If you’re lacking any of the Big 3 – budget, time and perseverance – industrial marketing success is probably not in your cards.
In order to achieve success, you must to be fully committed to your marketing plan. That means having a robust budget, allocating the proper amount of time and persevering when times get tough.
A Robust Budget
Over the years, many companies I’ve become acquainted with couldn’t explain how they determined (or were unable to justify) their marketing budget. In most cases, their marketing “budget” is usually just a line item as part of a company’s larger budget, with woefully little planning put into what the ultimate expenditure is.
Do not let this be the case for you.
While there is no definite answer to what this number should be, there are guidelines you can follow to determine an industrial marketing budget that makes sense for your company.
Your budget should be driven by what you are trying to achieve, so developing an overall strategy is an integral part of the process.
The Proper Amount of Time
If you think you can come up with a grand plan and then throw money at it, you are sadly mistaken. In the words of George Harrison, “Its gonna take time / A whole lot of precious time” to do it right.
Building up a treasure chest of quality content takes time. Initiating and monitoring LinkedIn conversations takes time.
But to find success, you need to just get it done.
You need to be willing to dedicate your time to making sure your marketing plan is on track. You don’t want to be the guy who is blind to what’s going on.
Unwavering Perseverance
I could offer up a million different cliches, but what would be the point of that? All I can do is to stress that there will be certain strategies and tactics you try that will fail. If an email newsletter has a poor open rate, does that mean you should never do another one? Absolutely not.
Now, there’s a difference between trying something a few times and insanity, which as we all know, is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
The bottom line is that even the best marketing plans have pitfalls, and a few minor failures are not a good reason to bail. Give your marketing plan the time and resources to monitor progress over the long term.
If you have the industrial marketing Big 3 – budget, time and perseverance, chances are good that you’re on your way to success. An intelligent strategy with the proper financial and time backing is a good start. Combine that with the perseverance to stick with it when things don’t go as planned, and there is no reason you can’t achieve your goals.
