To ensure your business survives stagflation and the inevitable belt tightening by clients, it’s time to ramp things up.
We understand it’s at times like these, you’ve got a lot on your plate and it’s easy to focus your time and energy on managing operational matters and let your marketing slip. But businesses generally don’t succeed by keeping their expertise and services a secret. Here’s what you should do…
In our experience, (and we suspect yours too) radio silence isn’t the solution.
Your marketing communication doesn’t need to be complicated. But it does need to be authentic, regular and on point.
In short, you need to give your clients reason to spend their money with you.
It’s all about empathy.
Words and phrases like… ‘we understand’; ‘we do this because’ and ‘in our experience’ are powerful as they indicate your technical expertise is backed up by professional tenure and personal ‘skin in the game’.
We’re not suggesting splashing cash, all you need to do is commit a reasonable budget to remaining in regular contact with your clients and prospective clients.
We recommend preparing monthly content and sending it to your database. Keeping your existing clients and their valuable income, now and over their client lifetime, should be your primary goal during challenging times.
You also need to get your social media groove on and post regularly, as well as making sure your website is up to date.
And when you receive enquiries, for goodness sake call people back as soon as you can. They may just be fishing for information and don’t need your services just yet, but it will be how you respond that will influence whether (or not) they return to you in future.
So, the key take-outs are:
Stay in the running: For every setback, there’s also an opportunity around the corner. Businesses need to be seen and heard to in order to keep existing clients and attract new ones.
This challenge will pass and then you’ll face another. That’s business. Good businesses… resilient businesses… successful businesses… stay the course and put the effort in to remain top of mind and that will put you a giant step ahead of your silent competitors. You’ll be more likely to get the call when the need arises.
Relevance is the key: Only send content that is helpful. Be a leader and remain positive, even if things are feeling a bit glum. Remember it’s very likely your team will be reading your content as well as your clients.
It doesn’t need to be difficult: Regular and consistent contact with your database of clients, prospects and centres of influence (those who can refer business to you) will reiterate your value, the qualities that make you different and highlight why prospective clients need your services.
If you’ve dropped your regular contact cycle, it’s time to get back on the bike.
Ask for help: If the ‘doing’ of marketing communication for your business – strategy, writing, distributing, posting, reporting – is outside your skillset or you simply don’t have time to take it on, get help.
At the very least have a conversation about implementing a regular communication plan – it doesn’t need to be fancy, it’s about genuine messaging that’s meaningful so your existing and prospective clients are compelled to connect with you.
And finally, put marketing dollars in your budget this financial year so you get it done and make the most of your opportunities for business success.
If this article has been helpful, give us a call on 07 5477 0197 or email marketing@boldcorp.com.au.
We’re here to help!
At Bold! we specialise in helping professionals and business owners to use marketing to grow and be successful. Over the past 25 years we have fine-tuned what we call our ‘Do-able Marketing’ model. It is underpinned by a 7-Step Do-It-For-Me (DIFM) Marketing framework that overcomes the THREE key issues that professionals and business owners have told us prevent them from marketing their businesses: Time, Affordability and Accountability.
