'Creating highly leveraged marketing strategies' seems to be a vastly overused phrase. It's really very simple.
A problem that many business owners face is the challenge to create highly leveraged marketing strategies within their business. We should be focused on areas in the business where we can do the work once and benefit from our work over and over again. That’s the definition of Leverage.
There is gold to be mined in your business simply by systematizing many of your regular, routine processes. It does not require fancy solutions, just the discipline to document your processes, make them repeatable, train your team and require that everyone follow the process. The outcome is a set of business processes that delivers the same consistent level of quality to the customer.
We are going to focus on Marketing Strategies. Why focus here you ask? Here’s the simple answer. If we want to have consistent messaging and exposure for our business, we need to make our marketing efforts repeatable and self-sustaining.
I know this has never happened to you, but let me give you a typical scenario:
A business owner spends a significant amount of time marketing and promoting their business only to be so successful that they land several new customers. Their workload increases and soon they focus the majority of their time on fulfilling their new customers orders. Meanwhile, they are not doing much marketing and promoting. After a short period of time, the business owner looks up to find their business is slowing down, so they go back out and market heavily once again. Again, they secure more business, become overwhelmed and focus on delivering their product or service to the customer. Once again, without the consistent marketing, the new business slows down and they find themselves in a cycle that continues to repeat itself.
Sound familiar? Go ahead, point to someone else you know who lets this happen all the time. Now look at your hand as you are pointing. Count the finger pointing back at you. Yep – there are 4 of them pointing directly to the guilty person! Admit it – we all fall into this trap. I know I am guilt. So what is the fix? Build leverage and systems into your marketing processes!
You have 6-8 strategies that you are using to expand awareness of your business, right? If not, go re-read the article on Lead Generation. Every business should have at least 6-8 marketing strategies in place at all times. This eliminates variability and creates consistency in your messaging.
Now take each of your marketing strategies and ask yourself, how could this marketing strategy work on a consistent basis without my having to personally be involved or engaged in the activity? Come up with 4 or 5 ideas for each strategy. If you are the only one who knows how that particular strategy works, then one of your actions will be to document the step-by-step processes you take to do it. If you consistently do a mailing or run an advertisement, how can you systematize it so that the mailings get sent or the ad gets placed without fail on a regular basis?
In some cases, you may need to involve others on your team or assign the specific activities to someone outside of your business. If you are doing search engine optimization but are relying on your personal skills in this area to accomplish it, ask yourself “Is my time better utilized optimizing my SEO or meeting with prospects and landing new customers?” I often times see business owners who are personally involved in the execution of their marketing strategies rather than focusing their efforts on meeting new prospects and landing new clients. Why? Maybe it’s because it is easier for them to focus on the marketing strategies. Maybe they don’t like doing the “selling”.
You need to determine where your efforts are most optimally used in your business. What is your highest value add. Once you find that, then focus on that and put systems in place to handle the other activities. Businesses that Leverage their Marketing activities are more likely to maintain a consistent flow of new prospects and new customers. Their business growth occurs more predictably than those who turn the marketing faucet on and off as their time and resources allow. Which type of business would you rather have? One that is consistently growing or one that is constantly up and down? Let me guess…
So, time to get after it. Write down your marketing strategies and for each one, come up with 4-5 ideas on how you can continue to do each strategy with you having to personally be involved in them. Document. Delegate. Use your Default Calendar. Create Systems.
