We write a good amount of content for business owners who are preparing to sell their businesses. In this article, we have something special for those of you who are on the other side — the buy side.
So, you've just purchased a business and now need to generate revenue. Fast. Where do you start? Many times, new business owners think of Advertising and Marketing the same way. Add "Sales" into the mix and the equation becomes even more confusing, right?
Before we dive in and show you where to start, let's define each one of these terms so we're on the same page:
Defining Advertising, Sales, and Marketing
According to Merriam-Webster, here are the definition of each term:
Advertising: The action of calling something to the attention of the public especially by paid announcements.
Sales: the act of selling. specifically, the transfer of ownership of and title to property from one person to another for a price.
Marketing: the act or process of selling or purchasing in a market.
These aren't overly helpful — so let's go a step further by adding some tangible examples of each...
Advertising examples: Facebook or LinkedIn Ads, a billboard, Google Ads.
Sales examples: Helping the customer decide on the specific product or service that will meet their needs; collecting money (or setting up financing terms).
Marketing examples: Defining who your product or service is designed for (Target Audience), creating Value Propositions (the main benefits to the customer), and the plan to reach the audience (Marketing Plan).
How to Drive Revenue Through Marketing
Now that we've defined Marketing more fully, how do we go about improving it? I could write for days on this topic — I've spent 25+ years Marketing everything from martial arts for kids, to high-ticket vehicles, to offshore software development services, and more. Marketing can be overwhelming and I've believed it's always good to simplify when possible.
My goal for you is to shed some light on a very tactical level. The following tools and tactics are low-hanging fruit in virtually every business, especially small businesses with sales under $2 million annually. These are also areas that a high majority (80%+) of the businesses I've brokered didn't have in place.
Here are 3 areas that, when implemented, will have a high impact on Revenue:
1: Prioritize WHOÂ to Market to First
It's critical to prioritize the people that will be most likely to respond to your Marketing efforts. The good news is that we know how to do this because it's been proven time-and-time again across dozens of industries:
1st Priority: Current customers. The people most likely to buy from you again are your current customers. This group has recency — they've spent money in your business relatively recently. Reaching out to this group via Email, Social Media, or even over the phone is almost guaranteed to bring in Revenue.
2nd Priority:Â Previous customers. The next group to target are people who have bought from you, but not in a while. These people statistically hold a great deal of value since they've proven they're capable of making a purchase.
3rd Priority: Prospects. This group may have contacted you in the past, but didn't end up becoming a customer. Maybe the timing was off or they were in an early search stage. Regardless of the reason, this is an important group to try to reactivate.
Notice that we haven't talked about marketing towards new customers. This is a part of the strategy — new customers are exponentially more expensive to acquire than the groups listed above.
#2 Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
According to Business.com, less than 30% of small businesses have a CRM in place. This software system is critical — it serves as a central hub for your prospect and customer data.
But, having a CRM is not enough — it's necessary to actually integrate it with your business operations. Having your customers' names, addresses, emails, and phone numbers recorded in your CRM is a good first step.
Once you've completed this step, you can begin to improve Revenue, decrease advertising expenses, and improve customer retention. Here are a few basic CRM functions that have a huge impact:
Email Marketing: Dollar-for-dollar, Email Marketing is the most profitable form of marketing. For every dollar invested in Email Marketing, $40 is returned on average. If you only had time to deploy only one form of Marketing, this would be it!
Data-based Promotions: Almost every business would benefit from leveraging specific customer data. For example, let's say you own an auto-repair business that offers oil changes. If, on average, it's advisable to get an oil change every 5,000 miles (or approximately every six months), you can setup an automated email campaign that messages customers every six months to remind them to schedule their oil change. This is a basic marketing promotion, but it can have a massive impact on Revenue when you start to deploy it across your key products and services. This can be as simple as scheduling an email every six months, or you could go high-tech and start tracking the actual number of miles your customer drives between oil changes. For most business owners, the former works just fine, but it's always possible to up-level your technology with a CRM.
Lookalike Audiences: Once you've successfully deployed an Email Marketing strategy, another powerful tactic is to leverage your data. Platforms like Meta (Facebook & Instagram), LinkedIn, and Quora give business owners the ability to upload their customer data and create Lookalike Audiences. These platforms use powerful algorithms and AI to find more customers like the ones in your CRM. Pro Tip: If you're running Ads on any of the Social Media platforms, don't use their Audience Targeting tools first. Instead, use Lookalike and Custom Audiences — these convert into Sales at a much lower cost than prospects targeted via these platforms' targeting mechanisms. Also, ensure that Retargeting Pixels are setup for these platforms — if you haven't heard of these, ask you website developer or marketing expert to help.
#3 Examine Pricing Strategy
Now that you have a CRM in place, you should be tracking the volume of all services and products that are being sold in your business. Leveraging this data is what separates the top performing business from all others. In addition, Pricing Strategy has the largest impact on Revenue — there's other area of Marketing that impacts Revenue more than Pricing Strategy!
These are some examples of how to leverage data to inform Pricing Strategy:
Price Elasticity: Look for which products and services are price inelastic. In other words, the volume of sales is unchanged when the price is increased or decreased. By doing so, you will be able to establish the most profitable price point for your products and services. Likewise, knowing which products and services are price elastic will help prevent pricing mistakes.
Seasonality: Do your products and services have any seasonality trends? If so, Pricing should adjust to supply and demand to maximize Operations resources and Revenue.
Test and Measure: Most small businesses update Pricing too infrequently. While it's not a good idea to constantly be changing your prices, it's important to systematically test your Pricing Strategy to improve Revenue on a annual basis at a very minimum. In addition, you don't need to test Pricing across the board — start with your core products and services.
In closing, these three areas are all areas that will have a strong impact on the growth of your Revenue. As a new business owner, use them to efficiently grow your business to the next level.
To your success,
Jason Huett
CEO | CMO | Business Broker
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