The Art of Marketing and Branding

How do you entice prospects to buy from you? The first step is to make yourself visible. They need to be able to find you, review who you are and conclude that you would be a good business partner for them. Essentially, you need to bring exposure to yourself, educate prospects on who you are and why they should care about you. Remember, their concern is not keeping you in business, it is keeping themselves in business. What are you doing to educate your customer base about your existence?

Marketing (education) in business is always a touchy subject. How much do you need and what is the best method? Businesses that were started by an older generation or been around for a while is bound to have someone making the statement, “we never had to do this in the past”. That might have been true then but today is a new day.

In many cases, businesses start because someone asked for something, and an entrepreneur responded. That entrepreneur and business started with a “built-in” customer. The expectation was that the customer would be the first of many and in many cases, it was. At some point, those early customers either have or will be fading away and new customers are needed. This of course creates a dilemma as those same companies never really had a need to educate the marketplace about themselves and are now forced to market (educate) the marketplace on who they are.

In my experience, traditional ways of finding prospects for yourself fall into 3 categories with varying degrees of success:

1. Professional Marketing Firms. There are several high-end and oftentimes expensive (cost being relative of course) marketing firms, specializing in both inbound and outbound marketing techniques. They help create budgets, typically have monthly cost structures and ongoing activities to ensure success. They typically have resources to augment your current activities or outright do it for you. If you do not have the time or expertise, they are a great way to find and secure new customers. These establishments typically will bring you a return on investment through new business within 4–6 months. KY-MEP’s marketing programs typically average 3–4 months because of our highly focused understanding of Kentucky’s market, partners and outreach efforts. Again, KY-MEP solves Kentucky’s manufacturing problems. In this case, the “problem” being a need for new customers.

2. DIY. Some companies are blessed with having someone on the team who has experience in marketing. They are blessed with having a “creative genius”; a person who has the experience and can truly devote time to developing materials, allowing prospects to find, review, and make a cognitive decision that you are a good fit and partner. If you are fortunate to have internal resources, kudos to you! My question to you is, are you happy with your efforts and return on investment? In other words, do you have new customers finding you? If not or not at the level required for future growth, help may be needed.

   Unfortunately, all companies do not have adequate internal resources. Often, they have other responsibilities, splitting their time between looking for new customers and taking care of their existing customers. I am always amazed when KY-MEP audits a company’s marketing efforts to see outdated websites, little to no digital footprint, and unclear messaging. If you fall into the DIY category, assess your situation and ask yourself, “am I happy with my results … are people finding me”? Having an audit into your marketing efforts is a great way to gain an unbiassed opinion on efforts and almost always gives suggestions on improvements that if needed, typically can be implemented with your internal resources.

3. “Build it, and they will come”. There are many terms and phrases for this category. The mainstay premise being simple organic growth and word of mouth. In other words, do nothing. Keep your head down and simply answer the knock at your door. If you are blessed to have a robust customer base that is actively sending you open and active leads, more than you can handle, please give me a call so I can bathe in your secret sauce. We all have customers that refer prospects but relying on that as the sole source of new customers might have worked in the past but in today’s open economy and ease of finding great companies by simply doing a “google search”, this may not align with the growth potential and future vision.

Companies need growth and growth only comes from new offerings and/or new customers. Either way, marketing is necessary to educate those who are unaware, to make them aware. Creating visibility about your great team, skills, expertise, and activities are a requirement and is necessary for business growth. Heck, even business sustainment.

Tune in next month when we will dive into inbound and outbound marketing techniques that you and your resources can employ. If you do not want to wait for next month’s KY-MEP Newsletter, call KY-MEP today to schedule a visit by our team. We can help audit your current situation, give you suggestions on improvements, and if needed, work with your team to employ techniques to find your next customer.