Ultimate Guide to Effective Marketing and Increased Sales€¦ · MARKETING STRATEGY CONSULTING ......

Ultimate Guide to Effective Marketing and Increased Sales

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TACTICS WITHOUT STRATEGY: AN EXCUSE FOR BAD MARKETING .............3How sHould you cHoose your marketing tactics? .............................................................5

wHat to watcH for wHen cHoosing your next marketing expert. .......................................5

wHy do so many businesses fail? wHy do so many never reacH tHeir full potential? ..........6

SALES & MARKETING PROCESS IN THE DIGITAL AGE ....................................7understanding wHy people buy ......................................................................................7

How a salesperson can excel in tHe digital world. ......................................................... 10

MARKETING SEGMENTATION: FIRST ACTION IN YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY ........................................................................................................11wHy do businesses and tHeir marketing agencies segment? ............................................. 12

is marketing about tHe product or tHe customer need? .................................................. 13

How do we manage tHe complexity of wHat is our customer? ........................................ 13

wHat are tHe various types of marketing segmentation? ................................................ 13

How do you apply marketing segmentation to target marketing? ................................... 15

How do you know if your marketing segmentation is good enougH and accurate? ......... 16

MARKETING STRATEGY CONSULTING ..........................................................16

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TACTICS WITHOUT STRATEGY: AN EXCUSE FOR BAD MARKETINGThe marketing department in any organization has never been regarded as the most strategic or methodical piece of a company. With that be-ing said, certified digital marketing expert is now a term that is thrown around like a badge of expertise by many who have little experience or formal training in the science that is branding and marketing – or the sales process.

Successful marketing takes both discipline (strategy – a written plan) and execution (tactics – the people and the tools).

Having a well-founded strategy is necessary to win the battle for your customer’s attention, and win the war. Strategy and tactics must go hand in hand for a business to achieve a measure of true momentum, however, an effective strategy must be in place before any set of tactics make sense.

Choosing your marketing tactics without a well-defined marketing strategy is bad marketing. Creating or modifying a brand without sup-porting data is even worse!

One rant is constantly repeated right here at Viral Solutions, within our team meetings as well as in our published content:

Marketing strategy Must supersede Marketing tactics. Marketing

strategy does not need to be coMplicated. Marketing tactics

without Marketing strategy is the noise before defeat!

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WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MARKETING STRATEGY AND MARKETING TACTICS?

We get asked this all the time. Mostly because it comes out of our mouths and off our fingers 24/7. To understand the point of this article we must define the difference between strategy and tactics.

Marketing strategy is the game plan you use to win in the marketplace, it is your playbook for the playing field, it is how you size up and identify your competition and quantify your niche.

Marketing tactics are how you deliver and execute on your strategy to maximize and optimize your opportunity. Marketing tactics are the tools, widgets, gadgets and methods by which you reach your customer. Strategy tells us which tactics to use. Tactics are how we implement our strategy.

“In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell.” ~Jack Welch, Former Chairman and CEO of General ElectricYour marketing strategy needs to be clear explanation of who needs you, why they need you, how you’re going to get there, NOT where or what you will utilize to do so. To become the best at what you do is not marketing strategy – it’s an objective. To serve your customers well, with diligence, integrity, common values is NOT marketing strategy – it’s mis-sion. To double your sales or the number of new customers is NOT a marketing strategy – it’s a goal.

overly tactical Marketing Managers have no clue where, who or what they are going after.



The last ten years has seen a mind-boggling array of new tools and techniques built into software. Do not misunderstand our point – we love them for their labor savings. But they are not a replacement for long-term planning. Overly tactical marketers who select their mode of implementation and execution, before any perming research or gathering data, with poorly trained staff have inun-dated today’s small business owner and presented themselves as mar-keting gurus.

In the world of marketing you have to believe in a systematic and me-thodical approach. Anything less is going back to the dark ages.

Research, supportive data and a strategy that is unique to a brand is traditional in the world of marketing and just because most marketing tactics today are digital, does not mean strategy has died as an art!

Recently I was asked to coach a client without any understanding of who their customer was, what they do or why the audience needed them. I was asked to review their marketing automation campaigns and provide advanced tactical ideas. Uh how do I do that? Instead I spent days asking questions that gave me an insight into the lack of strategy. To say the least, I was not a good fit.

“The company without a strategy is willing to try anything.” ~Michael Porter, Professor at Harvard Business SchoolMarketing tactics are certainly an important part of the marketing plan, after all it is the delivery mechanism. However, all this wooing and ooo-hing over the supposed wizardry that is social media, popups, virtual reality, mass content clutter, video hype, SEO, mobile optimization, site speed, CVO, user experience, CTR and campaign building through soft-ware automation is not the starting point but it is absolutely with-out question important.

