Philip Harman Do you mind if I ask you a simple question? Do you know how much money you leave ‘on the table’ every month in your business in terms of untapped profits?
The reason I ask this question is that over the last few years, I have had the privilege of working with a number of business owners either one-on- one or in a private group coaching workshops, and I have seen many business owners believe that running a business is an on-going struggle and that ‘this is as good as it gets’ when the truth is that most businesses are just scratching the surface when it comes to realising what’s truly possible in terms of their sales and profits by evaluating their marketing efforts.
The turning point for my business as a coach and a speaker was when my mentor told me that to succeed in business, you first of all become a marketer, and then, an expert who speaks, coach or consult.
He said, “marketing is everything you do to get your phone ringing. Marketing is everything you do to communicate your business to both your existing and potential customers”.
If you are spending money on marketing your business it is vital that you know what works and what doesn’t.
There is no point investing money when what you are doing is not working or bringing a good return.
During one of my private Client Attraction Marketing Workshops, I asked one of my guests who runs a private real estate agent company what their company do to market their business to get more customers, she said they use leaflet dropping. I asked if there were getting return on investment, she said that they only get less than ten enquiries in every five thousand leaflets distributed. I asked how long they have been doing it and she said over five years.
I asked why they still spend money on what is not giving them return on investment, she said, “Is just to get the name out there and for brand awareness”.
You see, from personal experience and working with clients, I have grown to understand that all marketing activities or efforts should aim to do one thing and one thing only- to sell- and not for brand awareness. Brand awareness are for the big players like Nike and Pepsi, and not for the small business owners.
Test and Measure Your Efforts – Continually to test and measure your marketing efforts. Relying on your gut feeling is not enough. You will need some tangible feedback
How Successfully to test and measure your marketing.
You can do this in a number of ways.
1. Ask the people who enquire where they heard about your business.
2. Keep notes of the information over a defined period of time and analyse it.
3. Run specific offers in selected marketing options and keep a record of responses.
4. Test headlines on adverts or flyers in smaller batches until you find out which gets the best results.
5. When you run events or speak at networking group, keep a record of how many contacts you make and whether any business resulted from them.
6. Do the same for networking events you attend as a participant.
7. When you write an article for a business publication, as advised by my mentor, offer a free report that requires the reader to make contact with you. This way, you will not only get the details of some potentially good prospects.
Over the period of time, monitoring and measuring the success of your marketing will enable you to build a very clear picture of how to spend your valuable marketing budget.
To your success,
Efe Ohwofasda
