DISSC Rapid Results Marketing – Part 2

 
In our last blog we introduced the DISSC Model for getting rapid marketing results. We also discussed the first step of the model: ‘Define Your Foundation’.

In today’s blog we are moving on to step 2:

Identify Your #1 Marketing Goal

The truth is that you will probably have more than one marketing goal on the go. However, for the best and quickest results, you need to choose the one that is the most important to your business at the current time and make this your number 1 focus for the next quarter. By ‘most important, I mean the one that should give bring the best results if you focus on it.

Everything you do in the DISSC model revolves around making decisions that identify your current situation and the steps that will resolve the challenges you currently face.

How to choose the marketing goal that should be given the top priority!

What is your most pressing marketing issue that needs to be resolved as quickly as possible?

It is likely that this issue will come from one of three key areas: Sales, Lead Generation and Brand Awareness A.K.A. “Getting the Word Out.”

The first step in the process is to brainstorm and create a list of your various marketing issues. Here are just some of the potential issues to get your thinking started.

Potential Sales Issues

Sales is a term used to describe the activities that lead to the selling of goods or services. Salespeople are responsible for managing relationships with potential clients (prospects) and providing a solution for prospects that eventually leads to a sale. (https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/sales-and-marketing)

If your business is not making enough sales, your future is in question. The Covid-19 environment has brought a number of challenges never experienced before.

Some examples of new sales challenges you may be having include:

• Building trust with prospects and customers in a world of increased skepticism in government and media through handling of the pandemic that can also affect people’s perception of businesses,
• Making sales presentations in an environment where people are shying away from person-to-person interactions,
• Growing sales in a world of uncertainty,
• Competing with low-cost competitors as people staying at home spend more time shopping online.

This is on top of regular sales challenges such as:

• Increasing conversion rates of prospects to customers,
• Getting more repeat business from existing customers,
• Increasing the value of your average sale,
• Educating your customers about your other products and services to increase ‘add on’ and ‘on sell’ numbers,
• Pricing issues,
• And so on.

Lead Generation Issues

Lead generation is the process of attracting prospects to your business and increasing their interest through nurturing, all with the end goal of converting them into a customer. (https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/beginner-inbound-lead-generation-guide-ht)

Some examples of lead generation challenges could include:

• Your flow of leads is irregular and inconsistent,
• You are not really sure whether or not your lead generation is working,
• You do not have effective strategies that are consistently generating leads,
• You do not have a systemized follow-up process to nurture your leads,
• Most of your sales volume is derived from one major lead source and you need to create new lead sources,
• The cost of leads is too high in comparison to the income they are generating,
• You are not generating enough word-of-mouth referrals from your existing customers,
• and so on.

Brand Awareness Issues

Your brand is not just your logo. It is what customers think about when they hear your business name. It reflects your business values and what sets you apart from your competition. Your brand should be fully integrated in your marketing, from your logo to the products and services you offer and must be consistent.

Some examples of brand awareness issues and challenges could include:

• You do not have a clear, strong vision for your brand and what you want it to communicate,
• You do not have a clearly identified Unique Value Proposition (UVP) that differentiates you from your competitors,
• Your brand is not very well known in your market,
• Your brand is not consistent across your business – your website, social media, flyers, advertising, packaging, clothing etc.
• You are not getting enough visitors to your website or your social media or phone enquiries,
• Your reputation is being damaged by negative reviews or comments online,
• And so on.

Next steps:

Having brainstormed your marketing challenges, narrow your list down by prioritizing your list. The issue at the top of the list will be the one that has the most importance to your business, right now.
Having identified the issue, you now want to create a goal to overcome it. This is the goal that will have the greatest impact right now and will have all your focus for the next 90 days.

Creating An Effective Goal

To be effective your goal needs to be more than just a simple statement. For example, if your ‘simple’ goal is to ‘make more sales’, you will want to define more parameters to determine when you have achieved that goal.

The SMART goal setting method is an effective way of doing this.

In this case ‘smart’ does not stand for wise or intelligent. It is an acronym that stands for:

• Specific: Be specific in what you want to see improvement in,
• Measurable: Add a measurable component to this like “by x%”,
• Attainable: Your goal should be attainable and realistic,
• Relevant: The goal must be relevant to your overall business vision,
• Time-Based: The goal must also have a time component attached to it.

So, instead of ‘Make more sales’, your goal might be, ‘Make ten Zoom presentations per week that result in at least three sales conversions.”  Describing your goal this way gives focus and a way to measure your progress in achieving the goal.
Finally, with the DISSC Rapid Results Marketing Formula, you need to be able to achieve your goal within a three-month period. If this is not possible, break it up into smaller goals and choose which of these needs to be achieved first to reach the ultimate larger goal.