The biggest challenge facing most businesses when it comes to marketing is “being specific.”
The Art of Being Specific:
This applies to most everything across the board, but the three we typically start with when working with clients are:
- Defining their ideal customer
- Identifying their differentiator
- Determining how best to communicate with their target audience
The biggest mistake a business can make is to pursue a philosophy that “everyone” is our customer. While it may be true that most people or businesses could use your product or service, if you try to market to “everyone,” you end up marketing to “no one.”
It also often results in the largest waste of marketing dollars for multiple reasons.
This can be a hurdle for some business owners at first, because “being specific” may feel like they’re eliminating a large portion of the market. The reality is that it’s less about eliminating anything, and, more about focusing on a portion of the market they’ve defined as their best fit. This optimizes their marketing spend and, over time, can result in a much greater ROI than their previous efforts.
We work through this process with our clients to make sure they’re positioned to speak to, pursue and win the types of clients they most want to serve.
Review, Revise, Rinse and Repeat:
Once all the groundwork is done, the key is to get started . . . and, not stop. No successful strategy is “set it and forget it.” This doesn’t mean you have to obsess over it . . . not at all. But, you do need to schedule time on a regular basis to review what’s working, what is not working, what changes may have occurred, etc. and, then, if necessary, revise what needs to be adjusted and move forward. In short, on a regular basis you need to “Review, Revise, Rinse and Repeat.”
We meet with clients regularly to discuss results and have business owners to share the feedback they’ve received from clients and customers. We’re then able to work together to identify ways to further optimize their efforts to provide even better results moving forward.
Consumer Psychology:
It’s important to remember to think like a customer. Some sources report that, on average, adults make around 35,000 decisions per day. If you account for the amount of time the average person sleeps, that means you’re making about 2,000 decisions per hour during the day. Most of the “decisions” or “choices” are not necessarily conscious efforts. Many are based on habits, routines, reflexes, etc. For example, when we drive to work or the store, we know the way; we don’t consider that every intersection presents multiple choices. To ease the burden on our psyche, our minds often take shortcuts to make decisions more quickly. There are countless ways we encounter these types of things every day and we don’t even realize it.
The same way a mountain stream flows downhill, through the path of least resistance, so too, often we are inclined to do the same. When possible, it’s important to remember this in each step of your customer’s journey. You can do something that garners all the attention you could hope for from potential clients . . . but, if this process hasn’t been thought through thoroughly, the result may not be what you intended. Don’t make this costly mistake. Take the necessary steps to remove barriers and make it “easy” for your ideal customers to do business with you.
We take the time to walk through the entire customer journey with our clients and review several of the most common factors that could have an effect at each decision point. In so doing, we try to accommodate the natural tendencies of their ideal customers to make the process as seamless as possible.
