A previous post I shared was on what your marketing in the foundation stage needs to strategically focus on. With breakeven systematically achieved, let’s look at how to become more profitable which is the goal of the self-sustainability stage of the growth cycle.
Marketing’s primary objective here will be to generate leads. Often this is a struggle for small business owners, but it doesn’t have to be. These are the 3 things you need to do to strategically align you marketing with achieving consistent profitability:
- Calculate and monitor your marketing efficiency and effectiveness
- Scale your current marketing plan based your marketing key performance indicators (KPI)
- Add marketing campaigns to your marketing mix to meet any shortfalls
Calculating Your Marketing Efficiency and Effectiveness
These to KPI’s are not foreign to you if you are Tuning Your Revenue Engine. They are 2 of the critical marketing calculations. If you are unsure how to do these calculations check out our training program Calculating Your Revenue Engine’s Horsepower.
Marketing efficiency tells you how well your marketing resources are working for you. You want this number to be low. The lower the better as it tells you it is costing you very little to generate leads for your product or service.
Marketing effectiveness on the other hand tells you how well your message is targeted. That is, are you saying the right things to the right people to generate leads. If you find your marketing effectiveness is too low then our Developing Your Brand Position will help you hone your target market and message to that market.
Managing these two indicators correctly can help you become more profitable. They also provide you with the information you need for the next step in the process.
Scale Your Current Marketing Plan: How to Become More Profitable
Often small business owners skip this step. As a result they lose out on a lot of extra leads, and end up spending way more than is necessary on their marketing.
Based on your KPI’s you should be able to determine how much you need to turn up the spigot to hit your lead goal. Look at the reality of this and your budget to determine if this is realistic or not.
I am not advocating only doing what you have been doing, but maximize your return on investment (ROI) here before you begin testing new ideas. If the goal is to be profitable you want to minimize expenses. So, do what you can using what you know works, then move on to trying the new stuff!
Add to Your Marketing Mix
Sales is the name of the game when it comes to business growth. You can’t sell if you’re not generating leads.
At some point you will exhaust what your current marketing efforts can generate. As you will add additional campaigns make sure that they are part of an integrated marketing plan that brings in the additional leads you need. But, wait to begin this process until you’ve completed the first two steps.
As you add new campaigns you will test and monitor as necessary. More often than not your marketing efficiency and effectiveness will be worse than your other efforts. This is why I recommend waiting to move into this realm, and do so slowly and cautiously.
I frequently find small business owners move into new marketing efforts and slide back into the foundation stage as a result. They can’t figure out why. But, when we check their marketing KPI’s it is clear that they are generating leads less efficiently as they were. This means it’s costing more to get the business. More expense means less profit. So, move carefully into this aspect of the self-sustainability stage and make sure you can measure it as you do.
For those of you that find yourselves at the doorstep to this growth stage, join us to learn how to begin applying Tuning Your Revenue Engine to your business by applying the BGS Business Accelerator Masterclass. Just click the button below to register for our next scheduled Masterclass.
[…] your marketing objectives in the survival stage were successfully accomplished you should be in good shape. Two things should be working for your […]
There are various types of aiftliafe marketing techniques to make money, but the most common way is to join a company’s aiftliafe program and start getting people to go to their website through link you may have on either a basic website, blog, or social media site etc The links that you provide for people click on to go to an aiftliafe company’s site tell the aiftliafe vendor’s what web site sent them the customer and will track how much commission the aiftliafe marketer will get (which usually based on sales) and will send payment to the aiftliafe who directed the customer to them.Many aiftliafes who are profitable at this business will use their websites to harvest emails legitimately first. They do this by providing good content on their sites that readers are interested in. They then will ask for an email address to which they might send a free e-book, have a newsletter to subscribe too, or perhaps have a very educational video that can be watched. Many good marketers will then send good legitimate content to their potential customers that is useful to them, then soft sell sell them a product that will give them a commission for sending their buyer to the seller’s site.The Super Basic Steps of Affiliate marketing in 5 steps:1. Put up a website2. Sign up for an aiftliafe program that you feel has products that you have the ability to promote well3. Add the aiftliafe links that are provided from the aiftliafe program you signed up with to your website.4. Continuously work to Optimize your site to be found in the major search engines and get visitors5. Find more products and keep promoting and building your siteAffiliate marketing is a REAL business. If you take it seriously and work hard at it, I honestly feel anyone can succeed. It’s hard work, but well worth it. I heard that 99% who attempt internet business of people never make any money, and it’s mostly because they quit too soon.There are many books you can get at local libraries that can get you educated on the subject. I recommend watching YouTube videos by lisa3876, my wife says she was the easiest for her to understand the concepts and really excited her to try and get started.By the way, when doing your research, be warned that aiftliafe marketing educational websites are usually trying to sell you something and can be VERY persuasive. Try not to buy anything if you can help it unless you are 100% ready to proceed and the seller has a minimum of a 30 day return policy so you have ample time to really review it. I’ve spent thousands on my education to build my aiftliafe business and can tell you that if you work at it consistently, it can be done.Good luck!
[…] Marketing […]
[…] your marketing objectives in the survival stage were successfully accomplished you should be in good shape. Two things should be working for your […]
[…] new customers requires an increase to your marketing efforts. In a future posting, you will learn how to determine the marketing effort needed to find new customers and hit your target. Until then, happy […]