While marketing may naturally take up more of your attention when you first launch your business and you’re trying to create brand awareness, in reality, it’s an ongoing process.
But how do you sustain that initial excitement around your marketing efforts as your business grows? And how do you prevent your business from falling into the trap of competing on price in a no-win race to the bottom?
Mitch Joel – president of Twist Image, host of the Six Pixels of Separation podcast and author of multiple business books – provides two key insights below on how to approach marketing as your business grows:
1. Keep the Spirit of Innovation Alive
Finding the wherewithal to continually execute on new ideas is hard. Mitch has noticed that many business owners often approach growth with a mental construct that says “we’ve been successful in this area, so how do we continue to do that?”
However, in doing so you’ll end up falling into a cycle where you simply try to mitigate risks and minimize mistakes, which leaves your business vulnerable to losing its customer base to up-and-coming innovators in your industry.
A better construct for thinking about growing your business is to ask “why did I start my business in the first place?” For many entrepreneurs, it was because they wanted to do something that hadn’t been done before in their industries.
By constantly reimaging what’s possible in the industry that you serve, you’ll keep the spirit of innovation alive in your business.
2. Compete on What Sets You Apart, Not on Price
Mitch comments that life is about competitiveness – and there’s no way to avoid that.
What you can control is how approach that competition. Referring to the book Blue Ocean Strategy, Mitch suggests that rather than trying to do business in the “bloody red sea” where everyone is competing, you should try to create your own unique “blue ocean” where you create the rules and set the pricing structures.
Ultimately, the idea is to stop worrying so much about what your competitors are doing, and start thinking more about what sets your specific business apart from them.
Want to hear more from Mitch? He’ll be speaking at The Art of Marketing in Vancouver on March 19, 2014, and you can save up to $100 off of each pass you purchase through the previous link using promo code SBBC32.