At YourBusinessEdge we’ve developed a proven methodology - our Marketing Edge System - to deliver increased sales for a very small marketing budget - it’s “What We Do.”
Let’s face it, there are ONLY TWO objectives you can have for your marketing:
- Attract new customers who will spend money
- Get existing customers to visit more often and spend more money
That’s it - nothing else impacts your sales. Simple, right? And everything that’s not aligned to one or the other goal (stuff we call “random acts of advertising”) is pretty much wasting your time and money - even if it feels good!
But do understand that your marketing - and your marketing campaigns - don’t exist in isolation. Your campaigns are ‘connected’ to each other, your customers’ changing behavior and, in the big picture, the economy. To make it easy to understand and manage, we like to use a metaphor of the tides, the waves, and the ripples.
The Tides: Econ-Geo-Demographics
In marketing terms, the tides are factors largely beyond your control: the economy; the local economy; unemployment; demographic shifts (such as changes in household income, home value); and more, all relative to your location. During the Great Recession we all learned these things are unmanageable. But, what's important is that when the tides change we have to 1) recognize it and 2) as appropriate put more effort into managing the waves and the ripples to overcome the impact (many of our clients grew even through the Great Recession).
The Waves: Customer Behavior
In marketing terms, the waves are driven by your customers’ behavior. Are new customers showing up? Are they visiting more or less frequently? Are they spending more or less when they visit? Once we understand that, it’s easy to figure what campaigns - or ripples - we can create to change their behavior, and impact your sales.
The Ripples: Campaigns (building around your Marketing Machine)
In marketing terms, the ripples are the individual campaigns. These are completely under your - or our - control. An email blast, a social media post, a grocery receipt coupon. There are lots of options. What's important is to measure what works and then repeat, repeat - unless the campaign stops working.
What we’ve learned over the years is that two groups of campaigns are essential to your success: 1) the core campaigns (that we call your Marketing Machine; see our 'How We Do It' web page) used to engage and influence customer behavior; and 2) the additional ‘ripple’ campaigns - like ads, coupons and more - that we use sparingly as and when needed (and typically only when there’s a big return-on-investment).
For most small businesses, the Marketing Machine is 90% of the solution and it remains the key driver of the ‘marketing holy grail’ - word-of-mouth. That means 90% of your budget should be spent on building and managing your Marketing Machine. Once it’s in place and ‘running smoothly’, we can identify the need to further impact the waves (and your sales goals), and build specific ‘additional campaigns’ to achieve them.
Rest assured, our approach covers all bases. We are a one-stop, full-service Marketing Services Provider. But we understand exactly where you’ll get the biggest bang-for-your-buck and that’s where we focus our efforts - and your dollars.
Want to hear more about how you have your very own marketing department for a low monthly fee? Call us and speak to an expert - he/she can explain how we'll pay for ourselves in no time.
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