I had a new experience this week. I was visiting a professional services company who have been a client for nearly five years, and on entering their offices, one of the team told me they had a complaint about our work.
Whilst we don’t get many complaints, we have inevitably had a few over 11 years of business. So I steeled myself for the bad news, with my brain desperately trying to work out what I might have done to offend our client. “OK” I said, “what’s the problem?”
“Will you please slow down the number of new enquiries we are getting? We are struggling to cope with the demand.” With a few members of staff on holiday, and no major new business marketing campaigns running, the team were looking forward to a relatively relaxed summer, but our marketing work was making them as busy as ever!
Why were they getting so many enquiries when we weren’t running major campaigns? It’s basically a reward for consistency and continuity of effort. Five years of working to a clear marketing strategy, sticking to the plan and measuring results has allowed us to steadily improve the effectiveness of their marketing activity and build an upward momentum in their market.
We’ve seen the same effect with numerous clients. Once the direction is set, two of the most important words are “Consistent” and “Continuous”. I refer to them as the two c’s in success.
Maintaining a consistent message builds a clear impression of the business and what it offers; Continuous presence maximises the chances of being remembered when a prospect is in the market for your product or service. Carefully building a plan that enables busy people to maintain regular marketing activity is an important step for small and mid-sized businesses who want to break out of the ‘Feast and Famine’ cycle.
Chris
The Two C’s in Success
