3 years in, what we’ve learnt

In May we celebrated our third birthday at Xander Marketing. In this self-reflective blog post we look at what we’ve learnt in the first three years:

• Develop a core proposition or set of services and stick to those. We do turn work down if we feel we can’t do what is asked of us to the standard required or if the prospective customer is too small or too big
• Our proposition works, but we needed customers to validate this. Many businesses need more customers and need a marketing resource to achieve this. There are many advantages to using an outsourced marketing agency like us over employing someone in house and we have a set of case studies to back this up
• Use good people. This is a service business. Like every business things haven’t always been rosy. Where we’ve had issues in the past has usually been the result of using the wrong people to do projects. Now we have a good and trusted team with different skills
• Listen to the market. At some points over the last 3 years we’ve considered specialising in an area or targeting different types of organisations. However our current client base and prospects shows there is a big market to crack here first
• Good content works. Our blogs and papers have been read and downloaded by thousands of people and many have said the fact we know what we’re talking about is why they’ve contacted us
• Get your marketing right from the start. We didn’t start with a budget website or brand. We worked hard up front to get that right and that’s meant we haven’t had to change it. Many businesses get something done cheaply to start with and then a couple of years later need to change it. We’ve started by doing it right and then built on it
• Marketing works. Of course we have to say this, but it does. The majority of our leads now come direct to us. When a lead comes to us they already have a need so not only do we not have to waste time chasing businesses that aren’t interested, the leads we do get have a lot shorter sales cycle and a better conversion rate
• Leverage your niches. Whilst what we do can work across all industries, and we have worked in many industries to prove this, where we’ve had a few clients in one industry or particular success in an industry we’ve looked to leverage that and target other non-competitive businesses in that industry with tailored content and case studies
• Marketing changes. New technologies come out, search engine algorithms change, channels become more or less effective. We have had to stay up to date with this and the nuances of our industry and thus ensure we’re up to date with the marketing we do for our clients