TIME-WASTER #1 of 15: Poor Sales and Marketing Strategy

TIME-WASTER #1 of 15: Poor Sales and Marketing Strategy

A poor marketing strategy will lead your company to make costly mistakes, select the wrong market, or fail to reach the right target audience. While executive management has the primary responsibility of defining the sales and marketing strategy, every VP Sales, Sales Manager and Salesperson should ask him or herself:

• What battle should we be fighting? If your main competitors are well-established and several times larger than your company, you may find it impossible to gain a significant footing in the industry. You may be better served if you find a niche where your product excels and go after success in that area.
• In which market segment will we have the greatest chance of success? Your product may serve a large market well, but some segments will give you a greater ROI than others. Define where you stand to make the greatest profit with the least amount of effort and focus on that segment.
• What is the most effective way to target the correct market segment? Tailor your marketing to your target audience: while senior citizens watch a lot of daytime television but shy away from Internet search engines, small business owners are often the opposite.
• What is our most success a low-cost source of leads?

Once you have defined these core issues, further define it by asking yourself:

• What is our core message? Boil it down to 30 seconds or less.
• Who is the target decision maker? What title do they usually have? What department do they work in? List each possibility.
• What are our products’ key features, benefits, and impact? What pains or possibilities do we address in our target marketplace? List the top 5 of each.
• What is our advantage over the competition: price, quality, speed, or service?
• What is our Unique Selling Position: the single, coolest, most powerful stance we can take in the market?

Best Practice: Take the time to answer these questions and then make sure you and your people know these strategies well.

Author: Ken Krogue | Google+
Summary of Ken Krogue’s Forbes articles