We all want to know the holy grail of what activities are going to give the best results, and during Covid-19 and since things have been turned on their head and then spun round a few times too. It is hard to remember that success breeds success.
So how do you make sure that you have successful campaigns? How do you ensure that you get the ROI that you want?
Well the first thing is the same as always – look at things from your customer’s point of view. How can you help them be more successful? How can your product or service reduce their worries, their concerns? After all success breeds success – help them succeed and you will too.
If you sell through channel partners – what can you do to help them? It may be giving longer financial terms to ease cashflow, it may be reviewing the computer based training that you have to make sure that their business skills as well as their technical knowledge is as high as it can be. It may be that you give them content for their marketing to maximise every marketing pound you have spent in the creation of that content (and save them money to boot).
If you sell direct to consumers – define exactly why your product / service is something that fits their requirements right now, how it will help them, demonstrate your USPs that give increased value for something that they both want but more importantly need.
If you sell business to business – make sure that your DMU (decision making unit) analysis is up to date. Make sure that communication methods are what they want at the moment. During Covid there were so many webinars going on, for good reason, but was there another way to get the message across to stand out from the crowd? Are some verticals performing better than others? Some geographies recovering quicker than others? Make sure that you are putting the marketing pound in the right place.
No matter who you are marketing to set SMART goals – you know the ones, specific, measurable, ATTAINABLE, realistic and timed. I’ve emphasised attainable here as with the economic situation being a moving feast, then do not demoralise your staff by expecting the impossible – if you do you will never be successful. In every period of economic turmoil, your staff (internal or outsourced) are what make the difference to how a company performs – after all each success makes them feel good and breeds more success as they have the belief that they can do it, so do.
[originally issued 20/8/20; edited 19/3/24]