A critical first step in the process of starting any business is to stake out your startup position by clearly articulating that position. That sounds easy enough but is often overlooked.
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Developing a 21st Century Growth Strategy
Growing a business in the 21st century presents new challenges that cannot be overcome by traditional areas of focus. Increased sales, new products, new markets, new brands, and mergers and acquisitions still have their place as part of an overall growth strategy. But these tactical elements should be guided by an overarching strategy that is born of thought leadership.
What is thought leadership?
Based on a definition of "thought leader" outlined in Forbes, I would describe thought leadership, in the context of business growth, as follows:
The ability to collaborate with customers and strategic partners to identify trends, common themes and patterns within a particular industry or market to help identify new opportunities for growth.
Thought leadership is an innovative approach to business growth. As such, it’s essential that you start by answering questions that spur innovation in developing your 21st century growth strategy. Here are some ideas to get you started:
What problems can you solve?
Answering this question is really a two-part process. First, identify what problems you can currently solve. Then, identify what future problems you can address and solve. Pondering this question enables you to overcome complacency and forces you to seriously think in future terms — a must for strategic planning of any kind.
Who are the Game Changers?
Game changers are those who are continually coming up with new ideas for growing the business. It doesn’t matter so much whether their ideas seem feasible at their inception. What matters is that they’re not afraid to disrupt the status quo with new ideas. Working on the first question will help you identify the game changers within your organization.
How can you make your Best Practices even better?
Best practices are what enable you to operate more efficiently and effectively. But the development of best practices is traditionally limited to internal experts. By sharing your best practices information with your customers and other stakeholders, you open up a potential treasure trove of new ideas on how to make your best practices even better.
Who are your Business Experts?
Experts in your business are those individuals who have been with you long enough to have been involved in implementing new initiatives. They have productive client relationships, and are recognized as experts in the industry and market you serve. Don't confuse business experts with game changers, although experts can also be games changers, and vice versa.
In the past few decades we’ve been transitioning to an information based economy. But information by itself isn’t enough to be successful long term. It’s not what you know that matters. It’s discovering what you know, and acting wisely on that information that matters. Pondering the questions above is the critical first step in the process.
Discover The Secret To Qualified Lead Generation
No matter what your product or service is, or how great it is, or how many people could benefit from it, you will not achieve the success you desire unless you engage in some qualified lead generation first.
Some people think of a lead as the contact information of a person who might be the end consumer of a product or service, or the representative of a company that might purchase the product or service. But that's not enough. Sure, a name and phone number or email address might lead to a person, but it won't necessarily lead to a sale.
The kind of lead required to eventually make a sale is referred to as a qualified lead. A qualified lead is the person who has an interest, intent, and ability to make a purchase decision within a reasonable period of time. Of course, you will also need that individual's contact information.
The question is how do you generate qualified leads, especially in an online marketing scenario?
Content Marketing
We've all heard the mantra "content is king". Well, it's true. When it comes to marketing online, content isking. Why? Because, in the context of online marketing, content translates to well written, relevant information. And people's thirst for more and more information is why the internet is so widely used. It's that simple. So, to generate qualified leads online, you need to publish content that will attract visitors to your website, and keep them engaged by reading your content and sharing it with others.
You can do that by creating your own content -- a challenge for many companies that are long on technical knowledge, but short on writing talent. Another option is to build a stable of freelance writers to handle your content creation. Still another option is to work with an experienced marketing services provider.
To learn more about generating qualified leads for your business, or for help building your brand, your message, and your market, contact us online.
Why You Need Help With Lean Marketing
Lean marketing is an agile, diverse marketing strategy. This marketing approach leverages consumer demand by deploying a series of small, low-budget, targeted marketing attempts to see which succeed, then developing one's market strategy in light of this knowledge. Lean marketing begins with what traditionally would have been seen as the end: deploying a marketing strategy. This method was designed to deal with the realities of modern media, where change is the norm, and where consumers - especially in the key demographics - are used to having media tailored to their demands.
Basic Steps of Lean Marketing
- Experiment. Develop and deploy a variety of marketing strategies. Think outside the box. You never know what will work - and won't - until you try. That is the point of the lean marketing method.
- Quantify. Analyze responses objectively. Utilize a combination of diverse analytic tools such as surveys and click-through data to find out what is working, and why.
- Respond. Rely on the data obtained from the experimental strategies to refine your campaigns and to decide how to invest your marketing budget. Use these results to shape your marketing strategy going forward.
- Return to Step 1. This is an iterative process. That means you keep refining your strategies until you've hit your goals and your campaign is successful.
Why You Need a Third-Party Perspective
In each of the above steps, businesses really need an affordable third-party perspective to benefit from lean marketing campaigns. This fast-paced strategy requires expert knowledge and the ability to act now, before the gathered data becomes stale. A third party with expertise in marketing strategies can:
- Suggest test marketing strategies that you may not have heard of, which have proved successful in the past for similar ventures.
- Provide useful analytic tools and wade through the available data, with a detached perspective.
- Develop agile, targeted marketing strategies on-the-fly, based on consumer response.
You know how to run your business, and you know your customers. Palomar knows marketing. For more information on lean marketing, and what marketing strategies will work within your budget, to the best benefit for your business, contact us today.
Centralize Your Arsenal With Sales Enablement
It can prove difficult to find balance between sales, marketing and revenue. Without question, if you consistently connect the dots you will launch your company farther. Utilizing our sales enablement services your force will soar!
Rapid absorption
Providing up-to-date information to your team is critical. Palomar Marketing has more than 20 years of experience in distilling product information, competitive analyses, and customer insights into practical content your team can easily digest.
Unify your team
Sales enablement is ever-evolving but one thing is certain: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Bringing a clear and concise message across the board unifies your employees and promotes quality communications.
Customer loyalty
When the company sales focus is clear and effective support is readily available, your message is conveyed exactly as you dream and your brand breathes dependability. In turn, your revenue receives a boost. We can help a startup company realize a vision or reinforce the presence of a Fortune 500. Regardless, successful sales enablement is proven to yield the results you desire.
Palomar Marketing provides a solid, customized and consistent service of sales enablement by centralizing and analyzing information for your team's consumption. Find the rhythm and flow of your customers' needs and provide the arsenal of information your sales team requires to generate leads and close the sale. Streamline and strengthen your company by contacting us today.