Joined-Up Business Development for 2016

As we progress through the new year, you might be thinking about what lies ahead for your company in 2016. For SMEs, taking a step back to assess the business’s vital signs every so often is a sensible move. You may have done well in 2015, but how can you improve in 2016? Are there new strategies you want to explore or marketing initiatives you plan to implement?

At The Last Hurdle, we often find that businesses are adept at doing one or two things really well. However, they aren’t always as effective at tying everything together to create a cohesive strategy.

Joined-Up Business Development for 2016

Business development is made up of several key elements: traditional marketing, sales, digital marketing, networking and website optimisation. Within these, there’s an array of activities like email marketing, social media marketing, direct mail, blog writing and more. For a business to truly thrive, all these areas need to align – just like stars coming together to create something significant.

Too often, businesses stick to the methods they are most comfortable with, rather than fully embracing all available sales and marketing activities. And even if they do branch out, there’s frequently little thought given to how it all fits together. It’s not about choosing between social media marketing or SEO—it’s about utilising both in conjunction with digital marketing, traditional marketing and networking.

To make this all work together, you need to have the right plan in place, the time and resources to implement it and a clear vision of what success looks like at the end of all your efforts. While most SMEs understand the value of a joined-up business development strategy, it’s surprising how many forgo this for disjointed, ad-hoc initiatives that don’t always deliver results.

Core Components of a Joined-Up Business Development Plan

• You need a structured plan: It should have a clear timeline and process for implementation, monitoring and review if necessary.
• Integrate your plan into your day-to-day operations: It should become second nature to everyone involved, not an occasional task.

For many business owners, this is a challenge. They are so used to working in their business that they forget the importance of working on their business. Another common issue is that while they may come up with a great plan, they struggle to maintain momentum because of day-to-day distractions.

Getting It All Together

Let’s say your goal for 2016 is to grow your business by 20%. You likely have the figures for how many sales you need to achieve that. However, driving sales alone is not enough. You can’t simply push your sales team to work harder without addressing other aspects of your business.

Where’s your social media plan? Have you optimised your web pages to make it easier for customers to purchase or engage with you? Are you linking your email campaigns to follow-up calls to ensure customer satisfaction? Are you networking in the right places and is your traditional marketing, like newspaper ads, driving customers in the right direction? Do you have enough staff to handle the expected increase in queries and orders once your marketing plan is in full swing? Most importantly, does everyone in your team know what the goals are and is everyone pulling in the same direction?

Bringing It All Together

Joined-up business development means having every element of your business working in harmony to achieve your goals. A well-structured plan, effectively implemented, can ensure your business growth in 2016. If this is your year to make a big impact, make sure you’re making use of all available business development strategies in a cohesive, integrated way.

Let 2016 be the year where every aspect of your business is working together for success!