Revitalizing The Marketing Plan At Your Business

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For generations, there have been commonalities among the marketing efforts of successful business owners that are worth sharing.  Those successful businesses  have consistently enjoyed yearly increases in revenue an in net income.  These commonalities also reveal concrete, practical business concepts prevalent across all industries, which themselves lean toward business improvement and success:

1. Communicating with today’s customer

The positive results once attached to direct mail marketing are, in the minds of many business owners and marketers, much less than 15 years ago.  As readers know, the proliferation of content online, combined with busier lives, separates us from the physical content we receive in our mailboxes each day.  Direct mail is not a waste of money.  On the contrary, seeing is believing, and while the eyes of your potential customer are actively trained on their online profiles and social sites, there remains an subconscious attachment to a physical piece of paper with a well-heeled display of your business.

Business owners successful in their marketing efforts continue to utilize direct mail as an ancillary arm of the main thrust of their marketing efforts, usually online engagement, or newspaper and magazine advertising.

The ancillary concept is simple: the majority of your future customers are currently online, but they’re all bombarded with content and you need to somehow separate your marketing efforts so that your future customer engages with you.  When you can communicate with them in different ways (ie: online, direct mail, newspaper), they see your efforts on multiple mediums thereby adding credibility to your message.

Marketing experts will say that it takes anywhere between 8 to 12 “communications” before a potential customer will actually exert effort to make contact with you, if they want your product of service at all.  Communicating only through one medium, such as online, becomes stale and boring in the minds of your audience, and the potential customer will recognize this and may consider your practice in a similarly negative manner.

Using multiple mediums refreshes the message, adds credibility to your marketing strategy and your business in the eyes on the potential customer, and over time will result in higher revenue for the business.

2. Consistency in Delivery

We’ve noticed that business owners with consistent yearly increases in revenue and net income take care to consider their marketing efforts and budgets.  They normally consider what will work from the menu of marketing options available, such as:

-Social Site Marketing (Search Engine Optimization)

-Website Marketing

-Direct Mail

-Email Marketing

-Newspaper and Magazine Advertising

-Billboard Advertising

and determine which marketing efforts will result in the highest return on their investment.  The mediums used by individual practitioners will vary depending on the location of the practice.  What we’ve seen over the last 5 years, however, is an emphasis on website marketing and search engine optimization, complemented by direct mail advertising and, in some cases, newspaper advertising.

The key here is that the marketing plan is considered, drawn out, and executed for pre-determined periods of time, usually one year.  This planning approach has 3 main benefits (possibly more):

1. The consideration of “what to do to market the business” is already taken care of, leaving the owner and staff to concentrate more on operations and strategy.

2. There are no individual components to the plan; all are related and serve the same purpose (ie: all have the same message to the targets of the plan).

3. Executing the plan consistently over a pre-determined period provides great data from which to glean valuable insights. After getting more business through the door, this benefit is perhaps the greatest of all – to be able to measure the behavior of your marketing efforts and prospects, and continue that which is good and jettison that which is not working.

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The key to this last benefit is to be consistent.  If the marketing effort is inconsistent, then the reliability of the data gleaned from the marketing effort reduces proportionately.  Insights provided by marketing efforts result in better marketing plans in the future with higher returns on investment for the owner and staff.

3. Workplace Environment

Successful businesses over the long-term – we’ve noticed – invariably are fun places to work in.  Life provides us all with challenges, and sometimes life just takes over.  The environment provided to the staff at successful businesses, however, normally takes on a positive climate, due primarily to the attitude of the owner, the way he/she approaches overseeing the business, and his/her overall state of mind and approach to life.  The attitude of the owner has a tendency to trickle down to the staff, and promotes the environment that the owner ultimately reveals in their own lives.

A positive work environment, in our observations, definitely contributes to increased revenue at the business because customer themselves see this positive attitude, and are more inclined to refer their trusted friends and colleagues to such an environment.

Notice that none of the commonalities mentioned above have anything to do with money – money is a by-product of the traits themselves.  We’ve seen the opposite, however, where the focus on money and profit had the inverse effect on the environment, marketing efforts, and level of consistency at the office.  The decision as to whether or not a business like this is successful depends on ones definition of success.

These traits are what we’ve noticed as we work with business owners to maximize their business profitability.  If you operate a business, we welcome your insights at www.burgesskilpatrick.com or on any of our social sites:

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/BurgessKilpatrick

LinkedIn: Burgess Kilpatrick

Google +: Burgess Kilpatrick

Twitter: @BurgessKilpatrick

and let us know what you think.

Nicholas Kilpatrick is a partner at the accounting firm of Burgess Kilpatrick in Vancouver, B.C.  He specializes in business development, and has worked with business owners to increase profitability at all stages of their businesses.  He can be reached at nkilpatrick@burgesskilpatrick.com or at 604-327-9234.