Create a Digital Marketing Roadmap to Success

Identify Your Marketing and Growth Goals

If you’re asking how to grow your electrical business, the first step to achieving success is to identify your goals. You need to ask yourself questions like: How much growth do I want or need? What is my capacity for clients? Who are my ideal clients? By getting clear on your goals you’ll be able to tailor your marketing strategy to ensure you hit them.

Identify Your Ideal Client

To grow your electrical business you’ll need to also identify your ideal client. In marketing, this is often referred to as your buyer personas. Ask yourself questions such as who is most likely to buy your services, what do they need? And what are their pain points? Where do they hang out? Knowing this information will help you craft the right messaging and create content that is helpful and relevant to them. This also helps nurture them along their buyer’s journey to becoming a customer, One thing to keep in mind is that Marketing is not about you, it is about your customers, so try to avoid talking about yourself too much.

Craft Your Messaging

Messaging is a huge part of creating a good brand. Your messaging is what you say and how you say it – visually or written. It’s often the first interaction a prospect will have with your business, so tone and messaging are really important. So once you know who your ideal customer is, it’s time to craft your messaging. Consider the words you use and make sure they are in line with your ideal customer’s needs and goals. This will help create a connection between you and your target audience, leading to more sales and more customers.

Media Channels to grow your electrical business

The next step is to select your media channels.

So understanding the difference between messaging and channels is really important. Think about where your ideal customer probably spends time and what platforms they use. You’ll want to focus on those and create content tailored to each one. Often media channels such as Facebook and other social media are categorised as ‘marketing’ in people’s minds. In actual fact, these are media channels to distribute your marketing message. Other channels could include a website, blog, google ads network, radio, television, print etc.

Implement Your Plan

Finally, the most important step is to implement your plan. This involves creating actions from the plan and getting them done.

Sounds easy right? Well yes and no. Marketing a business is a massive task – and it’s a full-time job itself. As is starting and running an electrical business. (or any business for that matter) You need to decide if you need to hire a marketing person or whether you should hire a marketing agency to help you. There are pros and cons to both of course.  with this and ensure that your plan is accurately executed. They can also help you measure your success and identify potential areas of improvement.

A lot of people want to know and always ask us “how much does marketing cost?”

Well, a lot of experts out there say 7-10% of your revenue should be spent on marketing and advertising. And whilst that’s a good but very rough guide, I don’t believe the answer is that easy. And that’s especially the case if you are a mid-sized business. It is easy for massive companies to throw millions if not billions at ad campaigns known as ‘branding’ to reinforce their brand. It’s easy because they have the revenue coming in so they, therefore, have the budget to spend.

This of course is a form of traditional ‘outbound’ marketing. Often it is ego driven and because we have grown up seeing this type of advertising and/or marketing from these big companies like Coca-Cola, Nike, Mcdonalds, and more, we think this is what we have to do to get our name ‘out there’.

But the traditional outbound – or scattergun approach is not sustainable for small and medium businesses – not even in the short term. So if you’re still advertising on the radio or in the newspaper, STOP!

There’s a better way. You need to stop throwing your hard-earned money away on marketing and/or advertising that is nothing more than an expense… Small and medium businesses need to adopt an Inbound marketing philosophy.

How much does Inbound Marketing Cost?

At the end of the day, it depends on a variety of factors… It depends somewhat on the size of your business, your customers (target market), and your goals.

But most importantly – how can you measure the returns or ROI? And even more so what do the returns look like? If you could buy a $100 note for $20 – how many would you buy? As many as you could afford right? So if your marketing and advertising can return 5x what it costs – is it still a cost? NO! it’s an investment. So the question should be how much should you invest in marketing!

How much should you spend on Marketing?

It is easy to for me to sit here and say (well write) that you should spend X amount and marketing cost should be $1000 or $5000 per month… But it is too subjective to give a definitive figure. Much like the analogy above where you could buy $100 for $20 it depends on what you have to spend, upfront and ongoing. What you need to also weigh up is whether can you afford to pay an expert and sustain the investment until it starts to pay off. In general terms, it’s best to start the investment smaller and grow it once you can get the right data to see what actually works best – and what doesn’t.

Without a purpose, or strategy thought you’re essentially driving along with a blindfold. So the first place to start is with a plan. A Roadmap. At back9 we offer a simple digital marketing roadmap, that helps clients define their audience and their goals. A roadmap helps you see the destination, which gives you direction. Then all you need is the drive to get there.

Our digital marketing roadmap is 1495 + GST and is eligible for up to 50% government funding in NZ.

Good Marketing Costs you nothing!

Whilst of course nothing in business is guaranteed, If you have a good product or a good business model, then there’s no real reason why marketing and/or advertising should be a cost. Good marketing is and should be measurable, and therefore it should also pay for itself. And if it pays for itself, it is an investment. Knowing what to measure and how to do that is a little more complicated, and may require working with a marketing expert if you want to reach your full potential. How do you choose the right marketing agency for your business? Well good old-fashioned research, Choose someone you connect with and share values with. Someone with proven results too.

Whether you are a startup business or a well-established company, marketing is essential for success. So when we talk about industries that need marketing, who comes up the most? Well, it’s hard to narrow that down. It’s so important to remember that all businesses need marketing. But there are some industries that have to use it more than others. Let’s take a look at some of these industries and how they use marketing to reach their target audience.

Industries that Need Marketing

Retail Industry

The retail industry is heavily dependent on marketing and advertising due to its highly competitive nature. Retailers must create unique and effective campaigns in order to differentiate themselves from their competitors and attract customers. They rely on advertising, public relations, direct mail campaigns, social media strategies, and more. In saying that, the biggest opportunity for any retail business, is online. And by online I mean e-commerce. If you own a retail business and are not selling online. Now is the time to start. Additionally, e-commerce offers the ability to integrate data-driven strategies. Things such as email marketing, marketing automation, and retargeting ads are highly measurable and effective.

Food Industry

one of the Industries that need marketing more than most is also The food industry. It’s also highly competitive and needs effective marketing strategies in order to stand out from the crowd. Restaurants, cafés, bakeries, catering companies – all these businesses need enticing visuals and wording to draw people in through digital marketing channels such as websites and social media platforms. Additionally, food companies can reach out directly to potential customers through coupons or special deals sent via email or text message campaigns.

Technology Industry

The technology industry is among the industries that need marketing too. It’s rapidly changing and evolving as new products are constantly being released. Companies in this sector must stay ahead of the competition by creating a powerful online presence with strong visuals and appealing messaging that entices customers into making purchases or downloading apps. Additionally, technology companies should be leveraging influencers within their niche who can share their products with a wider audience.

Construction/Building Industry

In the building industry, it might be tempting to think that you’re already busy enough and don’t need any more work. However, marketing is a way to ensure that your business doesn’t suffer from feast-or-famine syndrome – no industries are exempt from this rule, and that includes the construction sector. If you want to know how to grow your building business, then investing in marketing is a key component. By attracting and converting leads, your sales pipeline of work can remain full. And your business can remain steadily busy.

Marketing is essential for all businesses

If you want to succeed regardless of your industry type, Marketing is essential. However, there are certain industries where it is especially important for reaching potential customers. The retail industry relies heavily on attractive visuals and messaging while the food industry needs enticing imagery for driving sales; meanwhile, the technology industry requires staying ahead of trends with a strong online presence. Ultimately no matter what type of business you run, having an effective marketing strategy is key for achieving success! Bt what you must remember is Marketing is not about you. It is about your [potential] customers.