Business Insights

Growing a business is challenging, no matter what sector you operate in. Having a robust marketing strategy in place and the right team to deliver it is fundamental to success. Naturally, your marketing requirements will change as your business faces different challenges. The need for different skills, levels of external support and budget requirements will all change over time. But it’s not always obvious what your priorities should be, and how these might change over time. 

When you’re a multinational corporation, the marketing world is your oyster. Want to generate brand awareness? Invest in a few peak time TV ads on ITV for £30k a pop. Or take out a colour double-page spread in The Times for £42,000. If you’re thinking bigger, why not shell out $5.25 million on a 30-second Superbowl advert? How about all of the above? However, very few of these “big business” marketing tactics work for smaller companies with tighter budgets. Account-based marketing (ABM) is different. The approach of aligning sales and marketing to focus energies on a few accounts rather than a broad segment is one that medium-sized businesses can easily adopt. And according to specialist services marketing association ITSMA, 85% of marketers have found that account-based marketing delivers higher ROI than any other marketing approach. It’s probably why you’ve heard more and more of your peers talking about it of late.

“How do I know your solution is what my business needs?” “I’ve already got a reliable supplier in your sector. Why should I switch to you?” “How are you going to solve my business problem?” Questions like these can make even practised business owners break a sweat. If you start hearing yourself waffling on about the ’synergistic benefits’ of your ‘integrated solution’ it’s not because you don’t know your stuff, it’s generally because you haven’t developed your value proposition.

Brand is essentially the perception someone holds in their head about a product, a service, or an organisation; a person, a cause, or an idea. It acts as a mental shortcut for consumers so that when they need what you’re selling, they think of you first.

Introduction Many businesses think new leads mean more business, and are constantly on the hunt for the new. It’s a natural impulse: but a lot of the time, it’s wrong.