What Your Competitors Know About A Scalable Marketing Plan — And You Should, Too

You’re in business & while things seem to be going well, you know your competitors are kinda wiping the floor with you. In a moment of crisis, you start looking over how they’re doing things & you come across a concept known as a scaleable marketing plan. What does that even mean? You’ve heard of marketing & you know that every successful venture has to have an established marketing plan so as to reach an audience. But how does the notion of scale factor into it?

Some marketing plans are quite impressive in their size & breadth. They’re all-encompassing and cover a wide variety of avenues with one goal in mind — find a prospective customer at all costs. On the other end of the spectrum, you’ll find basic marketing plans. These are put together by business owners trying to organically grow an audience with personal social media accounts & physical canvasing close to their operation.

That’s the thing, though — there is a spectrum between these two extremes, and knowing how best to navigate this spectrum is what scalable marketing plans are all about. For example:

Mobility & Adjustments

All marketing endeavors need room within which to move around. Audiences change, customer tastes fluctuate, and at some point, even the product/service you offer becomes stale. If your marketing work is operating at a 10, there’s no room to go further (sorry, but there’s no going to 11). Your marketing plan(s) needs some wiggle room to account for the ebbs & flows that come with business.  

Being Mindful of Budgets

Marketing cost money, and even when you’ve done your homework & know where you want to spend your money, it’s still going to cost you up front. You want to be sure you don’t pay so much that you end up losing your shirt if a campaign falls flat on its face. Moreover, you can’t be afraid to pay a little more when the numbers bear out a solid return for your investment. Your marketing budget is all about riding the fine line between paying too much or being too stingy.

A Team Effort

While marketing tends to be its own department in most major operations, it’s worth noting how smaller businesses do things. Everyone in the building has to be on the same page so that branding, messaging, and goals are one and the same. The united front from top to bottom allows a strong marketing plan to thrive while also keeping enough eyes on it to have someone notice when things are going awry.

Expansion

Keeping in mind the need for a marketing plan to have mobility & room for adjustments, scalability is key to expansion for a company. As your company’s momentum kicks into high gear, you want to have a plan that can grow with you. This is WAY easier than having to draw up a completely new plan.

Ultimately, a scalable marketing plan is only as good as the data used to help create it. There are plenty of folks in business who label themselves as ‘hunch’ people, casting off the importance of using data to help steer the moves made in their company. While many of these individuals have had success, keep in mind one important factor about the ‘hunch’ — it’s about as good as flipping a coin. Given the considerable amount of blood, sweat, and tears you’ve put into building your company into something of consequence, does it really make sense to make big calls about reaching customers based on what amounts to guesses? If your competition has figured out that data is king, it might be time to start rethinking the way you do things a bit.

What can a scalable marketing plan near Austin, TX teach you about your own marketing? Quite a bit. Just ask the experts at MindEcology today.