Because time is a limited resource, you need to use one-to-many strategies to maximize your marketing efforts.
Last month, I explained how one-to-one marketing strategies contribute to your business development. Although they are essential, it’s impossible to only focus on those type of strategies. Because time is a limited resource, you also need to use one-to-many strategies to maximize your marketing efforts.
With one-to-many strategies, you address multiple clients (current and potential) and centers of influence at the same time. These strategies may have the goal of increasing the visibility of your business, strengthening your relationship with your current clients, meeting more potential clients, and offering complementary services.
These strategies consist of two elements:
- events; and
- your visibility plan.
Events. To grow your business, you need to be in constant contact with your current and potential clients as well as your centers of influence. Various types of events are possible: seminars, conferences, client appreciation events, etc.
Organizing a business event is a great way:
- strengthen relationships with your current clients and your centers of influence;
- increase the visibility of your business with potential clients.
For your event to be a success, the key is to get out of the traditional approach. Organizing events that only highlights your expertise may attract very few people. However, you might want to consider:
- an informative event that combines your area of expertise with aspects of your clients’ lifestyle;
- a thank you evening with a wine or scotch tasting.
Consider the different personal interests of your clients (wine, sport, art, travel, etc.) and/or their concerns (related to the solutions you offer) to design an event that genuinely interests people and is connected to their personal life.
→ Action: What type of event best meets the main concerns of your current and potential clients? Could you organize an event in collaboration with a center of influence that has complementary expertise? Do your most important clients have similar hobbies or hobbies that you could choose as a theme?
Also watch…
The key to a successful business event
Your visibility plan. Implementing a visibility and communication strategy greatly contributes to your business development and success – as long as you understand where, when, and how your target market wants to communicate with you.
Without a good understanding of these fundamentals, you risk wasting a lot of time and energy.
You know the saying: “Out of sight, out of mind.”
Did you know that 86% of customers search online before making a purchase (according to Yellow Pages Business)? A visibility and communication strategy integrates three channels:
1- Your platform. Do you have a newsletter or a blog? These are great ways to establish a relationship with your clients and to make potential clients learn more about your offer and expertise. In doing so, they will think of you when they are ready to take action.
2- Social media. Which social networks do your clients (current and potential) and your centers of influence use regularly? On which social network should you be present?
3- Existing platforms. What magazines, newspapers, and websites do the clients you target and your centers of influence read the most? How could you be present and visible consistently?
→ Action: Do you have a blog or newsletter that bring you visibility? Most professionals are on LinkedIn, and the centers of influence of your top clients are also there. Are you there? Is your LinkedIn profile up-to-date? Does it have a professional look? How could you be visible and demonstrate your value in your target market?
Complementary strategies
One-to-many strategies allow you to be more effective and consistent in your marketing efforts. That said, they will never replace one-to-one communications, but they can be used together.
Personally, I use all these strategies, and it often happens that a client tells me about a topic that I talks to me about a topic I discussed in our newsletter or a post I shared in social media. Also, often, when I attend networking events, people come to me because they read an article I wrote or because they watched a video I posted on my YouTube channel.
Never underestimate the power of marketing strategies. As Seth Godin put it so well: “Our job is to make change. Our job is to connect to people, to interact with them in a way that leaves them better than we found them”
And you, how could you apply this principle?
It’s always with great pleasure that I read your comments. You can contact me at sara.gilbert@saragilbert.coach, and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