HOW SHOULD YOU CHOOSE YOUR MARKETING TACTICS?

First research who your perfect customer is and create a segmentation map with demographics and psychographics. This will help you know what tactic to use in order to find where they hangout.

Next, learn and understand that segmentation is how we go forward



with our marketing to position our brand for optimal success. In order to know if our success is optimized, we set clear objectives for each tar-get audience we segment and support that optimization with hard data. This removes the feel good emotional decision process.

Methodically mapping the marketing process with strategy and then determining which marketing tactics are working by analyzing data is an art and the only way to know what is working and what is not.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR WHEN CHOOSING YOUR NEXT MARKETING EXPERT.

Avoid any marketing consultant or guru who says or believes:

• That any group of people born in a certain era is how they solely define your target. Tens of millions of people will fail any test of segmentation.

• Avoid any consultant that is happy to advise without data. A de-cent marketing consultant will ask for significant data, or research known data, to understand your brand from the targeted custom-er’s point of view.

• That gut feel or knee jerk recommendations without testing, seg-mentation, strategy, data collection is their foundation.

• They have multiple concepts for your brand to try rather than es-tablishing what it is you stand for.

• A trusted advisor….. UNLESS this is earned over time. It is not some-thing you can purchase. You want someone who is willing and able to tell you what you may not want to hear.

• A standardized approach for your company. One that contains some acronym like BOMB (bend over marketing believers). Your marketing strategy should be unique to your brand.

• That a long dissertation on the prowess or their association with a set of tools, gadgets or tactics is what makes them a marketing ex-pert. That only makes them proficient at the use of some method.



WHY DO SO MANY BUSINESSES FAIL? WHY DO SO MANY NEVER REACH THEIR FULL POTENTIAL?

Do you know how you plan on winning in your respective marketplace? Low price or strategic differentiation? Those are your two fundamental choices. That’s it! Typically, a low-cost strategy is focused on reaching customers where you are offering a commodity, your target audience is quite broad and you are well capitalized to buy a market. A differentia-tion strategy focuses around meeting a specific market’s needs well.

Do you have an abundance of time, but must bootstrap your new busi-ness due to a lack of capital? Do you have a limited amount of market-ing expertise and knowledge but a sizable budget? The idea here is that even with a scarce amount of resources, you can find combinations that produce good results.

Creativity is fundamental to business growth. exeCuting upon a vision, an idea or a theory is hard work and requires researCh, data and a strategiC plan.

“Ideas are cheap. Ideas are easy. Ideas are common. Everybody has ideas. Ideas are highly, highly overvalued. Execution is all that matters.” ~Casey Neistat. Co-Founder of BemeAn organization that does an excellent job with marketing tactics is one who sets a clear vision, defines the strategic target with a multitude of demographics and psychographics, adheres to that and encourages all members of the various teams that work on the brand message, tactical marketing delivery methods and customer communication in a uniform way that clearly articulates the overall brand idea, values and unique proposition.

“One of the signals of a bad consultant is a comfort with mak-ing big decisions with no data and one of the most reassuring things you can experience from a good consulting firm is a



resolute refusal to avoid knee-jerk recommendations without data first being collected.”~Mark Ritson, Managing Director of Facebook Australia

SALES & MARKETING PROCESS IN THE DIGITAL AGESales and marketing, even in the digital marketing age, must coexist and understand the role each other play in your business. Whether your business is entirely online and uses eCommerce or your click-and-mor-tar sales team uses a mix of physical sales and online lead generation, the ubiquitous Sales Manager and Marketing Officer must work togeth-er.

the sales proCess in the digital marketing age has Changed but the psyChology of the buyer has not. the suCCessful salesperson has upgraded their toolbox.

The role marketing and advertising plays has changed but the need to generate leads has not. The uniqueness of the digital age is the lead source. Did the prospec-tive customer initiate contact from the physical sales process (walk into the facility, phoned in, met at live event) and the online sales process (filled out a web form, engaged via social me-dia or called after reviewing your web site)?

UNDERSTANDING WHY PEOPLE BUY

It is important to understand the role of on-line sales copy, the tone of the message during the



‘pitch’ and the need for any business to understand the reasoning be-hind it all. Here is what every business needs to understand whether they sell through digital media or not:

• Almost every business that offers goods and services believes that it is the best at what they do and they have the best product for the price offered. Seriously, who does not believe that? All businesses believe they are better than their competitors. But that is part of the problem. Too many make it about themselves. News flash: Nobody cares about your offer until you prove you can solve a problem in a reasonable fashion.

