Michael Porter is one of the most well-known, trusted, and renowned academic and business strategists in the world. Corporate leaders worldwide use his framework to develop strategies and gain a competitive advantage. The why is clear.
In its simplest form, it looks at the three ways companies can gain a competitive advantage:
- Cost: being the cheapest
- Differentiation: being the most unique
- Focus: targeting a niche in the market
Many Companies make the mistake of trying to be all three, which creates noise and unfocused spending. Honing in efforts in one of the three areas will create focus in sales and marketing, a competitive advantage, and increased revenue.
Let’s put this into practice using being the least expensive (cost leadership) as an example. Here, margins may be lower, which means you will need to sell more. That may mean larger retailers if you sell CPG, more marketing to drive sales, or expanding referral partner relationships if you sell B2B.
Now, let’s consider focus. You focus on competing based on a specific industry (differentiation focus). All content, ads, sales, and marketing efforts should focus on this key buyer – the entire marketing and sales strategy.
After determining how you are going to focus on competing, your next step, if your goal is to drive more revenue through sales and marketing, is to be in the right places at the right entry point on a budget to be impactful.
This means establishing:
- The foundational assets
- Channels
- Technology
- Workflow/process
To support being effective. You don’t need to be everywhere – you need to be in the right places, at the proper budget, with the correct conversion strategy and foundational assets to validate your authority.
Then, it’s time to test, optimize and accelerate results.
It isn’t uncommon for business leaders to have difficulty taking revenue to the next level because their overall strategy lacks focus. Often, this is because their strategy is more complex than it needs to be. There is too much noise because the ideas are all over the place. Refining focus and then breathing that through your leadership will give your teams new focus, which will result in achieving revenue growth.
Following the Porter framework makes building sales and marketing strategies much easier. It involves simplicity and focus, cutting out the noise and enabling companies to focus their budgets only on areas that will drive revenue.
If you would like to brainstorm ideas for refining your strategy and driving more revenue through sales and marketing, please visit gopulsion.io.