Many business owners stop marketing when their business gets busy. Then when their current workload eases they start marketing again. This stop start approach to marketing is not ideal and makes it much harder to build a business in a systematic and planned manner.
The best approach to marketing is to be consistent. Always have some marketing taking place even if you are already very busy. For some people this is a hard concept to put into practise. I use the momentum principle when it comes to marketing. Getting it going takes a lot of effort and it takes a while for the results to pay off. To keep it going doesn’t take as much energy. If you have stop/start marketing you ultimately need to put more time, energy and money into it to get the results you need.
When planning your marketing you are not planning for today your are planning for tomorrow. Personally I like to know that I always have about ten proposals being considered by clients at any one time as this means that my businesses work load for the coming month will be on track with my forecasts. If I have more proposals pending I know that I am in for a very busy month and I can sub contract some extra help to accommodate it. If I have less than ten proposals I know that I have to get out and look for some more projects.
Take a longer term, more consistent approach to marketing your business and you will smooth out a lot of the peaks and troughs that cause all kinds of problems with cash flow and staffing. Your business workload will become more manageable and you will feel more in control of your business.
WHAT CAN YOU DO TODAY? Think about your own marketing. Do you tend to stop/start marketing? If you do, start to think more long term about your marketing. The work you do today will get you customers tomorrow. A change in philosophy towards your marketing is the first step in the end of the stop/start marketing cycle.
This is good advice for our tourism industry! I hope they are reading this… and taking notes!
Yep – especially as times are pretty good in Australia – to me this is the most important and strategically critical time – because if we become complacent there are many other countries out there who want our tourists!!! I see it a lot – but at the same time I notice in my own consulting business that I am hearing many more people making the smart comment that even though business is good now, they need to be actively marketing for tomorrow – which is of course music to my ears. Thanks again for your comments Jean – interesting stuff.
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