Many companies will miss their mark when trying to remain competitive or enter a complex marketing world.

Louis Gudema, Author of Bullseye Marketing, spoke with us about the three-phase process he outlines in the book and how many years of experience in marketing has molded a practical approach to solid marketing transition.

SMB’s are the heart of the economy, but many companies don’t even know how to get in the game. The first steps may be simpler than you think!

Hitting the Bullseye

It’s difficult to miss the symbology behind the bullseye, especially if your company is working on a target market and customer outreach.  

It also speaks to hierarchy with regards to importance.  For example, you might be a branding genius, but if you’re marketing is poor who will ever see that brilliance?

Louis outlines for us the three phases of the Bullseye Marketing Framework:

1. Companies take advantage of their existing marketing assets.

Many don’t even know they have these.  More sophisticated marketers might look at some of these and think “well, of course”, but in the shuffle to make things work, particularly for smaller businesses, it’s easy to overlook things already at our disposal.

One of these is e-mail marketing lists.  These marketing lists are a hugely powerful tool for companies, and yet many companies very rarely e-mail with any segmentation or regularity.

The landscape had become so complex they didn’t even know how to get in the game

Louis Gudema – Author of Bullseye Marketing

Another culprit that might be slowing down your engagement efforts are websites without strong messaging, calls to action, or no conversion opportunities.  Almost everyone who comes to them just comes and goes and there’s no engagement.

How are your account based marketing programs?  And are you developing alignment between sales and marketing in the company?

These are the center of the bullseye programs that can make really big differences quickly and inexpensively.

2. Companies use intent data to target others that are in market now.

Our markets are much smaller than we think.  Only 10% of our market is looking to buy what we’re selling. Because this is true, it’s not just important that we reach people, but that we reach a specific audience.  

Who is visiting your website?  Are you seeing a surge in interest and acting on it?  

It’s in this phase that we see an investment in our outwardly facing programs and customer lead generation.  It’s also the pivot point at which the ability to follow up quickly is tested.

Using intent data allows companies to hyper-focus the market programs to find those companies that are interested in buying now.  It’s likely that you’re reaching a great number of people or companies, but most of them simply aren’t buying what you’re selling right now.

3. Companies focus on long-term awareness and brand building programs.

Display advertising, inbound marketing, blogging, etc. are all here.  Long-term results aren’t where most companies should be focusing their initial efforts.

However, once a company has dedicated itself to aggressive marketing and began to iron out some of the issues of department misalignment or inefficiently used resources, it’s time to focus on the long game.

The Challenge of Execution

Being on the agency side for many years gives Louis insight into how businesses operate and the struggles they face, particularly with regard to program implementation and coordination.

Developing a strategy is only the beginning, especially if a company hasn’t been aggressively marketing.  There has to be a commitment of some resources in order to make this viable.

The execution is where many people fall down on this

Louis Gudema – Author of Bullseye Marketing

Even the small things, like taking weeks to follow up on an inbound lead, can dramatically impact revenue.  Louis has seen companies make very simple and inexpensive changes that have drastically impacted their outreach and revenue streams.

The center of the bullseye is low cost.  

Attribution is a complex question, but initially, companies begin to see impacts to ROI even from the first phase.  It’s about working smarter and following through.

SMB’s are the heart of the economy

Louis Gudema – Author of Bullseye Marketing

“Salespeople need to be first responders,” Louis says.  The salesperson who follows up quickly is far more likely to close the deal. It’s changes like this, seemingly minute, that make waves throughout your organization.

80% of companies are hardly marketing at all, and there are huge opportunities for them to improve their results and their revenue.  The most sophisticated marketers – and the ones committed to this process – are able to achieve exponentially greater growth.

Are you hitting your mark?  

Louis believes that an analysis of your company would reveal some simple but profound changes that will help you hit the bullseye.  

This post is based on an interview with Louis Gudema from Bullseye Marketing.

To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to The B2B Revenue Acceleration Podcast.

If you don’t use iTunes, you can listen to every episode here.