Marketing Strategy While Attempting to Scale

Scaling and marketing go hand in hand. Think of successful marketing when you are attempting to scale as the first vehicle in a caravan. This vehicle most likely is not the key component of the caravan (especially if we are talking about a motorcade for the highest ranking elected official in a country.) However, it does perform a crucial function. In its position, it is almost announcing that the caravan has arrived. Most likely, it is equipped with security guards, giving the official that the motorcade is transporting necessary protection.

Now, your marketing strategy is not necessarily going to be armed to protect you or your product. However, it needs to be able to successfully pave the way and set the right expectations for what is to come. In its position at the front of the motorcade, it will be the one leaving the first impression for everyone to see. Therefore, it is crucial that you have a marketing strategy that is more than adequate for the challenge.

In order to prepare your marketing strategy for scaling your business, you have a four step assessment that you really need to be able to do at this stage. This is as follows:

Examine Your Customers: How has your clientele changed over the years? Have you added different segments to your customer base, therefore requiring you to re-examine how you view your customer base? This is quite likely, especially since people will start coming to you for different years as time goes on. You need to understand why so that you can figure out how to not only keep these people but also to grow these newly identified demographics.

Examine Your Communication Channels: How much have these changed over the years? Remember, landlines used to be found in every home, and now they are almost entirely gone. The last thing that you want to do is to have communication channels a part of your plan that are now extinct.

Set Your Priorities: What type of growth do you want to see through your scaling? Additionally, what types of customer segments do you wish to target? There will likely be pros and cons to every decision, but at the end of the day, you need to determine what the most crucial priorities are currently facing your business.

Set Your Budget: Getting your priorities aligned property is key, because that will help you go a long way in determining which items should be targeted with larger investments. Additionally, Budget could force you to conceivably reassess your priorities by even eliminating some due to resource constraints. If this is the situation you find yourself in, then plan on reassessing your priorities and then reassess your budget.

At this point, it is conceivable that you do not have an officer in your organization in charge of marketing. You might not even have a marketing agency that you are partnering with in any capacity. Depending on how successful you are in your attempt to scale with your marketing strategy, at the very least you should consider the need to bring on a Marketing Specialist or a Marketing Agency. Ideally, if you experience significant growth, you should consider adding a VP of Marketing/CMO.

If you currently have someone in this capacity, you might consider that you do not need to worry about any of this. To the contrary, you need to be very familiar with their work. Obviously, you do not need to know all of the details or thought processes that go into what they are doing. However, the more you understand what they are trying to accomplish, the more likely you will be able to understand on a deeper level what they are attempting to achieve, as well as better understand the importance of their recommendations. Additionally, you can serve as an effective backup for them in making sure that the messaging that they are trying to develop for your organization is not only utilized but also that it is kept consistent across the board.

In conclusion, developing a marketing strategy for your company at the scaling stage of your business is paramount for success. Additionally, if you do not have a Marketing officer handling this work, then the time is fast approaching for you to consider that you need to get one. Even though this type of work is something that you and your leadership team can handle, should you effectively scale here, you will not be able to keep up effectively with the demands that are placed upon you by a successful marketing strategy. This is not to say that you should abstain from having a role in developing it (or that you can afford to tune out and not pay attention to its development since it has been successfully delegated to another officer). Be very much in tune with it so that you can make sure it gets the best possible implementation possible.