A management buy-out is often an opportunity to take a company in a new direction and can also be a chance to raise the value of your business. However, management buyouts don’t come without their challenges and they can be turbulent.
When you are involved in a management buyout, one of the main challenges is successfully adapting the mind-set from being employed by a company to actually owning and managing it. With so much at stake, it’s not unusual for managers and owners to prioritise organisational and financial issues.
This means that marketing-related tasks often get relegated to a second plane while other aspects of the business take centre stage. In cases where marketing is taken into account, the new managers may decide to do it in-house to save money and resources, which tend to be tight immediately after a buyout. But this isn’t necessarily the best strategy, and in this article, we’ll discuss three reasons why marketing should be one of the first things you take care of when planning and implementing a management buyout.
Branding (or re-branding) your business after a buyout is essential when it comes to maintaining a coherent and solid image of the company post-buyout. Many aspects of your business will be undergoing changes during this stage, including the company’s mission and vision. Concentrating on branding and marketing can help you focus on where you want to take your business and provide a frame of reference for all other post-buyout operations.
More importantly, solidifying your brand image is a powerful way of boosting your ROI down the line. Choose the right brand awareness techniques and you’ll create a memorable identity or band recall, which plays a key role in driving traffic to your website and eventually in boosting your bottom line.
Social media marketing is a great way to generate brand equity, since you can use it to target highly specific audiences in engaging formats, like videos and stories.
Some customers may be aware of the management change, others won’t. In any case, it’s good practice to keep them informed, since this highlights that you are committed to building a transparent relationship with them. Whether you want to keep the business along the same lines or change direction, making your goals and mission clear will help customers identify with them.
Strategies like email marketing can help you achieve this while being cost-effective, as they allow you to connect directly with customers without inconvenient and expensive phone calls or mailouts. Email marketing doesn’t have to be salesy: you can send newsletters for informational purposes, or create emails that deliver valuable and delightful content that your audience enjoys reading. This can strengthen their emotional connection with your business and help build loyalty.
Following a buyout, you’ll want to make sure your business is growth-focused, and that means reaching out to as wide an audience as possible. An inbound marketing strategy is a growth strategy in its own right, because it can boost conversions from new customers and increase your sales. This involves a variety of marketing techniques, from content marketing tactics (like blogging, video channels, or free downloadable resources) to paid advertising like Google AdWords and social advertising tools in Facebook or LinkedIn.
The takeaway message is that focusing on marketing after a management buyout is one of the best ways of future-proofing your business. There are a huge variety of marketing techniques, tools, and platforms you can use and explore to find what works for you. But if you want to take the guesswork out of the equation, working with an agency is your best bet. Choosing a business growth specialist like JDR is more cost-effective than running your marketing in-house, as there’s no trial and error involved and all marketing techniques are tailored to your business model and goals.
If you want to reap all the benefits of a polished and consistent marketing strategy, get in touch with us to book a free audit!