How To Win In Business Marketing- In The New Normal

Business it tough these days.

New technologies, social media apps, web 2.0 sites…all combine to making it even harder to effectively market your products and services. We talk a lot about this new technology and how to make it work for your advantage.  This is a time of disruption where winners and losers will emerge in this “new normal” of marketing. But…

Truth be told, I get many executives and entrepreneurs that tell me that this new marketing and social media stuff is too hard. They try blogging or publishing articles or participating in forums but don’t seem to get traction.  We find that you need two things to be successful in this new marketing environment:

1. You need to approach marketing planning (in this new normal) strategically, incorporating all the new tools you have to work with.  I often work with companies that have been flailing from one social media tactic to the other based on the latest fad or email course they received.  This is not a strategy.  Develop a system that is based on accountable objectives and incorporate it into your business work flow.
2. Be determined to be consistent and persistent.  What makes this tough with social media marketing is you can’t just develop a print or TV campaign, build a media plan and then just run it.  You need to be involved and nurture your relationships. The cost of implementing these programs are very small but you need to experiment and “dial in” what your target audience in interested in and provide support and information through your expertise.  Hey, imagine that, you actually need to get close to your customers!

The rewards for those business that take advantage of the new marketing opportunities and persistently and consistently pursue them are huge. But it takes a different level of commitment, professionalism and persistence that we are used to.  Seth Godin calls it “the dip”, but if you are the business in your niche that breaks through, congratulations!  It’s called market domination!