• Customers love to buy but hate to be sold. The customer buys to fulfill a need. They have a problem to solve. They have a desire to look good. It is about them, not you, even if you have the one and only totally cool brand.

• Continuous returning customers are the ultimate of what all busi-nesses seek even though they spend the majority of their money getting new ones. When your business has a great following in a community of advocates you hit nirvana. Most likely you have made it easy to buy from your business and the customer learned that your product or service does more than what your pitch said it would do.

What’s the problem? That bullet point list is commons sense! Right?

The problem is that most marketers, during the sales process, incessant-ly talk about the product or service (first point).

Those marketers who are more well-intentioned and experienced hop on the community of coolness bandwagon (third point). Not good!

When in fact the only thing the customer cares about is their needs, their wants, their goals, their objectives and that their problem is being solved!

“Never confuse the reason people buy with the reason people stay.” ~Dave Ramsey.


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This is true with romantic relationships, people in debt and the sales process. Your sales and marketing agency must know the difference. Unfortunately, most do not.

Most marketing agencies became such through a strong background in IT (geeks, nerds, coders, developers) or a strong background in design (web site builders, graphic artists, people that get into fonts, images and colors). The best marketing agencies have all those folks in-house (not contracted agents) and their leadership is rooted in understanding the complexities of a business’s financials, heavily experienced in grass roots sales and have led sizeable organizations from a C-level.Your sales team must know the difference between the digital sales pro-cess and the physical sales process.

By now most businesses own a CRM and an automated marketing soft-ware platform of some kind. Most businesses have mapped the online lead generation process even if that is only with a basic contact web form or lead magnet.

However, very few have trained their sales team on the huge differ-ence between the digital and physical sales process.

In the physical sales process (live events, face-to-face, brick-and-mortar, phone calls) the salesperson has an edge. The salesperson controls the conversation and can evaluate the voice inflections and body language.

In the digital sales process, the salesperson needs to understand their role is now to answer product and service questions because more than likely the prospective customer has done extensive research and has made up their mind.

“The point is that consumer habits change – and often shift with advancements in technology.” ~Digital Marketing Institute.

Social Selling has changed the sales process landscape just like bill-boards did, yellow pages did and telemarketing did. Social selling has gained the attention of sales professionals looking to succeed.



There is no shortage of digital technologies to choose from that can help to improve the selling power of any business. However, plug and play is not a strategy! There needs to be a digital selling strategy in place. Entering data into a CRM that blasts emails is not a strategy, that is an illegal marketing tactic! Instead, a well thought out marketing strate-gy and an educated sales team, that is guided by the organization as a whole, will ensure the digital assets are aligned with sales activities that drive traffic and revenue.

HOW A SALESPERSON CAN EXCEL IN THE DIGITAL WORLD.

Just as the top sales professionals and marketing agencies excelled 50 years ago is much like they do today. The top 20% outwork and outthink the rest! The bottom 80% are still reading a printed newspaper most of the morning just waiting for the leads to ask to buy, in other words glori-fied order takers!

In the digital world, sales professionals need to learn and perfect certain skills to become a successful digital selling machine.

• Research. The view of the customer is critical as discussed previ-ously (Understanding Why People Buy). Research their problem, their needs and their wants! Do not assume or take for grant-ed. 65% of companies who exceed lead and revenue goals have updated their buyer personas within the last six months. More im-portantly they have trained their sales professional what to do with that data!

• Constant content creation. Since most buyers today do their re-search on the product or service they need, finding facts and valu-able information is critical to the buyer’s research. Therefore, hav-ing content that answers the questions the prospective buyer has are paramount and the need for such is non-stop. “55% of all buyers do their research via social media networks – so sharing content that speaks to a target audience is essential – Marketo.”

• Social Media Tactics. There are many social channels to choose from. Being everywhere is often not practical. Knowing where your buyer hangs out is critical. Knowing each social channel functional-



ity and capabilities is an absolute must.

• Knowing what the data says and does not say. A salesperson that can analyze behavioral data is a true weapon! This sales team member can be proactive and consumer friendly. Just as in the physical sales process where a relationship is valued, the digital customer has predictable behaviors and the true sales professional can pick up on that by analyzing data.

