Marketing Resources – Weapons

marketing resources

We will start with the infinity series of blog post where will be presented marketing resources or as Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of Guerrilla Marketing say – marketing weapons.

These marketing resources are designed for entrepreneurs and their small businesses. The purpose of these marketing resources is to increase the number of leads to your sales funnel and at the end of the funnel, you will have much more customers for your company.

What is Marketing

But what is marketing? Here are some statements about marketing:

  • Marketing is everything that as a message goes out from your business
  • Marketing is everything that you say and that customers and prospects see or hear
  • Marketing is most important to every business and on the other hand, present the art and sciences of entrepreneurship.

Marketing resources can be everything that will introduce you or your business to customers and will bring more leads in your sales funnel. Your sales funnel always start with the marketing campaign that must bring awareness about your business or your products or services. After that, this leads will have the interest to see your products or services, and after that, some of them will have a desire to have your products or services. At the end of your sales funnel some part of those people that have a desire to own your products or services will make the decision to buy it. If you have a greater number of potential customers at the beginning of your sales funnel, you will have more customers that will be transformed from leads into buyers. Let’s see some example.

Conversion Examples

If you have a 5% conversion rate of leads to customers, then if your leads that come into your sales funnel are 1000 people you will have 50 customers for your company. But, if you have 10.000,00 leads that come inside your sales funnel, with the same conversion rate of leads into customers, you will have 500 customers at the end of your sales funnel. Let’s add money in this example. If one average buyer spends $50 in your company in the first case with 1000 leads into your sales funnel, you will have sales revenue of $2.500.

In the second case with 10.000 leads that come inside your sales funnel you will have 500 customers that spend average 50$ and this is 25.000$ in sales. What is better? If you have, let’s say, profit of 5% from one average sale, then in the first case, you will have a profit of 1.500$ and 15.000$ in the second case on the annual base.

Marketing Costs

Now let’s see something about marketing costs.

Some marketing resources are really expensive, but some are cheap. It is not the truth that only the expensive marketing resources will give you more potential customers inside your sales funnel. It is more important marketing resources that will be chosen to be applicable and directed to targeted leads.

Now let’s continue with the previous examples where for the first example, you have a profit of $1.500 and for the second example the profit is $15.000. As you can see the difference is really big. But, the second case of your investments in marketing resources will result in 9.000 more leads inside your sales funnel. Because of that, the difference in the profit will be smaller. But, next year with the same money invested in marketing, you will have twice more leads into your sales funnel and the profitability will be larger from the first example.

Planning and Choosing Marketing Resources

But, I must note that different combinations of marketing weapons will give you different results for different businesses and different people. You must know that you can’t implement every single marketing resource that exists. You must plan your marketing arsenal, put everything on a marketing calendar, evaluate what works and what doesn’t, and adjust accordingly.

Making your marketing plan won’t cost you money, only time and it is the most important marketing resources you’ll ever have. Because of that, we will start with a marketing plan as a first marketing resource.

Marketing Plan

A marketing plan present roadmap for your business and for your success as an entrepreneur. But, the important part when we talk about marketing plan is how you can use this marketing resource in the right way. Too many marketing (and also business) plans are written and then left on the shelf to gather dust. And who will win and who will lose with a marketing plan that gathers dust? The answer is an entrepreneur.

Planning your marketing resources is a vital aspect of your marketing. Your goal is to communicate your marketing messages to your prospects and customers. The key to identifying your marketing resource list is to determine what is your target market and what benefits they can expect from you or your business.

Every business has proven tactics that have worked in the past, so these tactics should be part of the arsenal they will use. You must improve previously resources that give results and to implement new that will give you unexpected business results. The key to success of your marketing is to choose the resources that work for you, that are applicable to your target market and target customers, and that you can finance their implementation. You cannot use marketing resources that cost too much and you don’t have money to finance them. Your marketing must be:

  • Continuous. The pause is not acceptable. You may go from one to another marketing resource, but it is not allowed to rest with pauses between one to another marketing effort.
  • Dynamic. This means that all your marketing resources must change from time to time. You must don’t allow your messages to be boring for your prospects.
  • Driven by what your prospects and customers want. Never mind what you think about your messages, thinking of your prospects and customers has been always in the first place.

You can use brainstorming as a technique to identify marketing resources that might be applicable to your target market. Successful marketers are always looking for new ideas to improve their marketing efforts and with this to improve their whole business. Think of your marketing resources as your means for disseminating your message that promotes and improve your business for high visibility and generates a great number of prospects into your sales funnel.

One of the main reasons that businesses fail is lack of marketing insights.