If you're like many business owners, the marketing hat is one of several hats that you wear, and for many, it's not their favorite hat. To be successful at marketing you need to develop a passion for it, just as you have for the rest of your business. Once you figure out how to love marketing it will become easier and easier.

Business is all about relationships. The simple marketing puzzle solution is step one: gather new leads; two: build relationships; and, three: engage in business. This sounds simple when it's boiled down to three steps. The success lies in how each step is carried out.

As a business owner you generate new leads all the time: constantly offering your business card, your business information to people you meet. Generating new leads can also be intentional, with specific strategies for building leads and your database of prospects. Some strategies for new leads are:
-Networking
-Advertising
-Trade Shows/Expos
-Speaking
-Tele-Seminars
-Google Ads
-Cold Calling
-Direct Mail
-Website

Building the relationship is the next step. This is the step where many businesses fall short. They create new leads but never follow-up or keep in touch with the prospect. With an intentional marketing plan you create a strategy for keeping in touch, and moving each prospect through your marketing funnel. Do you have a marketing funnel?

There are several ways to start building relationships:
-Personal notes
-Personal meetings
-Articles
-Tele-Classes
-Newsletters
-Postcards
-Workshops
-Events

With intentional marketing each strategy is part of the plan. With each new lead the sequence of relationship building is initiated. As you are building the relationship you can further qualify a leads quality. By staying in touch with current/past clients and prospects you continue to provide valuable resources that further that relationship.

Once you have built a relationship you are in a position to engage in business. In your keep in touch marketing you are bringing people into your marketing funnel. The marketing funnel is also strategic. It offers people opportunities to engage in business with you at different levels, different price points. When people are able to experience your service or product at lower cost points, they have a direct experience of you and your business. They are more likely to buy again. The keep in touch marketing and the marketing funnel give you the tools to build relationships and start to engage in business. You need to build both in a meaningful and logical way.

Be intentional in your marketing.