We’ve created a six-part blog series called “Accelerating Out of the Turn” outlining the key elements leaders need to think about in the first half of 2021 to capitalize on the upcoming economic relaunch.
If you’ve been following along, you’ve learned how to accelerate with a strategic business plan and how to stand out with product differentiation. Today we’ll be continuing with step 3 with tips to gain market exposure through being easily accessible where it counts.
Be sure to stay tuned by subscribing to our email newsletter as we’ll be covering all 6 acceleration steps over the next few months:
1. Acceleration Plan– Create a business plan to accelerate out of the downturn.
2. Stand Out — Stand out from the competition in the eyes of your target customers.
3. Stay Visible — Remain active and easily accessible in the marketplace.
4. Retool for Growth — Adapt and improve systems, processes, and people.
5. Referral Partners — Create a network of strategic referral partnerships.
6. Lead with Health & Hope — Adopt and encourage healthy team behaviours.
Step 3: Building Visibility for Market Exposure
Many companies found themselves scrambling during the past twelve months to survive. Leaders were forced to take defensive actions including tapping government assistance programs, adapting offerings, and, of course, cutting costs. And those cuts may have included marketing and brand spending.
Leaders navigating unprecedented changes often cut marketing spend in an economic downturn due to the difficulty in showing a return on investment; the proverbial “throwing darts” to see what might hit a target. But today, with the tools available to measure marketing impact, you should no longer feel like you’re throwing darts to gain market exposure. If you do, it might be a symptom of a poorly understood and aligned revenue generation process that quantifies the buyer journey through stages of awareness, consideration and decision. It’s also easy to forget that the return on brand and marketing spend often doesn’t present itself until months or sometimes years later.
Continuing or even increasing brand activation during a downturn can create significant advantages. For instance, when your competitors are cutting their spending the market becomes less noisy and cluttered, making your voice stand out more, and capturing the hearts and minds of your audience more easily.
The other factor that’s unique to this downturn is the importance of online marketing. During the pandemic where most jurisdictions had restrictions on gatherings and face-to-face meetings, companies were forced to go digital. That includes your customers and prospects who were spending more time online than ever.
Therefore, every company should be aiming to gain market exposure through a digital strategy. Take inventory of the various mediums and platforms that your customers and prospects are on like:
- Search
- Your website
- Social media
Having a digital presence where your target market spends their time is crucial. Ask yourself if you’re missing a key platform. Perhaps you have the platforms, you’re just not utilizing them enough or in the right way to make a difference in your business. Providing free/inexpensive, and most importantly, valuable content can make all the difference. Consider lead magnets such as:
- Blog articles — taking an SEO approach with blogging to organically rank through the use of search terms with high-volume and lower keyword difficulty.
- Ebooks/whitepapers — use valuable gated-content available only through an opt-in process to build your email list and leads.
- Online courses — provide inexpensive courses to showcase your team as market leaders.
- Webinars/teleconferences — create compelling webinars to improve your brand awareness and convert more leads into paying customers.
This also requires a means to interact one-on-one when face-to-face meetings aren’t possible by optimizing tools like live chat and online meetings.
“Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.” – Henry Ford
Your website is more important now than it was a year ago, and it has to accurately portray your brand personality, credibility and offerings while giving users a friction-free experience. Online attention spans are short, and visitors need to understand your message and get the information they need quickly, or else they’ll move on to the next result on their search list.
Finally, as much as we are interacting digitally with others today, it’s still important to stay human. Fundamentals like just reaching out to customers, prospects, and friends (and maybe people you haven’t talked to in a while), active listening, empathy, and offers to help without an expectation of return, will broaden and deepen your relationships in the marketplace.
Before you know it, you’ll be building your business’s market exposure like a pro with a renewed digital strategy.
Acceleration Readiness Assessment
- Do you have a clearly defined and understood buyer journey for your customers?
- Do you provide easily accessible and valuable content (articles, worksheets, assessments) that your prospects can access?
- Are you active and visible online in the places where your potential buyers are spending time?
Need Help Formulating a Plan?
If you’re struggling with how to increase your market exposure, book a chat with a member of our team for professional advice to improve business strategy and execution.
Eager to learn how to accelerate out of the downturn? Gain access to all 6 steps by downloading our free guide to the 6 Essential Steps to Accelerate Out of the (Down) Turn.
