99. The Sales and Marketing Connection

On this episode of The High-Performance Marketing Podcast, Ali breaks down the misconception that marketing is an unaffordable luxury. She'll explore the critical connection between sales and marketing, and share practical tips on how to leverage marketing investments to drive revenue.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to The High Performance Marketing Podcast, a show for business owners who want to create meaningful customer connections, using simple marketing and quality content. I’m your marketing guide, Ali Garbero.

Earlier this month I was speaking to a potential client. She runs a growing medical practice and like many business owners - she does much of her own marketing. When I asked about why she was reaching out my way now, she shared that she wanted to create a consistent flow of incoming patients and was aware that she needed support to grow the business but she felt hesitant about investing in marketing.

During our conversation, she said: “I've always thought that marketing is too expensive for a smaller business like mine. I really can't afford to throw money into something that might not bring immediate results." Hey and I get it, when you’re running a business, every dollar matters.

And this concern is one that many business owners share – the fear of spending money on marketing without a clear understanding of how it impacts their revenue.

On today’s episode of the podcast I’m breaking down the misconception that marketing is an unaffordable luxury and show you how it’s actually the secret sauce for business growth.

To tie up my conversation with this medical practice owner - I invited her to think about marketing from a different perspective. I asked her to visualize marketing like yeast to dough. Without yeast, the dough won't rise, no matter how perfect the other ingredients are.

I know that’s kind of a cheesy or overly simple way to see it, but it applies the same way to your business. You may have the best product or service but without effective marketing, your business won't grow.

By the end of our conversation, this potential client I was on zoom with began to see the potential. We discussed budget-friendly marketing tactics that she could start zoning in on, and I emphasized the importance of tracking her results so she could begin to see a true picture of her return on investment.

Ok, so the question you want answered is: How does marketing really tie back to more customers, more revenue, and more growth? How does marketing make me more money than I spend on it?

To keep things simple, I’m going to share three ways it does.

First, let’s talk about Brand Awareness. A fancy marketing term that means when people recognize and remember your business/brand, they trust you more and are more likely to buy from you than from you competitors.

Simply put, brand awareness is about creating emotional connections with your customers so you have an influence on their buying decisions, preferences, and willingness to work with your company.

Strong brand awareness helps drive future sales by making sure that customers know about your services before they even arrive at your website.

However, there's no single way to build brand awareness. Your marketing needs to consider your target audience and the best channels to reach them. Where do your people hang out?

For example, using Tik Tok might boost brand awareness, but if your target audience is on LinkedIn this might not be effective and could even seem inappropriate and vice versa right?

Of course, It's important to mention that while increasing brand awareness can boost sales, getting people to hire your business is another challenge. Because Ultimately, it's the quality of your services and other aspects of your business that build your brand's reputation. All that to say that Your brand awareness campaigns should always support, not distract from, providing value to your customers.

And can I just give you one terrible example? The other day I was watching