You are marketing and tweaking and making adjustments. Your boss says he likes and supports what you’re doing, but sales leads are barely trickling in. The leads that are coming through are of low quality with no sign of improvement soon. You can’t sleep at night, worrying about this situation. You’ve tried being patient and giving it more time, but nothing seems to be working. The numbers won’t lie, after all, and neither will the metrics.
No, the answer is not to draw up more strategies and just try everything until something sticks. You could just be wasting precious company resources and your time, which is just as important. Besides, why put in a whole lot of effort on something that will absolutely not be worth it down the line?
Here are some red flags you should look out for so you can tell if your sales and marketing strategy actually needs help:
- Customers Are Starting To Favor More Affordable Alternatives
When customers jump ship at the first sign of a cheaper alternative, it means your marketing isn’t working. When they feel they can get the same thing at a lower price, they abandon you immediately. You may attribute this to poor quality services or products, but isn’t it possible the service or product is still just fine? If you’re confident that your offerings are of higher quality than your competitors, and the price reflects this value…well.
It means there’s only one reason left that users are abandoning you: you’re not communicating what makes your products and services so good.
- No Customers Are Being Drawn In
If you aren’t attracting and keeping new customers, it’s because your marketing strategy isn’t conveying the value of your product to the people who should buy it. Without a solid platform to stand on, too many businesses crumble and fall. The reason this happens is that your company isn’t communicating its core values to the people who should buy from your company.
This is a huge mistake because if you can find a way to communicate your core values, the customers you want will come to you.
- The Strategy You’ve Got Going For You Is Something You’re Not 100% Sure Of
Can’t give a concise explanation about goals and metrics on the fly? Something’s definitely not right. You might want to go back to square one and just get down to the basics, start over from there.
Some of the steps you may want to include are to determine if your current goals are still relevant or if they need to be adjusted. Researching exactly what works and what doesn’t will also help. Try to learn from other businesses, too; research peers and/or competitors.
Conclusion
No matter how hard you try with efforts towards sales and marketing, something seems to be off. If your strategy seems to be creating problems but you’re unsure, you should be on the lookout for red flags. Your sales and marketing strategy will need help if the strategy you’ve going for you is something you’re unsure of, no customers are being drawn in and customers are favoring alternatives that are more affordable.
Feeling like you need to refresh your business basics 101 to rework your sales and marketing strategy? Reach out to New Business Centre! We exist mainly to help new businesses navigate their beginner phase.