If you want to be assured of strategic growth and successful marketing, avoid pushing out ads, content, and other campaigns until you have a Growth Framework in place.
Marketers spend a lot of money every year working on campaigns for lead generation, content development for SEO, website design, and demonstrating proof that all the effort is worthwhile. But no matter how much money you throw at marketing and trying to create leads, you're likely to fall short if you take a step back to develop the “why” behind what you’re doing and a clear definition of how you’re different.
From there you can develop an experience that specifically addresses your target market's problems with your unique solution.
Let's look at these four areas that are needed before you should begin strategic growth marketing.
1. A Solid Understanding of Your Brand Narrative
What does your brand stand for? How do you solve problems differently than competitors? Defining these things will be the driving force behind a strategic growth marketing plan that drives awareness, leads, sales, and raving fans. Without this narrative in place, your campaigns will lack the focus and cohesiveness they need to be successful.
When you can identify and explain the pain points your business solves for customers, you can begin to speak directly to those pain points. You know how good it feels when someone really “gets” you? That’s the feeling you’re trying to create for potential customers.
After identifying the pain points, begin thinking, why are you doing what you do? After all, your business exists to serve a purpose — it has goals and a reason for solving these problems. When you have a clear understanding of “why” you do what you do, you can share that with customers. This, along with your brand’s history will help create a feeling that makes people want to choose you over the other options – even if you’re not the cheapest option out there.
2. An Actual Competitive Advantage
How are you different? As in… how are you really doing things differently from your competitors? If you’re not sure, or your answer was “our people are better,” it’s time to head to the conference room (or Zoom meeting) for a conversation with your team. While service and staff are important, you’re going to need more than that as your path to scaling the company. Better people and better service are subjective and can change in a heartbeat if you have staff changes.
It’s time to identify something tangible that makes you stand apart. What do you do, or can you do, that isn’t available from companies in your competitive landscape? Think through your business model and ask these questions:
- What really makes you unique? This can stem back to your brand narrative and how the company got started.
- Can a competitor say the exact same thing about themselves causing your potential customers to have to believe one company over another?
- Do you have a proven process that gets customers to their goal? How can you describe that to your buyers in an easy-to-understand way?
3. A Well-Defined Buyer's Journey
The path your buyer will take to purchase your product or service depends on the type of business you have, but there are some common phases of the journey:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
It’s a good idea to educate, especially during the early phases. No one wants to be “sold.” But they do want to figure out possible solutions and who they can trust as they go forward with narrowing down their choices. This is where your content on the website is going to be critical.
Not sure which problems need to be addressed? Talk to the sales team. They’ll know the common questions and objections they get so you can deal with them head-on, and earlier in the process. This means that leads who get to the sales team are more likely to have seen answers to their objections and know how you solve for them.
4. A Website That Drives Visits and Leads
Your website is one of the most important assets you have. You can't set and forget it. Be ready to make changes and see what's working and what's not, so you can match your messaging to your customers’ needs.
Use the website to educate, and as a result, show your potential customers a solution that’s unlike anyone else’s. Remember… your website isn’t really about you. It’s about your customers and their problems. Your solution and how it’s different is one of the things you’ll include on the site.
Go back to the buyer’s journey you just completed and be sure you have content for each phase that addresses customer problems and how they can be solved.
What’s the Next Step in Strategic Growth Marketing?
NOW you can start marketing campaigns using
- Content that attracts visitors based on their pain points
- Lead magnets that offer help and lead buyers down a solution path
- Ads that target buyers at various points of their journey.
With your strategy in place, and a clear understanding of how you’re different, you’ll be able to grow like never before.
Ready for the next step? Let’s talk. The Growth Framework will establish all of these essentials for your growth marketing plan.
