Want To Make Your Marketing More Effective?
Close the efficiency gap between strategy and marketing
Reaching revenue goals, for most companies, is very difficult. According to Reflektive.com, 90 percent of companies do not meet their goals. Why?
They do not have an effective business growth strategy.
There is often a gap, difference, or disconnect between the business growth strategy and the company’s marketing messages.
They are often not identical. Consequently, this gap damages sales and marketing results.
To close that gap, you must first create business growth strategies to generate revenues.
Why? Because your business strategy is your story. Marketing is how you tell that story.
A strategy looks simple when you look back at it.
Here are a couple of examples:
BMW designs, engineers, builds, and sells “The Ultimate Driving Machine” (for that unique slice of the upscale car market).
Walmart: “Save Money. Live Better.” They created a strategy to chain-link an operating system
to get the population density needed to serve small towns with brand choices and lower prices in larger city stores like K-Mart.
Netflix: “See What’s Next” anticipated the power of cloud computing and its ability to reach individual computers and individuals.
They pivoted from a disc rental company and created a new video-streaming strategy for the world’s homes and businesses.
Today, business growth strategies must generate more revenues.
Market boundaries do not have to stay permanent.
Most business leaders accept market boundaries and industry conditions are fixed.
The assumption is that it’s always been that way.
Therefore, you must strategically choose between differentiation OR low cost to succeed.
But you can’t do both: add value AND lower costs.
This belief hurts product and market innovation for companies in very competitive markets.
We have learned from professors and strategists like Richard Rumelt’s Good Strategy/Bad Strategy
to rule breakers like Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne‘s insightful Blue Ocean that this belief is false.
You need to be more creative.
What is true is that strategies have been crippled by believing this value–cost trade-off rule is impossible.
Consequently, this viewpoint narrows your perspective and limits your potential product and market opportunities.
We are not just talking about creating disruptive technologies.
We are talking about competing in very competitive markets.
You can shape your market boundaries.
Innovative strategies enable you to create your own boundaries to generate revenues.
You can shape your market boundaries and target customers,
creating differentiation (more value) and lower costs. Here are a few examples:
Southwest Airlines broke the industry “hub and spoke” model and flew direct routes to smaller airports.
They have been the only consistently profitable U.S. airline since its inception.
Apple broke the industrial computer market by introducing a beautiful, easy-to-use computer for individual consumers.
That worked pretty well.
CitizenM Hotel created a “five-star hotel” experience with four-star prices
by eliminating the things “five-star” customers didn’t care about,
like lobby check-ins and a concierge service.
And then added in items they did care about,
like King size beds, better mattresses, cotton sheets, and better pillows.
As a result, customers told their friends, and the hotels became an instant success.
Disruptive technologies’ successes often go viral.
More money is made from adapting those technologies
New technology is important and disruptive technology is and should be well rewarded.
But history shows that “big” money comes from applying technology and creating new strategies and markets.
Some popular examples from the New York Stock Exchange are
Apple, Google, FaceBook (Meta now), Airbnb, and others exploited the new technologies.
Therefore, if you have an open mind and a broad perspective, you can change how you see opportunities.
You can go from fighting fierce competition to creating a bigger market.
A market consisting of current buyers and previously ignored nonbuyers
who become buyers because of your unique, new business growth strategy.
Are you tired of constantly fighting your competition?
Take your company to the next level with an insightful strategy.
If you are willing to entertain new ideas and are committed to involving your team, you can make it happen.
Getting started on your insightful new business growth strategy could put you ahead of your competition.
About 70% of companies say they have a strategy, but only a few have an actual strategy.
The problem is their definition of strategy is goals or a mission statement.
Goals are mostly wishes without a strategic plan on how to achieve them.
Unfortunately, only 15% have real, achievable, measurable, specific strategies.
And of these companies with real strategies, about 40% still miss achieving their objective. Why?
Not because of the strategy but because the execution of the strategy is often neglected for many different reasons.
So, having a strategy AND executing it are important.
Also, because execution takes time, it can lose its priority. Success takes a long-term “team” effort.
On the positive side, if the team is included in the process,
they will become more excited as the execution becomes more and more of a reality.
Conclusion
You will be ahead of most of your competitors just by starting your journey toward an effective business growth strategy.
Looking forward can seem daunting at first.
But, once you see your strategy, if done right, looking backward, the strategy looks simple and easy.
Even though the world is getting more complex and seems to be moving faster, we can help make it as easy and effective as possible.
If you have an open mind and broaden your perspective,
you can shape your marketing boundaries by creating differentiation AND low cost.
