Our Take on: Focusing on Your Macro Goals with Micro Campaigns - Keeping Your Eye on the Gold Prize at All Times
As layoffs and budget cuts ripple through the economy, you may be working with smaller budgets and skeleton crews in your marketing operation. So now is the time to maintain a laser focus on goals that really matter. That means using your precious dollars to boost the bottom line in one way or another. Now, more than ever, your eye should be on the golden prize of bringing in more customers and keeping the customers you have in the fold.
Deciding What Really Matters
If your budget is getting squeezed, then you may not have the luxury of running campaigns with pure brand awareness and brand perception goals. In that case, from the moment you begin planning a campaign, you need to have your macro goal in sight - which is always about growing the business. Whether it is selling more widgets or reaching $10 million in sales? And, as they say in the restaurant industry, “It’s all about putting butts in seats.” You need to know what that macro goal means for your business.
In the end, it should be all about fulfilling your company's macro goal -- which is always bringing in the next customer.
It Should Always Be About Intense Focus
No one needs to tell you that the marketing budget is often the first to be cut when money gets tight in a business. However, you should not wait to focus your efforts on your business' ultimate goal which for any business is growing. I have a dear friend that says, "If you are not growing, you are dying." So a decrease in budget means you may have to get more creative and certainly more focused in your Marketing efforts but not do less. In fact, this is when you should get yourself and your team intensely focused on micro-campaigns that are entirely about getting that next conversion to customer. Stop think ToFu, MoFu and BoFu -- start looking at all the drivers in BoFu and build discrete maybe even 1:1 campaigns with the next best conversion. You will be happy you did.
Should you always ignore ToFu and MoFu always? NO, of course not...
Clearly, it’s vital for small businesses, with their severely limited budgets, to always keep their eye on the macro goal of increasing profit one way or another. And, clearly no business can grow if no one knows about them. So, obviously you will need to grow your brand awareness which is different than what we are talking about above regarding a concentrated effort in the bottom of the funnel. The winners of the Gold Prize will be the Marketing Teams that can pivot according to what best supports the Macro goal of the business when needed.
There are signs of positive growth in the economy...
If you are feeling really pinched as a business, I would like to end on some good news. There are signs of Small businesses are actually forming in record numbers, banking on the current climate to boost growth. According to a February 2023 article on Entrepreneur.com: “Recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau on Business Formation Statistics found that the pandemic's burst of entrepreneurship was no one-time fluke: Americans formed more than 5 million new businesses in 2022, representing a 44% increase in new business formations compared to 2019…And there are strong signs that 2023 might be an even better year for entrepreneurs to start a business — especially in the online small business space.”
The bottom line: By undertaking targeted micro campaigns, with your macro goal always in mind, you can ensure that your business—no matter its size—can not just survive, but thrive through uncertain times until those times get better -- much better.
So keep your eyes on the golden prize and stay positive :-)
Up Next: Working successfully with a multigenerational staff by combining the best attributes of each age group.