Rollercoaster Marketing
Sound familiar ?
If not, we can graph out the profits of most client based businesses from January - December and you’ll see the pattern in the line.
Except, this roller coaster comes with a higher price than theme park admission.
I’ll give some more context.
When times get tough and customers are scarce they throw everything plus the kitchen sink into their marketing efforts.
If they’re lucky and manage to gain a bit of traction, the pipeline will momentarily fill up, some contracts might get signed, and a natural ascent follows.
When this finally happens the typical war cries start emerging
"I’m so flat out right now"
"I just don’t have time for anything"
"The weeks are flying by"
They convince themselves that they’ve now done the work, the books are getting full, and all we needed was that initial push…
Everything should just follow through now, this is our new reality and we’re always busy.
Except, they forgot what made them busy in the first place.
However, without a proven marketing system, or even an analysis of what moved the needle forward - they’ll be constantly met with big bouts of activity that will lead to a busy few months, only to start the cycle again when the balloon ultimately pops.
New customers stop coming in.
Existing clients move on.
The carriage is now in a deep descent with the wind howling in their ears, and their stomach in their throats.
Only to end up back where they started.
Except, they don’t have the thrill of the experience, they have mounting bills and inconsistent cash flow.
It doesn't have to be doom and gloom though,
From experience, as a client based business there are just four parts to focus on to push through the ‘too busy’ periods to ensure that consistent growth.
Generation - acquiring and nurturing leads
Conversion - converting them into sales
Retention - creating a valuable, long term relationship
Advocation - leveraging positive experiences to connect with even more prospects.
As a marketing strategist, this was particularly a pain point for me recently; I felt the excuses start sliding in and dropped the ball with my own marketing for about three weeks.
My solution?
Publicly announce via video that I’m going to post on LinkedIn everyday for 90 days, and holding myself accountable to that.
Internally, I know my meeting numbers that move the needle forward, and I’m proactively booking those in, and reconnecting with my pipeline.
Last quarter was one of my best, but I want to continue to improve, so I’m thankful I’ve caught myself before I lost that momentum.
If you want to create a similar system, get in touch - I can give you a few pointers for you to start tracking the right data.
Just knowing your minimum viable numbers making time for them will save you the compound effect of time scrambling to build it back.
Here’s to a cracking finish to the last quarter of 2019.
Zac