The problem might not be your marketing
A new campaign may be useful. So may a clearer proposition, a better sales conversation or a different commercial priority. The first decision is to establish which problem needs solving.
When a business wants to grow, marketing is often the first place it looks. More activity is visible, commissionable and easy to put into a plan. But activity can only work with the offer, evidence, buying journey and delivery capability behind it.
For an established business, the useful question is not simply “How do we get more attention?” It is “What would have to change for the right customers to choose us more often, on terms that make commercial sense?”
Separate the symptom from the explanation
“We need more leads” describes a desired input. It does not establish why growth is difficult. Too few suitable people may know the business exists. Equally, the business may attract interest but struggle to explain its difference, qualify opportunities or turn a proposal into an order.
Those situations call for different responses. Increasing traffic to a confusing offer can create more of the same friction. Improving the offer without reaching the right buyers leaves another part of the problem untouched.
Start with a working hypothesis
Experience helps identify plausible explanations quickly. It should also make us cautious about choosing one too early. A hypothesis is a question to test, rather than an answer to sell.
Suppose customers repeatedly compare an engineered product with a cheaper alternative. Is the difference genuinely valuable to those customers? Is the evidence clear? Does the salesperson have a useful way to explain it? Is the business pursuing applications where its advantages matter? The investigation should distinguish between these possibilities.
Look at the points where decisions are made
Begin with the evidence already available. Review recent enquiries, proposals, lost opportunities and conversations with customers. Examine the website and sales tools from the buyer’s perspective. Ask the team where explanations become difficult and which objections recur.
Useful questions include:
- Who is the offer most relevant to, and who is it currently attracting?
- What does a customer need to believe before choosing the business?
- Which claims can the business demonstrate?
- Where does interest fail to become a useful next step?
- What can the organisation deliver consistently and profitably?
Where the records are incomplete, say so. A lack of evidence is a reason to investigate or run a focused test, rather than to present an assumption as a finding.
Let the diagnosis determine the investment
The next move might be a more focused market proposition, stronger customer evidence, clearer product information, a different partner approach or a better website journey. It might be a campaign. Several elements may need to work together, but they do not all have to happen at once.
Choose the work that addresses the evidenced constraint. Agree responsibilities, resources and a starting measure before commissioning it. A small, purposeful change can be more informative than a broad programme with no clear question behind it.
Keep strategy connected to delivery
A diagnosis earns its value through the decisions and work it informs. Keep the commercial question visible as positioning becomes copy, a website, sales tools or a campaign. Review what changes, what remains uncertain and what should happen next.
Our Commercial Growth Roadmap connects Understand, Challenge, Validate, Develop, Deliver and Evolve. It provides a structure for making those decisions, with the depth and implementation scope agreed around the business.
For an example of positioning carried into practical communications, explore the EXCEL / Mayflex partnership.
From our work / Mediline Group
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