Ask any SMB CEO or manager, and they’ll agree sales and marketing are key to profitability and business growth.
But when you’re up against giant enterprises with endless marketing budgets, your marketing efforts must be strategic.
One of the best ways to boost SMB profits and see consistent growth is to use the profit tree framework.
In this post, we’ll show you how to use the profitability tree approach to streamline your marketing, increase sales, and boost profitability in a crowded marketplace.
The Role of Sales & Marketing in Driving SMB Profitability
Marketing and sales serve two key roles in any business: attracting more customers and developing deeper relationships with customers you already have. When marketing and sales work in tandem, SMBs are positioned to gain marketshare, generate promising leads, and boost revenue.
How Do Profit Trees Optimize Sales & Marketing Strategies?
With so many marketing and sales strategies available to SMBs, a profit tree is a great tool for prioritizing your initiatives.
A well-structured SMB profitability tree can help marketers and business leaders visualize the different levers that determine profitability, helping to optimize your sales and marketing efforts for your technology roadmap.
Profit Tree Structure
In the context of sales and marketing, the “trunk” of your profitability tree will be “total profits.” From here, identify branches representing various categories of both sales and marketing – these will be the main branches, for example:
- Advertising
- Lead generation
- Customer retention
Next, add sub-branches (aka twigs) that break down the key elements of each branch. For example, advertising could include paid social media marketing campaigns, PPC ads, etc.
Keep narrowing down each category and adding sub-levels of branches until you have an exhaustive map of all the elements of your sales and marketing process.
Tips For Using Your Profit Tree to Maximize Sales & Marketing Efforts
Creating a sales and marketing profit tree is the first step, but knowing how to use it to maximize your efforts is where the real value lies.
Visualize Your Marketing Components
You should already understand your sales and marketing process, but mapping it out in profit trees gives key insights into areas for improvement and established success.
Visuals are naturally more engaging, easy to digest, and show trends over time, so using the profitability trees framework is a valuable tool when it comes to engaging the entire team.
Conduct a Revenue Analysis
Profit trees aren’t a one-and-done project. They allow you to spot trends over time and conduct a quantifiable revenue analysis to understand what initiatives are working and which ones need improvement.
For example, if you notice an increase in leads, your profit tree can help you narrow down the source. By mapping out your tree, you can identify if success came from a new marketing initiative, improved organic SEO rankings, word of mouth, etc.
Incorporate KPIs
Once you have your entire marketing and sales system mapped out, incorporate success metrics and KPIs to help you prioritize your new initiatives. Any changes or improvements should always tie into your company’s strategic goals, and your KPIs will help keep you on track.
Prioritize ROI
You might have several marketing strategies and sales initiatives in your profit tree worksheet, so you need to prioritize and focus on high-impact strategies that bring the best ROI.
The easiest way to do this is to rank your branches in order of importance. Start with high-impact improvements that will give the fastest, most tangible results and work down from there. You can also prioritize quicker projects that might be smaller or simpler to bring to market.
This gives your team focus and means your marketing and sales efforts aren’t spread too thin.
Adapt and Be Flexible
Market changes come thick and fast, no matter what industry you’re in. Keep abreast of any market changes and adapt your profit tree accordingly. By being flexible to change, you’ll stay ahead of your competition and re-focus on marketing efforts that have the most impact, no matter the market challenges.
Proven Sales & Marketing Strategies for SMB Profitability
Struggling to think of the best marketing and sales strategies to prioritize on your profit trees? Here’s a quick round-up of proven strategies for SMBs that you can customize and integrate into your overall business goals.
- Content marketing – 53% of SMBs are focusing on improving the quality of their content.
- SEO optimization – SEO drives 1,000%+ more traffic than organic social media.
- Paid advertising – 74% of SMBs agree that PPC ads are a huge driver of business.
- Social media campaigns – Around 70% of SMBs set aside a portion of their marketing budget for social media advertising.
Add a Spark to Your Marketing and Sales Strategies with Coachbar
Most SMBs would agree that marketing and sales are important drivers of growth in their business, but few take the time to create effective, success-driven strategies to ensure success.
SMBs often struggle with marketing if they don’t have the right tools for the job. If marketing and sales (and sales enablement) are sore subjects in your business, our tech advisors can add a spark to your marketing and sales strategies by helping you create a winning profit tree framework. Connect with a tech advisor today!
