What makes a great marketing strategy? Is it driving a tremendous budget across multiple marketing channels? Is it being louder or more visible than your competitors? Is it commanding a powerful sales staff that can respond at a moment’s notice?
In reality, it can be almost anything, but one thing it has to be is something that your competitors aren’t doing.
Do your competitors have a massive nationwide sales force? Take advantage of that by dominating the internet. It will take some time, but as your search engine ranking begins to climb, you will benefit from the efforts of your competitor’s sales force. If your competitors are industry leaders because of their print media campaigns, get out there face to face with your prospects. Business is built on relationships and if you can cultivate that, you’ll be more than a few steps ahead of the larger companies that simply launch a massive advertising campaign and wait for the phone to ring. Do things that allow you to leverage your time and resources. Blogs and email marketing are both great tools for this, as is networking.
The bottom line is to be where your competitors aren’t. Take advantage of any marketing channel that isn’t being used by, or is being poorly used by your competitors, and avoid the channels that they clearly dominate.
