Any business that is succeeding in the marketing game is relentless about executing their focused strategy. Owning a valuable position in the market is not easy. It takes focus, creativity and discipline. The discipline to communicate your focused message every day for years to the best of your abilities.
Technology entrepreneurs typically underestimate the marketing execution effort required to succeed – and overestimate the marketing investment.
Big budgets are no longer the magic pill that moves markets. The game has changed.
Execution is always harder than it looks
Like losing weight or getting fit, it’s easier to develop your plan than to actually give up sweets or exercise before the sun comes up every day. Billions of dollars are spent on diet plans, health clubs, and low fat foods, but more Americans are getting bigger each year. Most dieters have a decent plan, but they lack the discipline to do the hard things every day (forever) that are required to be healthier.
Unfortunately, modern marketing is more work and effort than “quick fix” spending on advertising and direct mail campaigns. It’s difficult to continually make your product or service great, write useful content for the Web, participate in the social conversation, develop partner relationships, test and retest new approaches, refine your strategy and all the other things required to grow fast and build a valuable reputation.
The bad news is most marketing activities these days require painstaking labor and detailed savvy about a wide variety of tactics. The good news that most marketing tactics don’t require significant budget any more.
Winning without big budgets
One fast-growing business that is succeeding in the marketing game is FireHost. FireHost delivers truly secure hosting for small and medium-sized businesses that have critically important websites but not big budgets. (FireHost has been a client of New Avenue and I’m an investor, too.)
Yes, FireHost offers much-needed service that is very disruptive to old dedicated hosting business (that costs too much and isn’t very secure). But the FireHost team is winning because they execute like crazy in every part of their business, including marketing.
During an important strategy discussion early last year, we decided that “secure hosting” was an available position in the big hosting market and FireHost was uniquely positioned to go after it. After this meeting, the FireHost team made a long list of the hundreds of additional things they would have to deliver and communicate to be known as the most secure hosting available.
Within months they delivered almost all the items on the list, including changes to their services, infrastructure, website, branding, marketing activities, messaging and content, search keywords, and on and on. When they finished that list they made a new long list. They have done this each quarter for a year. And each quarter they are more laser-focused than before.
Now FireHost is an acclaimed hosting company that is growing twice as fast as the industry and has successfully raised $2 million in capital to help them grow faster.
Lucky? Nope. Great product and terrific support? Yep. But that’s not enough.
The FireHost team executes 10X more marketing activity each month than any other company their size that I have ever seen. They have grown fast without a big budget. It is extremely hard work — and they do it better than most companies of any size.
Here’s another example: How did Marty Zwilling of Startup Professionals get over 200,000 loyal followers on Twitter and build hugely popular website for entrepreneurs? Without a marketing budget? Well, Marty has posted a useful article on his blog every day for the past two years. Every day.
This is how the fastest growing companies are doing it now. Modern marketing is mostly about work: consistent effort and constant improvement. Not big budgets.
To win in the marketing game, be prepared to put in the extraordinary effort every day that is required.