Strategic Marketing Coach

For most, mastering marketing comes at a heavy price of many years of expensive trial and error. You have probably already discovered that you can’t become a masterful marketer by reading books, listening to tapes, watching videos, or going to seminars. Knowing how to implement effective marketing requires first-hand experience.

From my personal observations, and from discussions with other marketing gurus and super successful business owners, I have found that there are four areas that are fundamental to successful marketing.

They are:

Creating a Strategic Marketing Plan

Most businesses don’t plan to fail. They simply fail to plan. Marketing planning is crucial to your success because it connects you with your customers. The most important part of your business enterprise is your customers/clients/patients. Without them, you don’t have a business.

A Strategic Marketing Plan is your blueprint for connecting your target market to you. It is the entire layout of how all your marketing activities fit together to produce the ultimate result/outcome that you are continuously after.

Note: This fact may surprise you. In a recent survey of owners of businesses and professional practices, 94% admitted that they did not have a formal marketing plan. Is it any wonder why less than 2% of business and professional practice owners are financially secure?

Developing an Optimal Positioning Strategy

Positioning in its simplest form is no more than the way your customers/clients/patients think of your business or professional practice. Optimal positioning is gaining top of mind awareness of your target market, so that your business or professional practice naturally comes to mind when they have a need for what you offer. There is a subtle but powerful difference between positioning and optimal positioning.

Focus - that your position is clear and easily understood.

Congruency - that you establish positioning you can carry out through everything that you do.

Consistency - that you are going to stick with your positioning for a long period of time, to build understanding rather than create confusion

Advantage - that the positioning gives you some competitive or persuasive advantage with your target market.

Fulfillment - that you can and will deliver on the promises stated and/or implied in your positioning.

Determining the Exact Marketing Tactics to Use

There are two steps in determining the exact marketing tactics to use. The first step comes from experience, study, and observation of successful marketing tactics being used in yours and other industries, and consists of determining which marketing tactics to use. The second step comes from understanding how to apply these tactics to your specific business situation. Marketing tactics are the steps, actions, means, or measures that you use to achieve the goals of your strategic plan.

Implementation (Goal Setting, Planning, and Action)

In every market, 20% of the businesses control 80% of the potential revenues in that market. The top 4% control 65% of the market. Think about that for a moment. What separates the top 4% from everyone else is their ability to take action and measure their progress on a daily basis.

The prerequisite for committed daily action comes from proper goal setting and planning. Setting clear and concise goals and then breaking them down to monthly, weekly, and then daily outcomes.

As a coach, this is the step where I have the greatest value to you, and that is to ensure the successful implementation of your plan so you will achieve your goals.

When you look at your existing marketing, how many of these four areas are you utilizing in your business or professional practice?

The primary difference between a thriving business or professional practice, and one that struggles, comes down to how well the owner understands and executes these four strategic marketing areas. It is the formula for marketing success.