Keep Moving Forward Continued…

I want to speak on the subject of moving forward with a focus. A problem I see many business have is they do not focus their efforts, whether it be business operations efforts, marketing efforts, human resource efforts, or a combination. Combining efforts and

Reserve Resources – Just because you can do something does not mean you should do it. For example, say your team could take on a Face Book application to sell your custom made socks. Should you do it? I’m guessing no. The target market is not there. The focus on your efforts is not there. My point is you should be picky when it comes to distributing your resources, make sure what you are doing is really worthwhile.

Focus – Sometimes it is best to sit back and manage; not micro-manage. A hands-on-manager is great at times, but often a hands-on-manager is too close to the project to see the real issues. For example the other day a friend of mine was working on a direct mail piece was she was preparing to send out within a few weeks. Being so concerned with cost they cut back on paper quality, two effects I noticed off the bat was 1) the paper was too thin, felt cheap, 2) the color of the paper was a grayish color, which made the pictures dull. Is saving a few pennies per mailing worth the loss in quality? Is the average order value there to make printing on premium paper worthwhile? If the average order value is not worthy of the upscale paper efforts, would efforts be better focused on moving this printed piece to an online version, perhaps a email newsletter?

In a market place where costs are skyrocketing we cannot have the blanket approach to all our marketing efforts. We need to focus and target our efforts.

An exercise I often practice with clients is, what I call, “Where is the focus?” Catchy!