4 Ways to Increase the Effectiveness of Your Marketing

As a business leader, you want focused, consistent marketing that generates significant revenue growth. The problem is, you don’t always know where to focus or how to ensure your efforts are as effective as they could be.

At Heights Strategic Marketing, we know you want confidence that your marketing dollars aren’t being wasted. You want your marketing to be as effective as possible. Below we share four ways that you can increase the effectiveness of your marketing and improve your confidence.

1 – Center all your marketing around being a solution to your customer’s problems

People dont buy products or services, they buy solutions. Hard stop.

Which means that marketing your product or service requires you understand two things:

• What are your customer’s biggest problems? 
• How does your company (or product or service) solve their problem?

The goal is to position your company as the clear solution to a struggle your customer is having. Frame everything you say and do around being the Advil for their headache.

This is one of the key principles behind the StoryBrand Framework, and one of the most effective changes you can make.

DIY Action: 

Do a quick review of your marketing materials. How often do you use your company name (or we/us/me/I)? How often do you reference your customer? Their problems? If you’re mostly talking about yourself, there is room for improvement.

Pro tip: start with just one channel (e.g., website, emails, collateral, social media, etc) to get an idea. You will start to see patterns and don’t need to look at everything to know where you stand.

2 – Choose marketing tactics that mirror the habits of your target client 

It can be tempting to try to be omnipresent in an omnichannel world. But that usually works best for global brands. Most companies don’t have that kind of budget or reach, and focusing their efforts is financially prudent and more effective.

Think about where your clients are spending their time and what their intentions are in that space. 

For example, most B2B businesses would do better with a focus on LinkedIn instead of Instagram. Your target clients might spend time after hours scrolling through Reels, but that’s not when they are making business decisions.

That said, if your target audience is solopreneurs, they are often more likely to seek out business-related content on Instagram and Tiktok.

Start with one channel at a time, and grow from there. You will find a better return on your investment and you’ll have more sanity while you do it.

DIY Action:

Make a list of the channels you use for marketing, including digital and traditional. Which ones get the most traction? Which ones are places your ideal client is using to make purchasing decisions? Pick one channel you can let go of (or dramatically reduce your efforts). Pick one channel to invest in more.

3 – Consider how your visual appearance affects your positioning

Like it or not, appearance matters. Think about your photos, fonts, colors, and use of “white” space. Using the right visuals can position your offer, service, or product in a way that makes people more willing to pay for it, or willing to pay more for it.

Things that detract from your brand equity:

• Stock photography
• Cluttered, wordy marketing
• Large blocks of text 
• Outdated graphics or lack of graphics 
• Too many colors (a more limited palette almost always elevates your brand) 

Think about what realtors do to stage and show a house. They remove all the excess and keep only what is necessary. They make it spacious, light, clean, cohesive. Your marketing should be the same way. 

DIY Action:

Ask someone who trust to look at your website or collateral. Ask them what words they would use to describe your company based on what they see. Preferably, choose someone who doesn’t know your business as well so you can get a fresh perspective. If the words they use don’t line up with what you want to project, it’s time to make a change.

4 – Have one call to action

As Donald Miller says, “when you confuse, you lose.” Customers should know what you want them to do.

Consider one strong call to action.

• In emails.
• On a website.
• In your collateral. 

Be clear about what you want your customer to do. Ask directly and boldly. But don’t ask them to do more than one thing. 

If you’re writing an email and there are several actions you want them to take, separate it into one email per action. It is more effective to send 4 short, focused emails than one lengthy email with 4 different calls to action.

DIY Action:

Review your latest email. How many things did you ask the reader to do? Was it clear what you wanted them to do?

Have your trusted person from point #3 look at your website and tell you what action they think you want them to take. Is it clear?

Ready to increase the effectiveness of your marketing this year? Get an expert look “under the hood” to diagnose the greatest gaps and key opportunities.

You don’t know what you don’t know. And you typically don’t need to be doing it all. Sometimes the greatest needs (or quickest wins) aren’t obvious from the inside. This is true in life, and especially true in marketing. 

That’s why we offer a Marketing Diagnostic. It’s an opportunity to get a deeper understanding of where your marketing is today, and where to focus for the most impact. We’ll tell you where the gaps are, what you can stop worrying about, and what steps are needed to get better results.

Interested? Schedule a call today!