FIT Marketing: A Framework for Success

In one of Aesop’s fables, the author tells the story of a heron in a stream, standing there waiting for the right catch to come along. A school of small swimmers? Next. A medium-sized fish? Not good enough. This bird knows what he wants, and he lets these opportunities swim by in pursuit of that perfect catch.

But the problem is that in all this waiting, the heron let plenty of good meals swim right between his feet; in fact, they all did. By the end of the day, he had nothing left to snack on but a tiny snail.

The ever-pertinent lesson

A moral of Aesop’s story that you can apply to your business is to take the opportunities that are already in front of you. After all, having an effective marketing strategy isn’t just about directing your budget toward generating new leads; it’s also about nurturing the client relationships you already have. If you let what’s in front of you escape, then you may be left with nothing but snails.

Thankfully, there’s a framework that can help you stay on top of these connections, maintain them, and ensure that they keep coming back (and even refer you to their loved ones). It’s called FIT marketing, and its three goals—frequency, impact, and trust—are about focusing on your current sphere of influence. If you follow these tenets, your organization will always have plenty of fish to feast on.

Frequency
You have to stay top of mind with your clients, being the first name they think of when they need the kind of product or service your industry segment offers. To do so, aim to make at least twenty-six quality touchpoints a year across multiple channels, including emails, phone calls, and postcards.

Impact
Don’t just contact your clients with empty, forgettable messaging. Each time you reach out, make your communication meaningful, make it relevant, and bring some kind of value to them. This will ensure that your existing base remembers what you’ve offered them in prior sales—and how you’ve made them feel.

Trust
Impart your knowledge for major impact. Clients should see you as the go-to expert in your field, someone who not only knows their stuff but also knows it better than anyone else in town (even those larger competitors that may promise lower prices). Building a credible and confident reputation with your audience will keep them coming back for more.

Getting FIT

Whether you lead a group of eager salespeople or are making your own client connections, these are some of my best tips for applying the FIT framework in your workplace.

Hit ’em from all angles
Use a mix of communication channels to remain in touch with your base. Send them direct mail like magazines and postcards, and enroll them in targeted email and text-message campaigns, segmenting them by need. (A first-time homebuyer needs different info than a seasoned real estate investor, for example.) Further, ask your sales team to make follow-up phone calls to gauge product satisfaction and to reach out with new promotions to keep clients engaged. Invite them to events too; plan creative opportunities for face-to-face interactions like a food truck festival or cocktail hour at a popular local spot. The goal is to make sure that your marketing is always accessible and your brand remains memorable.

Plan ahead
To make regular, ongoing contact in this way, you need a calendar. Sit down with your team to map out your year and fill in all kinds of multichannel touchpoints, aiming for at least two types per contact. Try shaping them around holidays, major market updates, and company changes like product launch days. Then add this plan to your CRM so your team members know who to contact when. That way, no one falls through the cracks. As you maintain this database, continually track what works, double down in these areas, and seek constant improvement.

Create content that connects
Don’t just make content for its own sake. Your outreach has to have value for it to be effective. To make this happen, try one of my favorite tricks of using the three Es.

• Educational: Enlighten your base with information like market updates, product usage tips, and shopping guides by need; essentially, you should answer any pertinent questions before your clients even need to ask them.
• Entertaining: Make customers smile. Share lighthearted content like funny clips of your team at work, glimpses behind the curtain at how your products are made, and more.
• Endearing: Dig deep to create heart-to-heart connections. Share client wins, your team’s community involvement, and personal stories about what your work and neighborhood mean to you.

Just remember that marketing isn’t just about gaining new eyes on your business. It’s about becoming a valued and trusted member of your community, like that classic mom-and-pop store the whole town loves to visit and would hate to lose. FIT marketing helps you achieve such a result. Nail the three core elements of sending frequent, impactful, and trust-building communication, and you might just see exceptional results fall right into place.

TAKE ACTION:
Reflecting on the tenets of FIT marketing, think of three new marketing strategies you could kick off today.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Luke Acree is an authority on leadership, a lead-generation specialist, and a referral expert who has helped more than 30,000 entrepreneurs and small businesses grow their companies. He hosts Stay Paid, a sales and marketing podcast, and has been featured in Entrepreneur, Forbes, and Foundr.com.