Research is so useful again to make business and marketing decisions, but also to help identify trends, gaps in the market, where the market is saturated, possible new niche audiences to target and so on.
Auditing your own business
As we alluded to earlier regarding an audit or review, research into your business. Look at leads and the financials as we said, but also look into your competitors, your target audience, your SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) and much more. The market or your business or your audience or your messaging, or in fact all of these areas, may have changed post pandemic and recession, so revisit this all from afresh.
The business world as we know it has changed dramatically over the last few years – with the importance of our digital world, emerging AI and of course since Covid – people work and engage differently. Just 5 years ago, it was more acceptable to pick up the phone and speak to clients and potentials, but since so many of us are working remotely – the rules have changed. Generally, engaging with clients and potentials have to be booked in. In this remote working world – that is so digitally, and AI enhanced, it’s more important than ever to proactively look at ways of engaging with clients in a human way.
At Brilliant and Human, the focus of our work is to understand what clients really want and think about their suppliers – the feedback we receive is often focused on the lack of human communication, the lack of proactivity and engagement and the lack of processes that support this. So, it’s more important than ever to take the time to audit your clients in a human way in order to understand how to engage with your clients and serve them better, in a way that they want and will value to keep them loyal.
Customer research
“Whoever understands the customer best wins!” – Mike Gospe
Another key area of research is your customers. Individually or en masse and qualitative or quantitative. This includes looking at and talking with current clients (happy and not so happy ones), plus lapsed and past customers.
As Bill Gates said – “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
This research can also look at your team and their performance too, in case this can be improved for better results and outcomes.
By auditing or simply by listening to your clients to understand their needs, wants and challenges, you can feed this into your own business. With an audit – you can ask your clients key questions to feed into your marketing and new business strategies. Ask them question to learn:
- Why they love you and buy from you
- What they believe makes you different
- What your strengths and weaknesses are
- How they perceive your business – how would they describe what you do
- What could you do better or what you should avoid
- What services they know you do or don’t!
- And any other services you could offer them to help serve them better…
- How could you help them shine in their role…
By developing your audit with questions that make them feel heard and appreciated – whilst understanding why they buy from you – you can focus your own business and new business with more clarity for future success – especially in the current climate.
Ensure you set processes in place to engage with your clients in a focused and proactive way regularly – from quarterly to yearly. And make sure you utilise this insight into your marketing, new business and overall business strategy.
In summary
By keeping your marketing activity up as best you can, by nurturing your leads and pipeline, and by taking stock and researching, you as a business will be being proactive and helping improve and grow your business for a future of better and easier times.
How can we help you?
If you feel as a business or business/agency owner that you need help with any of these aspects, Pinpoint Marketing and Brilliant and Human are here to help.
Discovery calls – https://pinpointmarketingconsultancy.co.uk/marketing-packages/discovery-call/ and https://www.brilliantandhuman.com/get-in-touch
Marketing audits – https://pinpointmarketingconsultancy.co.uk/marketing-packages/marketing-audit/
Marketing planning and research – https://pinpointmarketingconsultancy.co.uk/marketing-packages/marketing-strategy-planning/
Marketing and positioning – https://www.brilliantandhuman.com/copy-of-pitch-and-retainer-insight
Client research – https://www.brilliantandhuman.com/client-insight-programmes
