Is your marketing a lighthouse?
On two separate occasions in the past week the term ‘marketing as a lighthouse’ has been used by clients. It’s the first time I’ve come across the use of this expression, but I fully understand where my clients are coming from and it's linked to goals, objectives and strategy.
As a business owner, whether a small or medium business, your focus is often pulled in one direction to another multiple times a day. Whether you’re fire fighting, dealing with employee priorities or simply meeting the demands of clients, marketing falls out of focus and to the bottom of the to do list all too frequently.
One client said that he’s a lighthouse when it comes to marketing. The light spins around, albeit slowly, and when it shines on marketing, he’s fully focussed, geared up to strategise, plan and execute. Unfortunately, he feels that the light moves onto another part of his business very quickly, leaving marketing in the dark. In our conversations, his concerns echoed those of many of our other clients:
- ‘Not enough time to do everything’
- ‘No focus on marketing for the longer term’
- ‘Short term activities help us survive’
- ‘Business growth is limited, or slower than we’d hoped’
- ‘I never seem to reach the marketing items on the to do list’
- ‘We want to get to grips with marketing, but don’t have the need or budget for a full time person.’
Does it sound familiar? Can you hear yourself saying those things as you get to the end of another project?
Where do you turn if you find marketing is in the dark?
There are several ways to address this, and to give your business some marketing attention. It doesn’t have to detract from your day-to-day priorities, nor does it have to cost the earth. BUT, and this is a big but, it will require you investing some time to clarify your business objectives and what you need to achieve over the next 12-18 months. Once you have that, and you know your targets for growing revenues, getting a plan together needn’t be torture.
Whether you need a full blown marketing strategy review and plan, a specific campaign or promotion, on-going content creation or to supplement your in-house resources during a particularly busy period, engaging with a marketing consultancy can provide all the focussed attention you need.
