Graham McGregor: What is your marketing focus for the start of 2016?

What is your marketing focus for the start of 2016? Photo / iStock

A brand New Year is now well under way and I trust it's going well for you so far.

If you would like to improve your marketing results this year here is a question you might like to think about...

'What is your marketing focus for the start of 2016?'

As I see it, there are four possible areas in marketing that you could focus your attention and resources on during February and March...

1. Lead generation
2. Sales conversion
3. Repeat and referral sales
4. Competitive advantage

Here's a quick explanation of each of these four areas...

1: Lead generation

Here you do things that produce interested, qualified prospects who are keen to talk with you about the products and services you offer.

For many businesses a useful focus for the start of 2016 is to put into action 2-3 new lead generation systems that produce larger numbers of interested prospects to talk with.

A good example of this is a personal trainer I worked with a number of years ago.

He was very good at what he did but only had a handful of clients.

I showed him how to implement a super simple lead generation system and within a few weeks he had dozens of highly profitable new clients.

Is lead generation an area that is worth looking at for your business in February and March?

2: Sales conversion

Here you do things that convert a certain number of interested prospects into happy paying clients and customers.

For many businesses a simple way to improve their business results in 2016 is to do things that will improve their conversion ratios.

A good example is a bathroom renovation firm I spoke with a few days ago.

The average value of a new client for this firm is $19,000 in sales. And they currently have around one quote in ten that turns into a paying client.

With a few simple changes to their quoting and sales conversion process this firm could easily convert 1-2 more of their quotes into paying clients each month. Which would result in a handy six figure increase in their sales.

Is sales conversion an area worth looking at for your business?

3: Repeat and referral sales

Here you do things to get repeat business and good quality referrals from existing clients.

Plus you do things to get regular referrals from key centres of influence.

Repeat and referral sales are highly profitable. And they are very easy to create if you put into place some very simple marketing systems.

Are repeat and referral sales worth looking at for your business?

4: Competitive advantage

Whatever business you have there are usually competitors offering similar products and services.

To gain a competitive advantage you do things that give potential clients great reasons to choose your business over your competitors.

There are dozens of ways to gain a competitive advantage.

A good example is a business coach I came across a few years ago.

He was struggling to do well so he changed his marketing.

He decided that instead of being a business coach to a wide range of businesses he was going to specialise in being a business coach to web designers and developers only. (That became his competitive advantage.)

Within 12 months he had increased his revenues 500% and was doing very nicely.
With four marketing areas to choose from how many areas should you focus on first?

I recommend you pick one just marketing area only and focus on this for February and March.

Get better results in this one marketing area. (And once you have done that you may wish to look at another marketing area to improve in.)

I hope these brief comments are of some help.

And best wishes for a superb year ahead.

"Focus is more important, than intelligence"- Dr Nido R Qubein

Action Exercise:

Which one marketing area would help you improve your results the most if you got better at it in February and March?

What will you do this week to get better results in this one marketing area?

Helpful resource:

If you would like some help in any of these four marketing areas then my "February Fast Results Marketing Programme" may be worth considering.

Contact me using the email links at the top or bottom of this column.

Tell me the type of business you have and the one key marketing area you would like to get fast results in during February.

I'll let you know within 24 hours how this programme works and whether or not it might be useful for your type of business.

Graham McGregor is a consultant specialising in memorable marketing. Download his 396-page Unfair Business Advantage ebook at no charge from theunfairbusinessadvantage.com.