• Transparency and Trust. The consumer today wants to know it all before they sign on the bottom line. The sales professional that understands the digital media world and uses it to their advantage, just as the smart shopper does, is the one who gains trust through transparency. Nurturing a customer online can go a long way in building trust and ensuring customers know as much about a seller and their compa-ny as possible. “94 percent of all consumers are more likely to be loy-al to a brand when it commits to full transparency. … moms reported that they would pay more for a product with full transparency.” – Inc Magazine

• Critical Thinking. Consumers are looking for solutions to their problems, they do not care much about the business or the brand unless it satisfies their needs. The tools of the online trade exist for the true sales professional to monitor the online conversations based upon keywords and competitors. Tools such as Social Men-tion, Feedly and Buzz Sumo empower sales teams by keeping track of such conversations. This is how the true sales professional moni-tors and can identify issues, pain points and recommendation re-quests.

In summary, very little has changed in three decades of selling. Just the tools and the form they exist. The top sales professional has adapted. The top organizations do not just establish a web site and buy an auto-mated marketing platform. They do just as they have done for decades, they teach, train, mentor, lead and continuously adapt to understand their customers’ needs, wants, desires and methods of making deci-sions. Software and the associated technology are just tools!



MARKETING SEGMENTATION: FIRST ACTION IN YOUR MARKETING STRATEGYWhat is marketing segmentation and why is it so crucial to marketing success? tHe common mistake made by most marketers is tHat most use marketing segmen-tation as an average of all data. tHis tHen leads tHe organization to communicate and market to tHe masses on average, wHen in fact tHere isn’t an average customer, tHere are only groups of customers witH commonalities.

Segmentation of customers into groups leads us to understand that differences exist in why people buy from an organization even when it is the same product line. When segmentation is properly applied to groups of customers within an organization, the organization begins to appreciate diversity and then can strategically begin to market to such groups.

All customers are not created equal. Many organizations experience a large percentage of revenue from a small percentage of their custom-ers. Knowing such information allows all organizations to concentrate its attention and maximize its return.

WHY DO BUSINESSES AND THEIR MARKETING AGENCIES SEGMENT?

In order to orient your organization correctly to the market, marketing segmentation is a must. More importantly there exists a conflict in every organization between leadership that demands revenue, wants to sell anything to anyone, maximize profit and the marketing agency that rec-ognizes that the consumer buys based upon their relationship, connec-tion or emotional need. This balance between profit and the variances within customer groups makes marketing segmentation a daily function of successful organizations.

Segmentation of the market is the first action in any organization’s mar-keting strategy. Marketing segmentation is then followed by targeting and then positioning of the brand into a niche.



“Psychographic segmentation has been out of favor for a while despite its obvious usefulness, but combining it with behavioral and addressable data creates a potent mix that could make targeting supremely effective.” Mark Riston at Marketing Week

IS MARKETING ABOUT THE PRODUCT OR THE CUSTOMER NEED?

Proper market orientation compels the company to focus on the needs of the customer rather than from the perspective of the products and services they want to sell to the consumer. Marketing to the customer need is not just about sending information that explains the product or service. It is also much more sophisticated than just designing an avatar. The marketing avatar is a great start, but that customer does not actual-ly exist, it is a hypothetical customer that needs to be killed in organiza-tions. True marketing involves market research and interviewing actual customers.

Hypothetical customers, or marketing avatars, are wonderful to build plans around and they make the business feel good about itself. The av-atar always wants what you offer, they never complain, they do exactly what you want and they never surprise you.

Organizations that first design an avatar and then correctly focus on the real customer that they attract are those who learn how to do true research and gain an awakening into the needs of their true customer. However, this is when the organization discovers the complexity of their true customer and begins to believe in the fallacy that research and cus-tomer interviews are not worth their time. When in fact the complexity always existed, and was always there and will never leave unless it is methodically brought into the fold of the operation in the form of mar-keting segmentation, marketing research and marketing orientation. Research reveals complexity and research reveals the customer needs from their perspective.



HOW DO WE MANAGE THE COMPLEXITY OF WHAT IS OUR CUSTOMER?

We do so through segmentation. Segmentation allows the organization to manage and move the market. A great example is the automotive industry. Almost all automotive manufacturers have brand variances of the same vehicle that appeals to different income brackets, varying style differences for certain gender tastes and features that appeal to those with unique behaviors in how they use their vehicle.

WHAT ARE THE VARIOUS TYPES OF MARKETING SEGMENTATION?

