Episode 6 — Tim Fitzpatrick on How to Stop Wasting Money on Marketing

In Episode 6 of Business Breakthrough Thursdays, marketing and business growth guru Tim Fitzpatrick shows host Dave Fionda how entrepreneurial CEOs and technical founders can quickly scale their marketing through an innovative, agile-inspired marketing plan approach. Throw away your 50-page plan and listen in!

Learn:

• How spaghetti and walls have no place in the marketing office
• What the 6 key elements of a 90-day marketing plan are
• How to find the low-hanging fruit among your many marketing channel options
• Why staying top-of-mind is even more critical today
• How to create repeatable marketing successes
• What the 3 major benefits of short, tactical marketing plans are
• How to integrate your 90-day tactical marketing plan into your marketing strategy
• What the best channels are for early marketing wins

Tim advises that your strategic marketing plan should include six major elements:

1. A clearly identified target market (1-3 ideal client types)
2. A SMART goal
3. A budget (and of course a staff)
4. A baseline survey of current channels—what (if anything) is working now?
5. A 90-day action plan, with tactics for each priority channel
6. Success metrics for each channel

He explains these elements in detail, and shows Dave how to create sprint-like processes to "find" and "fail" marketing channels quickly, moving the successful ones into your longer-term marketing plan. He also suggests which channels to take advantage of early on, and which to give more time to ensure they're given the time they need to show success. 

Some of his favorite channels for early-stage businesses include "offline" referrals, the oft-forgotten website, online reviews and the extremely powerful (and also easily overlooked) email marketing channel. He reminds us to respond to our reviews, keep engaged, and show empathy and understanding. 

Tim is an entrepreneur/business owner with expertise in marketing and business growth. He has more than 20 years of entrepreneurial experience with a passion for developing and growing businesses. That passion served him well as a founder and executive in a wholesale distribution company that grew 60% a year before it was acquired. As president of Rialto Marketing, Tim helps small business owners and entrepreneurs eliminate the confusion of marketing using an amazingly simple plan so they can grow.