How a Niche Market Practice Leader Becomes a Marketing Guru

Part of the Job Description: “Ability to Juggle 11 Marketing Balls at the Same Time”

I took the family to the circus last week and it was mighty remarkable, from the souvenirs that required me to take out a second mortgage, to the ringmaster talking about how the behavior of the elephant act mimicked the behavior of the herd in the wild.

(At which point I turned to my wife and wondered if the herd in the wild did a version of conga dancing.)

I was memorized by the acrobats and jugglers, especially the one juggler who had about a thousand or so balls up in the air at the same time, like a tornado of colors, her hands and arms moving at blazing speeds. The crowd expected catastrophe but she didn’t drop even one ball.

Impressive.

But maybe not as impressive as all of the balls that a niche practice leader needs to keep up the air in order to be a marketing guru and keep their niche growing and profitable.

Juggling and the Art of Becoming a Niche Marketing Guru

Readers of my blog know how passionate I am about niche marketing and my strong position that not all niche practices deserve the same level of marketing resources and support (see 8 Ways to Identify Which Firm Niche Should Get Marketing Resources). One of the criteria I discussed as a guide to allocating resources was a requirement that the niche have a strong practice leader that understands the role and value of marketing.

Passion and motivation are the foundation for being a marketing guru. But to reach true guru status when it comes to keeping all of the marketing balls you need to have in the air, you need to start slowly and add one or two of these balls at a time:

1. Commit to being a student of marketing, especially when it comes to digital marketing trends, strategies, technologies, and tools.
2. Develop an annual SMART Marketing Plan.
3. Secure (i.e. fight for) budget, resources, and commitment appropriate for implementing the niche marketing plan.
4. Crack the whip when it comes to getting content from partners and subject matter experts in the niche.
5. Monitor progress against plan objectives and analyzing metrics for the effectiveness of strategies and tactics.
6. Keep abreast of what competitors are doing—traditional and digital—in their marketing efforts.
7. Make sure the marketing department and other resources are on time and budget for plan implementation purposes.
8. Oversee and monitor the lead pipeline for the niche, and make sure that marketing and sales/business development programs and resources are on the same page.
9. Educate and train partners and SMEs on marketing trends and tools.
10. Play a prominent (if not the lead) role in writing content for blog posts and whitepapers.

One More Ball for the Marketing Guru: Move Leads in the Pipeline Through to Sales 

As if these 10 responsibilities aren’t enough, another ball—and perhaps the most important—is the responsibility of the guru to align marketing efforts with sales. It’s not enough just to fill the pipeline with leads... the guru needs to be a fountain of wisdom, knowledge, and experience when it comes to moving a prospect from lead to marketing-qualified lead to sales-qualified lead and ultimately, to a new customer.

I think that this is the real test of a guru—an individual who can continuously grow the top line of the niche by combining state of the art marketing with traditional marketing and a state of the art sales process.

What’s another 11 balls in the air when it comes to being a niche practice leader? If nothing else, it will prepare you for the life of a busker after you retire or even sooner if you decide to run away and join the circus.