By Bryony Thomas, Author & Founder, Watertight Marketing.
Hands up anyone who can’t think of yet more, and more, ways to spend money on marketing… Yeah, right! That really isn’t the problem.
If anything, it’s precisely the overwhelm of marketing possibilities that makes it so hard to focus in, not on what you could do, but on what you should do.
In my two decades of marketing with businesses as large as Microsoft, and as micro as the kitchen table, I am yet to find a single one that doesn’t have an overflowing marketing wish list.
What people need is not more ideas, but fewer, on which to truly focus.
More than that, they need marketing that’s built on firm strategic foundations. For me, there’s a clear parallel here between the long-term health of a business, and the long-term health of ourselves. Marketing is like fitness. If you’ve never done any, it can be hard to get started. If only you do it sporadically, it’s hard to maintain the benefit. And, when you really get into it, and it works, it can be pretty addictive.
So, let’s ask whether your business is marketing fit by looking at the four Flow Foundations from the Watertight Marketing book.
Focusing on the right work
The Right Work sits at the intersection of purpose and profit, ensuring that your business is both fully energised and resourced. You know you have this right when a good 80% or more of the work on your books lights your soul and tops up your bank balance.
You’ll know you’re on firm ground here is the majority of the people you work with truly energise your business, with very few that leave you exhausted, or barely cover their own costs. Another sign that you have this one sorted is that you are entirely comfortable saying no to potential new business if it doesn’t quite fit the bill for the long-term health of your business – not least because you know exactly who or how to refer them on with dignity. You will also find yourself confident to put your prices up.
When you get this right, you’ll have a healthy client mix, made up of those that serve both purpose and profit, ensuring your business is energised and resourced. This is the fitness equivalent to an 80% healthy diet, with only the occasional bag of chips!
Balancing your marketing toolkit
A Balanced Marketing Routine is one that is carefully mapped to ensure that every step of a person’s buying decision is supported with effective marketing tools.
You’ll know if this one is right in your business when buyers are supported through every step of their decisions to work with you by engaging and appropriate tool, rather than sheer sales skill and stamina. Organisations that have this covered have both a plentiful supply of inbound enquiries, but also a high success rate in turning them into long-term profitable customers. You will have left behind the frustrations of not having enough leads, leads that don’t convert, or orders that bounce.
When you master this one, you’ll have a balanced marketing routine with an effective tool or technique mapped to every step of a sales journey. This is like a well-rounded exercise plan mapped out by a skilled personal trainer that covers all muscle groups and has the right mix of strength and resistance work.
Marketing paced to match the rhythm of your market
A Baseline Marketing Rhythm is a commitment to delivering your marketing activity at a frequency matched to the pace of your market.
An organisation that’s mastered this one delivers on its plans, they are ahead of the curve in planning for seasonal opportunities, and they can easily flex what they are doing to manage the flow of new business or respond to changing market conditions. When you have this right, the yo-yo pattern to your marketing, with bursts of energy followed by periods of inactivity will be a distant memory.
For this to be a strength in your practice, you will have made a commitment to marketing that is consistently delivered at intervals and pace matched to your market. This is akin to a regular fitness routine that you stick to, with regular check-ins to know when to step things up… there’s no point only going to the gym in January, right?!
Maintaining your marketing momentum
Your Marketing Momentum is based on your purpose-driven by the vision & values that guide everything that you do, motivating you to keep going and clarifying the next steps into a defined plan.
As a Vistage member, you’ll know how important vision and leadership is to business success. This of course means that vision and leadership is also critical to the success of your marketing. What this means is that you can easily re-motivate yourself or your team when things get tough and that there are clear progress markers laid out. There will also be clarity on how to make decisions about your marketing because there are well-understood values to act as yardsticks.
Maintaining enthusiasm is made possible by a compelling business vision that is translated into a clear plan when you have the other elements have a direction of travel. What’s this in our fitness analogy? Is it the image of yourself on the beach rocking that swimsuit, or being fit and well to play with your grandkids? It’s your reason for doing it!
These are the Four Flow Foundations (Chapter 2, Watertight Marketing), and you’ll need all of these in place if your marketing is going to genuinely support the long-term health of your practice. Whether your marketing is making the metaphorical shift from couch to 5k, from county to country-level athlete, or wants to reach the world-class equivalent of an Olympic gold medal, these will be the four foundations on which that achievement will be built. Understanding, and sequencing, investments in these four foundations is your path to sustainable, scale-able, and saleable business growth.
© Watertight Marketing Ltd
Join Bryony Thomas for ‘Four Foundations of World Class Marketing’ on the 8th September to understand where you are now against these pillars of success, the sequence in which to address them, and what next steps you might take towards exceptional marketing performance.
Bryony Thomas is the multi award-winning creator of the Watertight Marketing methodology, captured in her number 1 best-selling book of the same name. watertightmarketing.com.
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