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As a business growth agency we meet many companies who have double digit growth aspirations. They usually have a plan for growth, often sales-led and if they’re really switched on they will be taking a marketing-led approach. Now here’s the but and it’s a big one.
But they are not doubling their marketing spend to get the growth. In fact they’re not increasing marketing spend at all until they’ve got the sales. Really?
You want to double your growth, but you’re not investing in lead generation or brand building?
In B2B, companies are often looking to position their brand as a thought leader, an expert, perhaps in a niche. This takes considerable effort. It doesn’t happen overnight and it certainly doesn’t happen without marketing. If your growth comes entirely from sales then how are you building your niche positioning? How are you attracting the right enquiries and driving prospects to you? What is happening with your margin?
Here’s a typical scenario:
A Marketing Manager is tasked with driving this double digit growth with the same budget he had last year when sales flat-lined. So the inevitable happens. They try and do everything; exhibitions, blog writing, a bit of PR, some email marketing, tweaks to the website, product data sheets, posting tweets and the odd comment on LinkedIn, and on and on.
The good news is the sales start growing so they carry on and do some more, it’s obviously working.
Meanwhile, the sales team are doing whatever they need to do to reach the target. However, margins are slipping, the production team are under pressure to meet delivery, enquiries are coming in and are processed as quickly as possible. The MD is happy, because the sales are going up so all must be good, right? Wrong.
In growing the business you’ve lost your focus. You’re also losing your margin. The niche positioning you’re seeking isn’t being built and you’re perceived as a ‘me-too.’ Worse than that, your customers are feeling like they’re not important to you any more and they’re starting to go elsewhere. Staff turnover is increasing. What went wrong? Is it the fault of the sales team, have they been bringing in the wrong type of business? Is it the production team who haven’t managed the process efficiently? Of course not, it’s no-one’s fault. It’s the lack of strategic marketing. You haven’t invested in it. I’d argue the marketing being done isn’t really marketing at all, it’s sales support. You need to switch your thinking to strategic marketing based on a clearly defined brand positioning.
Start with the vision. Of course you want growth, but what do you want to grow to be? What position do you want to occupy and more importantly, what do your customers want? I won’t go in to a lesson on branding, if you want to see the tools we use to build value for our clients, feel free to download our Lead Gen think piece here. What I do urge you to consider however, is the direct correlation between sales growth (the right kind) and market differentiation or positioning. When a company clearly communicates what it is and what its point of difference is, not only do they achieve sales growth, they also achieve profitable growth.
Now isn’t that worth investing in?
Any growth plan needs to be backed up by a solid marketing plan and invested in. How realistic are your sales aspirations? If you’re not investing in marketing to drive the growth then you’re on the wrong path.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences, please feel free to post comments here or get in touch.
The post How do you build value if you’re not truly investing in strategic marketing? appeared first on Clock Creative.