Effective Marketing Solutions Start
with Better Questions
Can a few new customers provide a good ROI for
your annual marketing budget? Do your marketing executions, whether they’re
websites, advertisements, social media or trade show materials directly generate
responses that lead to profitable sales? Here’s a better question: How do you
develop communications that reveal value in your brand that people want to pay
for?
For every reasonable question that can be asked,
there’s a reasonable or correct way to answer it. Marketing is such a
multidimensional business function that so often, companies miss out on entire
market segments because nobody asked the right questions. How else could your
products be useful or who else could benefit from your services? Where are the
best places to reach your target audience? Is your brand or message present in
those places? What about your email database and CRM…? Okay, enough questions
for now but you get the idea!
The right kinds of questions get you thinking
along specific lines of reasoning and creative problem solving. That’s why
asking questions is good for your marketing strategy. Note here that we’re
talking about the right kind of
questions. We’ve all heard the saying, “There’s no such thing as a stupid
question” and that’s probably true. However, there are such things as
irrelevant or misdirected questions when it comes to your business growth.
Let’s look at what separates a good question from
a not-so-good one. A misdirected marketing question will usually begin with an
assumption and may sound something like this:
“When
prospects actually meet with us they’re convinced and we can easily close them.
We’re just not getting in front of enough people. How can we get our message
out there so more prospects will meet with us?” This questions assumes that
competition is weak and marketing messages can do the job of sales prospecting.
Better prospecting habits by the sales team may be the real challenge. Training
your salespeople in better prospecting and data collection could potentially
yield much better results than a new ad campaign.
In terms of how marketing can help in this
scenario, the better question may be:
“How can
our marketing and sales teams collaborate better so that a content marketing
campaign will inform more prospects of what we can do for them?” The
solution for this commonly expressed business issue often lies in better
internal cooperation, data collection and strategy rather than simply “getting
our message out there.”
One of the takeaways we’d like to leave you with
is this. If you decide to work with a marketing consultant, pay close attention
to the questions they ask you and welcome those questions. Be forthright and
complete with you answers. The two of you may unlock the ideal solution to help
grow your business. The truth is, it may or may not involve increasing your
marketing budget. You’ll find the right answers only when you or someone else
starts asking the right questions.
Got a question, call us at 603-505-8951 or contact us www.2difore.com!