• Demographic: “Demographic segmentation is market segmenta-tion according to age, race, religion, gender, family size, ethnicity, income, and education. Demographics can be segmented into sev-eral markets to help an organization target its consumers more accurately.” – Study.com

• Firmographic: “Firmographics are descriptive attributes of firms that can be used to aggregate individual firms into meaningful mar-ket segments. They describe businesses, nonprofits, and govern-mental entities. Essentially, firmographics are to businesses and or-ganizations what demographics are to people.” – The Wiglaf Journal

• Psychographic: “Psychographic segmentation divides consumers into sub-groups based on shared characteristics. As the adjective ‘psychographic’ suggests, those characteristics relate to psycholog-ical influences, including subconscious or conscious beliefs, moti-vations, and priorities. Very broadly, psychographic segmentation applies behavioral and social sciences to marketing research. In other words, psychographic segmentation focuses on what makes individual consumers tick—their attitudes, values, personalities, lifestyles, and communication preferences.” – Merriam Webster

• Behavioral: “Behavioral segmentation is a marketing strategy based on actual consumer buying behavior. It divides the market into groups of customers according to their knowledge of, attitude to-wards, use of or response to a product.” – Wordstream


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By segmenting your market, your customers and your offerings begin to develop sections of customers that have commonalities. This combi-nation of demographics, firmographics, psychographic and behavioral segmentation enables the organization to truly understand the needs of its customers and why they need certain products or services. This is an art! By cutting your customers into segmented groups you find simi-larities and you begin to learn how to communicate with those groups. Marketing segmentation is the key to marketing strategy. Marketing strategy is impossible without correctly segmenting your customers.

Market segmentation is about the market and is not about the firm. Market segmentation is also not to be confused with target marketing. Target marketing is the tactic employed once market segmentation is done correctly. Target marketing will fail or at least underperform if seg-mentation is completed incorrectly. Segment then garget and then dif-ferentiate!

HOW DO YOU APPLY MARKETING SEGMENTATION TO TARGET MARKETING?

First let’s make sure we have an understanding about the various seg-mented groups derived from the segmentation methods.

You know you have your market properly segmented when you have groups of customers that fall into specific clusters within all four of the types of marketing segmentation methods. Example: 45 -55 year old women living in northern Virginia [Demographic], they work for the gov-ernment [Firmographic], they have heavy interests in everything digital or online [Psychographic] and they tend to buy with a credit card at re-tail stores after shopping online [Behavioral].

In order to put this research and the subsequent segmented customers into an actionable target marketing plan an organization must identify the steps each segment takes to engage with an organization’s products or services. Here is what you need:

1. A list of all the variables.

2. A way to measure or rate each variable or meaningful action.



3. Method to gather cumulative ratings of actions and behavior.

4. A name for each segmented customer group.

5. An educated estimate of the number of prospective customers in each group.

6. A refined value attributed to each segmented group in terms of rev-enue.

7. Estimated current market share and goal for your market share X years from now.

Once the organization has gathered all this data it now needs to discuss and understand that each segmented audience group has influence over the other and each group has some degree of overflow into anoth-er. Understanding this relationship is important to your overall target marketing. Now that the organization understands the dynamics of the segmented groups and how they relate and influence each other it can better engage with them and evaluate the true size of the market they wish to gain customers from.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOUR MARKETING SEGMENTATION IS GOOD ENOUGH AND ACCURATE?

The organization’s marketing department and leadership needs to hon-estly answer some questions.

Did we include the entire market with every type of potential customer (remember we are not targeting yet)?

Do I have customers in more than one segmented group?

If so go back to square one because the segmentation will fail. Are the segmented groups well defined as per definition?

Are the names of the segmented groups based upon behavior? that is important because customer service teams and sales people will re-member names tied to behavior.

Are the segmented groups sized and value correctly?



Lastly and most importantly, when the mar-keting team shows the sales team the mar-

keting segmentation groups and names, what is there reaction? Can your sales

team pull names off the top of their head that identify with each group?

Ultimately marketing segmentation gives the organization a true vision of the market as a whole. Segments should speak to you as to who to tar-

get so an organization can now make quality decisions when they expend

assets to acquire and hang on to custom-ers. Remember this is not about the orga-

nization, this is about your customer. If you do this correctly, and your competitor is as smart as

your organization – their targeting will look much like yours. This then is when you must differentiate yourself.

Segment then Target and then Differentiate!

MARKETING STRATEGY CONSULTINGIf after reading all of the above you are feeling more overwhelmed than relieved, you may want to think about looking for assistance from a Mar-keting Strategy Consultant.The most consistent marketers use hard data to drive segmentation, tar-geting, positioning, offering development, branding, distribution, pricing, and integrated marketing communications. Through this analysis, re-search, and planning, we will ensure your company has built a rock-solid foundation for growing revenue and market share. Ready to get started? Have questions? Curious what it would look like to do an all-day on site deep dive of your marketing strategy?



Need more information how to develop effective marketing tactics in order to increase sales?

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Ultimate Guide to Effective Marketing and Increased Sales€¦ · MARKETING STRATEGY CONSULTING ......

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