Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur the contributors are theirs.
Evolution is unavoidable and permeates all aspects of life. Many of us tend to resist this fact, relying by nature on the comfort of what we know. However, it is a cold reality that those who do not evolve are inevitably left behind. This applies to both life and business. If a business fails to evolve and adapt to the ever-changing market environment, it will eventually fail.
At my company, we take this idea one step further with one fundamental principle:
“To be at the forefront of technology and innovation, we must be ready not only to accept change, but also to lead it.”
It’s a simple statement, yet profound if taken to heart and relentlessly applied. If you want to be the best, waiting for change to happen — or embracing it after it happens — means you’re already behind. To have a massive impact, it is crucial to drive change, not just react to it.
So how does this apply to marketing and what are some concrete steps you can start taking today? Here are three key ideas to ponder and implement to ensure you resonate deeply with your audience and be ahead of the pack in your industry.
Related: 3 Ways to Feel Good About Daylight Savings
1. Retrospective market approach
Many companies try to think of a new, innovative idea from scratch, constantly racking their brains to create “the next big thing”. However, this is not the right approach. The market doesn’t care about you or your ideas; he cares about how you can solve problems and deliver results. Instead of being selfish and thinking in your head, spend that time getting to know your target market. What are their biggest problems? What do they really want? Why haven’t they been able to fix these issues or get the desired results already?
This is an opportunity to talk to as many market participants as possible, ask intimate questions and take detailed notes. Don’t stop until you find the deepest answers to these questions. If done right, you’ll earn gold by discovering a common problem and, eventually, a scalable solution. From there, you can effortlessly design an innovative business plan, followed by a marketing strategy that really resonates in your key market.
Related: Best Practices for Operating Your Business in a Rapidly Changing Market
2. Relentless Focus
We live in a chaotic world where concentration is almost impossible to harness and master. In the constant noise of day-to-day operations, businesses are caught up in the boom with trivial tasks, eventually losing sight of the few important things. The only thing that matters, however, is the result.
In a perfect world, all hiring, marketing, sales, and operations should be optimized for this purpose. To lead the pack and succeed in your marketing goals, it’s extremely important that you never lose sight of that goal. Write your end result everywhere. Make sure every team member is constantly reminded of the goal and that the end result is central to your company culture. If you can stay focused on that, all branding, awareness, and even sales will become exponentially more powerful, and your customers will see you as their saving grace. In a market environment where everyone is distracted, redouble your efforts to outperform your competitors.
Related: Master These 5 Leadership Skills to Boost Your Results
3. Feedback Optimization
Many businesses lack adequate systems to gather market feedback and cannot effectively optimize their messaging. In all business disciplines, and even more so in marketing, collecting and understanding feedback is critical to business success. Even if you follow the first two steps outlined above, there is always room for improvement in messaging. In an effort to resonate on the deepest level with your ideal client, it’s crucial to monitor sentiment every chance you get.
From a PR perspective, the best way to do this is to use a modified A/B testing template to create multiple story angles with different narratives. From there, you can track which stories get the most attention, double down on the message that resonates, and then weed out underperforming stories. The key here is to be relentless in weeding out what doesn’t resonate, no matter how “good” you think it is or how good it serves your ego. Remember, the only thing that matters is customer feedback, so listen and adapt. When it becomes clear that you know them better than they do, your client won’t just put you on a pedestal; they will help you build it.
To sum up, the market is changing rapidly and the days of “doing things the old fashioned way” are over. If you follow the three fundamental principles above, you will be in an ideal position to lead your market and drive its evolution. If you don’t, you risk being sent to live in memory with the mean and forgotten. The choice is yours.
#Marketing #Strategies #Changing #Market