You can't build an advertising strategy without knowing the value of the product. You can't know the value of the product without analyzing the consumer's needs. You can't know what the consumer needs without asking his opinion.
When you sell fast food, is it fast food first and healthy food second? Or is it important to the consumer that it is healthy?
When selling brick, does the client want it to retain heat, not fade or crumble during construction? What is important to your consumer? You asked him before you launched an ad and paid for the sales text, didn't you?
Formation of a value proposition
It is not for nothing that giants facebook database such as Apple, Procter & Gamble or Tinkoff spend hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing research and do not rely on their intuition and experience when determining the value of products in the eyes of their consumers.
Mistake #10 – The sales department is not working properly
- What product qualities should you focus on to grow?
- None.
- ... ???
- To grow, you need to focus on sales.
How do your sales managers work? Do you have sales department KPIs calculated, what is the conversion rate and what does your sales funnel look like?
This is the moment when it is important to focus not on creating a product, but on its implementation. Practice shows that 80% of all profits go to those who spend at least 20% of their time on improving sales systems, optimizing department work and using direct marketing principles.
Let's sum it up
We offer a short checklist to check your marketing.
We have a clear marketing strategy that allows us to build feasible short-term and long-term plans.
Marketing is our main investment. That is why we record everything in numerical indicators: the number of sales and the cost of attracting a client, the number and price of clicks, website conversion, sales volume and profit, the number of community subscribers, the number of publications, mailings and their open rate, etc.
We know our target audience, we know how our consumers spend their free time, what they read and where they relax. They can’t hide from us. We conduct focus group surveys and testing when we want to introduce a new product or change the color of the packaging.
We know the key competitors of our business, we regularly monitor their development strategy. I personally can name their strengths and weaknesses with my eyes closed.
We have established partnerships with interested parties. There is continuous work in this direction. We have even developed a bonus system for those who bring new clients to us.
We have a client base! We don't give it to anyone and we keep it like the apple of our eye! We also regularly replenish it and are in constant contact with our clients.
We know exactly which promotion channels to finance – we spend 80% of the marketing budget on 2-3 main types of advertising, the rest of the funds are distributed to other promotion channels. On average, our marketing budget is 2-5% of sales volume.
We are constantly increasing our online presence – we have a website, social media groups and a working content strategy. We regularly increase online sales, and we are planning to create our own mobile app.
We know everything about the value of our product. Our advertising strategy is built on this basis.
And finally, we know exactly how to sell our product. We may not be better than our competitors in producing it, our supply chain may suffer, but we know for sure that our sales system is the best.
If this is all about you, congratulations – your marketing is worthy of the h