Why bother to do extra work when you don’t have to? When focusing on your marketing, the end goal is to make a profit, AKA a sale and if you can invest less time while making more money that would be worth it, right?
People will walk by your store, or hear about your business from word of mouth, and naturally become customers. You have a great product after all. But, you and I both know it’s not that simple. You may have to network with other entrepreneurs to get your name out there. You may have to advertise. You might even need to do a market analysis to know how your product stacks up against your competitors. But, if there is another thing we know, it’s that spending less time doing tedious marketing tasks, and spending more time securing those sales in your business feels more productive.
So, how can you spend less time with your marketing while still making a consistent effort to promote, market, advertise, and position your products to increase your sales? The answer: You implement marketing systems to make your life easier.
And, before you say “ya, ya, I tried that, it doesn’t work…” Let’s review a few concepts.
First, what is a marketing system?
A marketing system is an automated process put into place to achieve maximum performance while minimizing the hands-on time it takes to complete a task. It’s a step-by-step routine that your team might do manually at the moment but, that can be repeated, measured, and tracked in your marketing procedures. Creating these routines will save you time and energy on repeatable tasks or projects while ensuring consistency whether you execute these systems manually or automate them fully or partially. The automation of processes when possible helps eliminate human error, and as it is then executed consistently you can make small edits to increase your efficiencies even further. As time is saved in the process, your human team can then focus on other aspects of your business or you might just eliminate the cost of extra resources entirely to increase your profit margins.
The bottom line though is that regardless of whether or not you automate a process, your business will struggle to grow if you’re not analyzing your marketing system and fine-tuning them for optimal results.
Each step of a process can be improved if we take the time to streamline it, analysis, optimize it, and execute each optimization consistently. Once you find a marketing process that works in your industry you don’t have to start from scratch every single time you launch a new product, new service, or announce an upcoming event.
In case you’re not convinced yet and are wondering what other benefits there are to using a marketing system, know that the right system…
Actively develops a plan to put in place.
You know the feeling of staring at a blank piece of paper, or a blank screen and just thinking to yourself, “Where do I even start?!” With a marketing system in place, the hard part of planning out your marketing strategy is already done for common marketing tasks you do on a daily, or monthly basis. Knowing the steps to follow increases your efficiency and productivity so you can focus on other, more important tasks. Think of it like your morning routine. When you lay out your clothes for the next day and make the kids’ lunches before going to bed, that’s less to think about when you roll out of bed. That lets you focus your energy on other things. It’s the same concept but, in relation to your marketing. A marketing system also makes it easier to coordinate a similar message or brand recognition to your customers (and other employees) which builds brand awareness and brand trust when things are done the same way each time.
You’ve heard the word delegation… if you have a step-by-step process, you can document it, and train others to do it just right every. single. time.
You’ll be able to see where you need to improve your customers’ journey to make a sale.
If 95% percent of your website traffic clicks away on a certain page, that should come up as a red flag. Having these results in front of you will show when something may not be functioning properly or is failing to generate leads. If you don’t know review this information for months at a time, just think of all the potential clients you may have lost. We call this your cost of inaction. With a system put into place to track your customer’s journey, whether it’s on your website, in your digital advertising, or in the content you post across social media, you’re able to identify weaknesses and improve them right away which in turn helps to increase your profits. It also makes it easier to know what you should be focusing on within your marketing instead of floundering around wondering what to do next.
You’ll save time and energy when you have systems you can measure your progress.
What is working? And, what isn’t? That’s the question every business owner wants an answer to. You need to know your numbers, benchmarks, and goals in order to be able to increase your sales and profit margins. Why focus on radio advertising when you’re not receiving any leads, while your Google ads are the ones bringing in all your business? Why buy another newspaper ad for $1000 when you could drive people directly to your website to make a purchase for $0.75 per click? Having a system in place for measurement, a process to follow for execution, and a follow-up process that is automated to help leads make the buying decision is what improves your marketing performance.
When you have facts in front of you your decisions become informed and strategic so you can say goodbye to that shotgun approach you to have had on repeat for the last ten years and hello to marketing that actually drives real results.
Think of the increase in results if you simply set up an automated system that contacts your potential leads for you when they reach a certain stage in your sales funnel to give them more information. The right timing and the right copy could influence a sale without relying on a person to hit the send button on that email manually. The concept overall is to create a sales team that sells 24/7 so you don’t have to.
Ask yourself, how many times have you sent an email and forgotten the attachment?
How many times have you forgotten to hit send at all?
So, you see the benefit now but, where do you start in creating a marketing system?
STEP 1 – Think about common things you do on a daily basis in your marketing.
These could include:
- Responding to customer emails and messages
- Analyzing social media or website reports
- Following up on leads
- Calculating your ROI
Make a list of all the things you do in relation to sales and marketing.
STEP 2 – Put the steps in order
Now that you have a solid list, rearrange your list from the first thing to the last thing you do when making a new sale.
STEP 3 – Make those steps into a training process for your team
Everyone aligning to doing things the same way every time alone will increase your results. Once everyone is doing things the same way. You have a baseline to measure from.
STEP 4 – Reach out to us at 3SIXTY Marketing Solutions and ask us what can be automated and how to do it.
Our specialty is helping you implement, execute and optimize your systems to increase your marketing and advertising results. We can help you analyze your marketing systems and processes while showing you where you can increase efficiencies and eliminate errors in order to increase your sales and profit margins.
If you have a growth goal in mind for your business, let us help you achieve it! No matter how big or how small the task, our team does it all! Take advantage of our expertise and proven tactics with our marketing consulting, strategy, and automation services. Make this year, the year you nail down the marketing strategy that truly converts.
