Strategy Before Tactics

The title of today's article captures the single greatest
small business marketing mistake I encounter - and I
encounter it every single day.

Small business owners often fall prey to the marketing whim
of the week, chasing every new way to do direct mail or
draw web site visitors they encounter, because they have no
real marketing strategy to help them drive marketing
decisions. If I could change anything about the way small
business owners view marketing - that would be it.

Without a strategy firmly in place to use as a filter for
where the business is headed, it's far to difficult to
really analyze whether any particular tactic or marketing
initiative makes sense for a business or not.

By strategy I mean your marketing reason for being, the
position you want to hold in the mind of your customer and,
no, "I want to exchange money for something with anyone we
can," is not a strategy, it's a disaster plan. Far too many
people think "we want to sell lots of stuff to lots of
people" is a strategy.

The world doesn't really need another accountant,
electrician, real estate agent, or small business of most
any kind, so if that's what you are, then you better get a
way to stand out that's based on a sound strategy. The
world, or at least a market segment, will always need the
accountant, electrician or real estate agent that does
business in new and different ways, ways that matter to a
specific market.

To develop an effective marketing strategy you must spend
some energy determining two crucial factors: who makes an
ideal client for your firm and how your firm is indeed
different than everyone else that claims to be in your same
business.

If is, in fact, quite possible that there are entire
subsets of what you might call a target market that are not
at all a fit for your business. You've got to get very
clear, and often narrow, about the characteristics of a
client your firm is best suited to serve. If you have
clients already, the best place to look to identify your
ideal clients is the subset of clients that is most
profitable and has a tendency to refer business to you.
These folks likely love what you do, are emotionally
attached enough to tell friends, and value the relationship
they have to your company. If you can come up with a
crystal clear image of what these folks look like, part of
your marketing strategy should focus on finding more of
these and saying no to the rest

The second half of your marketing strategy involves
discovering your firm's best chance to stand out and
differentiate. You may already do something that truly is
unique and need only communicate it as your strategy. Or,
you may need to find one something that you can do
famously, such as dominating a narrow niche market or
packaging your services like no one else in your industry
dreamed of doing.

Once you create a powerful strategy for your business all
of focus can turn to creating and implementing tactics that
can bring your strategy to life.

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John Jantsch is a veteran marketing coach, award winning
blogger and author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most
Practical Small Business Marketing Guide. You can find more
information by visiting http://www.ducttapemarketing.com .