In a meeting, a wise gentleman once summarized my marketing pitch for the company, made a few calculations, saw the ballpark investment I was asking him to make and exclaimed “I don’t even pay my sales guys that much!” In my personal opinion that is the exact exclamation that determined the destiny of his brand.
So your company has reached a certain benchmark which to your opinion is truly optimistic. A few months down if you are wondering why the stagnation happened and you do not have a marketing team to turn to – you really have a problem! Your sales team needs this vacuum filled and now. For marketing actually is the nurturer here. While an intelligent, diligent sales force will take the company to great heights, it is imperative that you give it its fair share of fodder to grow on.
Marketing is the roadmap with which you start the journey really. A good marketing team/firm throws itself headlong into a lot of study and research before it starts penning down a strategy. Various aspect of the industry in question must be taken into consideration even before factors such as pricing, streamlining and distribution are ascertained. The research will have to span understanding at length the competition, the requirements of the target audience, their geographical presence, the communication that they will respond to and many such things. The plan thus made, may still under go iterative changes to adjust for reality-checks, external circumstances and more factors in your business landscape. Nonetheless, without a good marketing plan in place, any organization will find it difficult to sustain consistent growth.
I am sure my reader here has already read some of the above in different words numerous times. But I am really trying to speak to the brand that might have made calculations in effort, time, money etc. and concluded “nah”. Yes it is a whole lot and you may have summarized that if you do not have the bandwidth to do this correctly you might as well not do it at all. I agree with you there but you may give it another thought by asking yourself the questions below:
Q. Am I ready to look back in 10 years and regret skipping this step?
The answer here is, in the long term, you will have saved a lot by having a marketing plan in place now. And yes you might have to invest in re-positioning yourself at a later stage if you skipped incorporating a marketing strategy to define your brand at the initial stage.
Q. But I suck at it and do not have the budget to hire a team!
You could do one of the following at a much lower cost than hiring a team and investing in the infrastructure they will need to perform:
There are a myriad other questions. Marketing really is a mammoth sky under which crucial small factors take shelter. Every company needs a clever mix of marketing tools to succeed. And this is a dynamic challenge as the world is constantly changing and with it the possibilities for your marketing toolkit.
Chat with us to see what difference a marketing mindset can bring about for you and your business. It may be the most important conversation you have about building a sustainable future for your business.
About the Author:
Kriti Mukherjee is Project Director at Inception Business Services. Kriti is a solutions-focused Marketing & Communications Professional with proven success in not only revenue performance, but also in customer service, satisfaction and retention. As a marketer, her work has traversed concept, strategy, tactical implementation and ROI management. When she isn’t working, Kriti likes to daydream, read, drink martinis and listen to music. Mail her at kriti@inception.net.in
