What’s your reason for being?

You have a marketing strategy, right? You don’t just go from one tactic to another chasing the hottest idea, do you? Well, actually, we all do from time to time. When we need more business, we often employ marketing tactics to accomplish our goals. We may announce a promotion, reduce our prices or develop an alternative offering.

But a business needs a marketing reason. Simply selling products or services to people is not a reason or a strategy but a result. I believe the best approach is to determine your marketing reason, layout your marketing strategy and then develop and implement your marketing tactics—in that order.

So, before you implement the latest tactic du jour, consider answering a few questions to define your marketing reason.

• What do you want your target market to know about your services?
• What do you want them to believe about you?
• What do you want them to think about you?
• What do you want them to say about you?

Now that you have these key points nailed down, plan your strategy around them. An example of a great strategy (and one that is certainly less expensive than employing a new tactic) is to develop and focus your efforts on a specific, predetermined niche. Do you have a niche or a narrow market focus? Do you have offerings targeted to that niche? Do people in that niche know about you? Does your website speak directly to them?