IMAGINE:  You have mastered the art and science of marketing and your leads convert easily into paying clients that are a delight to work with.

Your marketing engine works like a well- oiled machine, and you can focus on delivering your products and services without ever worrying that your customer pipeline will dry out.

Does this sound too good to be true? Are you trying various marketing techniques to attract your ideal customers, yet have dismal results and feel that you are spinning your wheels without going anywhere?

If this is you, then it’s time to reconsider your current marketing strategy.

In our day and age, there are countless options, channels, technologies and resources available to create a personalized marketing strategy for your brand. With all the noise around, it’s no wonder you feel lost on how to discern what to prioritize.

It’s time to tune out the noise and revisit the fundamentals so that you can build your personalized game-plan on strong pillars that will be core to your successful marketing strategy.

Do you rely solely on your intuition as to what the market actually wants? Maybe you’ve got a sixth sense for trends in your industry and you brush off old-school marketing research!

We get it, research is tedious, time-consuming and costly, but it is proven to pay off in the long run. Your intuition is a great place to start, but your decision-making muscle is even more powerful when complemented with solid market research.

Truth is, gathering objective market data from various sources can lead to better strategic decisions as to what works and what not and maximize your marketing budget ROI.

If you are bootstrapped, the prospect of shelling out a couple of thousand dollars on market research studies might be out of the question, but there are a number of cost-effective alternatives to perform market research at a fraction of the cost.

For example, you can gather a lot of valuable data by researching your competitor websites and social media sites or look into your local trade association or chamber of commerce statistics and publications.

Another brilliant and usually underestimated way to get industry-specific data, is from your local university library, especially if they have a business and economics focus, you can gain access to valuable directories and business publications, and if you can’t find your way through the various directories, just ask the librarian and they will be happy to help you out!

We cannot emphasize this enough, knowing your target customer is the foundation of all your marketing initiatives and ultimately determines your business success.

Speaking directly to your target customer in a way that builds rapport and emotional engagement, is key for building the know like and trust factor, which eventually leads them to take action and buy your product or service.

The more specifically targeted your message, the higher the ROI on your marketing initiatives.

You need to get very specific and granular about your target customer: know their demographics (age, gender, income, marital status, occupation/industry, education level) location (time zone) and psychographics (behaviors, interests, opinions values, lifestyle choices).

Creating a persona or client avatar is a great way to personalize your ideal customer and will help you develop a more authentic and personable brand voice.

For the persona to be effective you need to base it on real data that you collect either from your market research, social media or customer interviews.

Even if your budget for market research is very limited you can stretch your marketing dollars by relying on interviews with prospective and current customers that you attract through your professional network or through various social media interest groups.

You should view this as a continuously iterative process and constantly refine it based on new data you gather.

Keep a consistent brand message and image throughout your marketing initiatives while tailoring the content to the specific channel your ideal audience most often engages with.

You might have heard this a thousand times, but we will say it again: consistency is key to building and growing a memorable brand that instills trust.

Clearly define your brand’s tone of voice and personality, and if you have a marketing team make sure you create written guidelines so that all members are on the same page as to what is “on brand” when they create content and engage with your target audience.

Having a design that is easily recognizable and consistently applied is also a sure way to strengthen your brand and it’s influence.

Take the time to create a “Brand Style Guide” document to send out to all the designers you collaborate with so that your brand image gets reinforced every time you communicate with your customers and prospects and that ensures you don’t send out any contradictory messages.

Finally, be sure to connect your brand image to the values your company stands for.

If your target customers understand and appreciate what you stand for they will more likely want to support you on your mission.

Communicate your values throughout your marketing initiatives and embed them in the DNA of your brand so that they stay top of mind.

Depending on your industry and niche, some channels are better than others for engaging with your ideal target audience.

Once you get crystal clear about your target market and ideal client avatar, you can reach them where they like to hang out and use their preferred communication style while engaging in meaningful conversations.

From the multitude of marketing channels, some will prove to convert better for your business and result in a higher marketing ROI, we call those “primary movers”.

Once you identified your primary movers, check if you can use a combination of those channels to amplify and sharpen your message.

To scale your business at a faster pace you should allocate a significant proportion of your overall resources to your primary movers and optimize the conversion from qualified leads to paying customers even further.

This will ensure you will build a strong growth engine while allowing space for you to experiment with new channels and strategies and check if your primary mover mix changes over time.

Once you put your strategy to work, you will start to reap the results, some better, some worse than expected.

Of course, this is normal and you should not feel discouraged if you fail to reach your goals as long as you are willing to revisit your assumptions and strategies, keep what works, learn from what doesn’t, and continue to adjust and fine-tune as you go.

Benchmark your results with the industry averages and your peers and seek mentorship and advice from those who are experts in your field.

Allow space to experiment with new channels and look outside your industry to get inspired by strategies that are outside your current toolbox.

What gets measured, gets improved. You should not blindly implement marketing initiatives without the knowledge gained from measuring the effectiveness of your strategies.

Besides allowing for a better allocation of your resources, this will expand your future strategic options when it comes to new investments in product lines or geographies, and allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of your strategy and adjust accordingly.