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As an entrepreneur, have you thought, about why do you need to market your business in the first place? What if you don’t do any marketing altogether or do it based on your limited knowledge of marketing. Have you heard the following quote?

“Marketing is like sex, everyone thinks they’re good at it!”
—–Steve Tobak

Now, let’s understand if you are doing marketing right and try to understand what problems good marketing can solve for your business.

Selling the product or service but not the problem you solve

Have a look at the default banner of your website or your standard company presentation or your About us page. Does it give a clear idea to your potential customers on what problem you solve, and a strong reason why they should consider you over others? If it is about, We are bla, bla…, We do bla, bla…, We build bla, bla… then you might need to question how you are positioning yourself or if it is so abstract that one could hardly make it. If you are doing marketing right, most of your customers should be able to get in a few seconds what problems you solve backed by some credible data or reviews from valid third-party sources.

For example, look at G2’s home page. What is it about? Is it about them or the problems they solve backed by a credible stat or is it about we are great, we are best, etc. etc?

Attracting the wrong customers

The first thing you will notice in a business that is doing marketing right is that they are attracting the right kind of customers. They really know who their real customers are. They don’t have any illusion of who they are and who they want to attract. All their assets like their website, service brochures, case studies, blog, videos, whitepapers, etc. clearly communicate a well thought out positioning keeping their ideal customers in mind.

One good parameter to judge who you attract is to look at the kind of leads you receive. How many of them actually are qualified leads and how many of them really convert to some kind of real opportunity or business. Ask yourself. The answer is easy to find out.

Long Sales Cycle

A sales cycle is how much time it takes for your customers to buy your products or services.

For example, if you have to buy a shirt from an eCommerce website, it is simple. All you need to know is to search for a few shirt options based on your preferred brand, choice of fabric, size, color, and price. Here the marketing and the technology combined are selling the products. You rarely need dedicated sales in most cases. However, you will need a support team to answer pre-sales or post-sales customer queries.

In contrast, if you are an IT services company, you can’t sell your services like a shopping catalog. You need a good sales team to explain your services, your processes, and why they should choose you over your competitors.

For B2C companies the sales life cycle is shorter because the products are simple to understand compared to a B2B company whose products or services are more complex and need to be explained by salespeople along with answering a lot of customer’s queries with content that helps him make the decision.

A good marketing team reduces the sales cycle by creating a lot of valuable content that makes it easy for your customers to make a decision to choose over your competitors. This content could be case studies, service brochures, testimonial videos, process documents, comparison sheets, etc.

Lack of Credibility

Credibility builds trust. Trust is the cornerstone of any successful relationship especially when you are a smaller organization who do not have any brand recognition. But how do you sound credible? What about credibility? For example, when a customer discovers you for the first time either via a google search or via your website, or from the email you sent him, how much he is able to trust your claims about what you promise. You might have some awards, some testimonials, some reviews, and ratings from third-party rating agencies. All this helps you look credible because the potential customers can see a validation of your claims from the people they could trust.

The only thing you need to be mindful of is that those testimonials and ratings that you have got are from the same world to which your customers belong so that they appear credible to him. If they are not, then those testimonials and ratings might not solve their purpose at all. Hence, it matters more who gives you testimonials, what awards you get, or who featured you in their publication.

Getting out beaten by your Competitors

This hurts most. The company whom you think is as good as you are or even worse gets all the deals which you think you deserve more than him. Maybe they are small or maybe of similar stature like yours in terms of service delivery capability but maybe the way they market themselves is much better than how you do. For example, their positioning is apt, they look more credible, and they are able to communicate how they solve the same problem better than yours. Size does matter but may not always.

After going through these points, what would you think about your marketing? Good, Bad, can do better? Happy to help if you would want me to review your current marketing and explore if there is a scope for improvement.

Write to us at [email protected] and we will schedule a call with you.