Much of the time, a business only thinks about its marketing when it needs more leads, and that’s the only marketing it will focus on. And this can be a very, very expensive marketing mistake. If you don’t lay the groundwork, have a plan, and make sure everything is aligned properly, you are going to waste money and potentially miss leads. Like any major strategy, you need to follow an order so your business leads to marketing, which leads to sales.
Step One: Marketing Plan
Like any good project, you need a plan before anything else. Here, your plan will be reviewing all the ducks you need to put in a row for your marketing to work. If you work with a marketing agency at this stage, you’ll create a marketing plan: an analysis of your business’s strengths and weaknesses in their industry and market, whom you sell to (and should sell to), and your marketing goals and how to reach them.
An often-overlooked part of planning is making sure your team is on board and ready. The last thing you want is to spend money to generate form submissions only to have your sales team looking in the wrong inbox or your operations team unable to handle the increased workload.
Step Two: Your Website
It can’t be overstated how important having a website is for your business online. This isn’t optional, and if you don’t have one, you’ll need one. Of course, a website alone isn’t enough: it needs to be functional. If your website is old, if your website wasn’t designed by marketers, if your website doesn’t have metadata, or if there are other basic issues that website designers and marketers can point out, you need to get a new website.
Step Three: Online Presence
Once you’ve polished your website, it’s time to distribute that information and brand content across the internet. Known as your business’s online presence, the goal is that when people search for your company, they find you. And it’s so much more than just your website showing up on Google Search; it’s:
- Your Business Profile: Your Google and Apple Maps listings, which include location data, reviews, and more.
- Relevant Social Media: You don’t need to be on every platform, just the ones relevant to your customers and industry.
- Industry Listings: Angi (formerly Angie’s List), FindLaw, etc., are all websites focused on specific industries. Make sure you are on yours.
- Reputation Sites: Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and more—make sure you see if you’re already being reviewed and claim and manage yours.
Claim all of these, update the information, and properly hook up lead generation (phone number, website, etc.). Many will require active monitoring and management.
Step Four: Marketing
Only after you’ve made a plan, polished your website, and ensured your online brand is consistent should marketing begin. Advertising will drive the fastest results, SEO like blogs will provide passive marketing in the weeks to come, and social media and email marketing can find your customers where they live. The right options need to be designated in the marketing plan phase, but it’s also important to reassess and reposition when circumstances and marketing conditions change.
Step Five: Measuring Results
Part of being agile in marketing is reviewing the data. This is another reason it’s important to lay the groundwork, since many ways you’ll capture analytics require work before marketing begins. Google Analytics, conversion code for advertising on your website, and just a basic familiarity with reporting data like KPIs are important. Just as important is not picking just one data point metric to obsess over: that’s another expensive marketing mistake.
Doing all of this is a lot of work, and getting assistance can be difficult, since working with multiple agencies can fracture the consistency needed to make this order work. That’s where Vision comes in: working with you and managing your planning, website, marketing, and even reporting all under one roof. Contact us today to learn more. Looking for more expert marketing advice? Check out the rest of our Vision blogs, our enVisioning Success podcast, and our downloadable Marketing Strategies Playbook.
