If you’re like many small business executives, you may need eyeglasses—we’re talking thick-lensed spectacles. Coke bottles. Figuratively speaking, of course.

Truthfully, nearsightedness is not just a problem for the visually-impaired. It also affects unsuspecting business professionals in many aspects of business, including their marketing. Nearsightedness is a vision condition in which close objects are seen clearly, but objects further away appear blurred. Unfortunately, your nearsightedness may be causing you to miss critical opportunities to communicate with key targets and grow your business.

In previous newsletters, we talked about the importance of integrated marketing communications as well as selecting a target audience and focusing your marketing efforts. While it’s easy to confuse nearsightedness with extreme focus, it’s crucial that you concentrate your marketing efforts on long-term goals and objectives. Focus on the future and how you can improve your business through innovative and beefed-up marketing techniques.

Savvy business owners know it’s not only important to provide target audiences with solutions to existing problems, but also be a visionary and provide solutions to problems that may not even exist yet. Applying that same principle to marketing, it’s crucial to have a plan for how to market your business and respond to marketing challenges before they even arise. The business and marketing landscape is constantly evolving and changing, so what’s worked for you today or yesterday may not work for you tomorrow. Marketing is also about building relationships and establishing trust with your target audiences. You can’t build a relationship through a couple of touches. It is a process that requires ongoing nurturing, but the payoff is large.

Marketing is a process, not an event. To elaborate, marketing is not a single event or activity. It’s actually a series of processes that requires multiple touches via multiple vehicles over an extended period of time. The first step to seeing clearly is creating a marketing plan. The next step is to stick to it. Sure, you’ll need to constantly monitor the plan and make adjustments based on successes, failures and trends. Remember that it takes seven to ten touches for a prospect to remember you—there really is no shortcut.

We’re not saying looking long-term and being proactive is easy. In fact, it can be downright tough. But as with all significant long-term goals in life—losing weight, buying a home, making $1 million—it all starts with a plan.

And some thick-lensed marketing eyeglasses.

• The Power of Repetitive Marketing -Entrepreneur Magazine
  
  
• Are You Investing in Long Term Marketing?- Duct Tape Marketing
  
  
• Marketing: A Key to Long-Term Success - Inc. Magazine

1. Assess the market, build a plan, execute it, then improve it.

2. Nurture your relationships with customers and prospects. They will pay off.

3. Think long-term when it comes to marketing your business and be patient.

Bowman Enterprises, the leading provider of end-to-end document management services, needed a redesigned and updated corporate website to support sales and generate new leads. M-pact Marketing was there to help.