In Duct Tape Marketing, we are always stressing the core principle of “Strategy Before Tactics”. I believe this is important now as it has ever been. I say that because I also believe it is easier than ever to get caught up in the “marketing idea of the week” syndrome.
Everyday we hear about a new tool that will make it easier to get our message out, easier to connect with customers, and easier to sell more stuff. The problem is, without a strategy, every idea sounds like it “could work” and if we are not careful, we can spend all of our time chasing shiny objects without actually being effective in marketing our business.
Your marketing strategy lays the foundation for everything else you will be doing in your marketing (and your business). It defines who you serve, what problems you solve, and how you solve them differently from everyone else.
Then comes the tricky part – putting your strategy into action. In order to get from strategy to implementation, I believe every professional service firm needs the following components in their marketing system:
- Marketing Content – that is educational, builds trust, and a system for publishing it consistently.
- Lead Generation Tactics
- Inbound tactics – these are all of the tactics (SEO, link building, local search, social media, etc.) that help you “get found” by people who are looking for the products and services you offer.
- Outbound tactics- while inbound marketing gets the lion’s share of the press these days, there is still a place for outbound marketing – as long as it follows the 2-step or direct response approach.
- Follow Up System – more complex and\or expensive your products and services tend to have longer buying cycles. It’s important to make sure that once someone finds you, you maintain your “top of mind” status so that when they are ready to buy, they remember you.
- Technology tools – can help us be more efficient with our time and resources. Technology can help us be more effective, but it won’t do the job by itself. Technology touches overlaps with all of the other items on this list so perhaps it shouldn’t be a separate item. I do believe that the fewer of these tools you have and the more the work together, the better off you will be.
- Analytics & Reporting – In order to be effective, your marketing system needs to have feedback loops built in so you know what’s working, what isn’t, and what to do about it.
- Review Process – Marketing systems, like businesses, are not built overnight. The only way (IMO) to implement a long term marketing plan while being flexible enough to handle the day to day challenges that arise in business, is to have a well defined planning and review process that you follow on a consistent basis. If you want accountability in marketing, you need a standardized review process.
The other big piece to getting all of this implemented is having an integrated web presence that acts as your marketing hub and ties these components together.
I also believe you need a sales system, but that’s a little outside of the scope of this post.
Did I miss anything? I’ll be expanding on each of these items in upcoming posts, so let me know what you think.
