Marketing ideas are never a hit or miss; it must be part of your business model that your company follows to move ahead. Formal market planning systematically addresses getting profitable new business while maintaining and increasing the profitability of your current business. It is very easy for busy people often overlook opportunities that are right in front of them.
That means, if selling is reaping the harvest, marketing is sowing the seeds, watering them and nurturing them with the end result in mind.
Some SBOs and independent professionals try getting by with an unfocussed, transactional approach; the savviest among them zero in on well-defined, validated market segments with good numbers and other favorable, not the least of which are clear-cut needs for their products and services. By intensifying their resources and expertise in these areas and adopting market-appropriate strategies, systems and tactics, they achieve dominance in their targeted groups.
In short, they have a marketing vision and follow that vision until it’s a reality. At the end of the day all boils down to the revenue that can generate vis-à-vis the money spent.
But that’s not all. Developing a marketing plan also inspires SBOS and professionals to focus on the big-picture need for planning and productivity throughout their practices, especially their roles in engineering their own success. To be a successful men and women you need to research, strategize, plan, and act (mostly on revenue-generating activities). Then manage their resources so that they can spend as much time and energy as possible on the bottom line i.e. doing what they do best!
So what should be your Marketing Vision?
Marketing “vision” means looking at everything you do from a personal marketing perspective so that everything you do is true to your vision. In simple words it is the preparatory phase where you make yourself ready for the market by testing your market acceptability. Think of it as your conceptual framework for offering your products and services—and yourself—to prospective clients over the long term. Few questions that would help you deicide your marketing stances that you should ask are:
• What are your best markets?
• What makes them tick?
• How to position yourself most competitively?
• How to make the most of what you already have?
• How to build your name recognition and reputation, and stand out in the competitive traffic jam?
• How to approach qualified prospects and make them want to see you?
• What should you say; what should you sell?
• How to service your business profitably?
• How can you get clients to refer you to others in their group?
• When will you review your market planning to be sure it’s getting you where you need to go?
When you do business this way your prospects and clients feel good about doing business with you. You begin selling more effectively and efficiently and, over time you’ll achieve deeper market penetration, more profit, more referrals and a larger client base.
But remember: Your vision is only as good as your ability to implement and sustain it. When financial services professionals get ahead of themselves by setting the bar too high, they can find it difficult to meet their clients’ raised expectations, as well as their own. This might lead to there breaking and motivational level hitting the ground. So, never ever have an unrealistic vision set for you.
The way you do business, market planning included, has to adapt to changing market forces, emerging technologies, new information. The quicker you change when change is called for–or as opportunities arise–the more likely you’ll thrive in a volatile, competitive marketplace.
